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October 5, 2005
Eating out with child food allergies
With two kids that have severe food allergies, eating out (as you might guess) is a bit of a challenge. When we decide to go out (very rarely on whim), we have a handful of restaurants that have earned our trust over the years. Those that have answered our many questions with confidence after going back in the kitchen and reading ingredient labels. Some of the better ones have even brought the labels up front to double check with us.
For the most part, we find restaurant staff pretty helpful with child food allergies. It’s not always easy. Sometimes a waiter just won't get it and you can usually tell. Then we talk to the manager and explain that a kitchen mix-up could lead to the ambulance at the restaurant front door and our child in anaphylactic shock. That usually gets their attention. We ask a lot of questions as our kids have peanut allergies among others. Sure peanuts are not listed as an ingredient, but do you fry anything in peanut oil? What about the fries, are they fried in the same vat as the egg-based batter used on the chicken strips?
One piece of good news is because we don’t eat out much, we eat healthier and probably save a bunch of money (although we’ve never calculated the “savings” from having a child food allergy). ;-)
Posted by David at October 5, 2005 9:27 AM