Small restaurant rant

[natsukaze]

I was recently diagnosed with celiac disease, which means that I'm not able to eat wheat or gluten. This is a pretty huge change from how I'd always eaten. It's a bit of a pain, since wheat and gluten are in *everything* (did you know that there's gluten in McDonald's fries? I didn't!). Now when I go to restaurants, I try to research their menus/

Comments

[brownkitty]

I don't know whether this affects you or not, but corn starch is a common thickening agent in a lot of soups.

[natsukaze]

Corn is fine for celiacs...it's mainly wheat, rye, barley, spelt and their glutens which are the problem. Thanks :)

[yourwateryhands]

This is annoying to me too. Due to various food allergies and other problems, I need to know the ingredients and nutrition information of pretty much anything I eat that I don't cook myself, and I don't want to wait 2-3 weeks for them to mail me a pamphlet from corporate if they don't have this information in-store or online.

[chvickers]

Silly celiac: it doesn't mean that you're contagious. It means that you're a crazy whining attention whore.

You see, any dietary restriction such as food allergy or celiac disease is caused by YOU having a mental problem. No exceptions, no discussion: all food restrictions are really neurotic, and totally caused by craziness, pickiness, and attention-whoring. You are the bad, wrong, mean, evil person to dare to ask those poor, poor put-upon servers about what's in the food they sell. They don't have a problem eating gluten, so you can't have one either. It's all in your mind.

If you haven't figured it out yet, that was sarcasm, but it's the line most allergics and celiacs hear on a daily basis. I've been there, and to be honest I gave up on restaurants years ago. If you don't make it you can't trust it.

[chvickers]

Old-time medicine was much worse. You just had nerves or a weak stomach or 'female problems' or whatever, and when you died at 30 or so you probably died of 'wasting'.

Nowadays they know what celiac is and can provide a meal plan. Back then? You died young and in great pain.

[indirect]

They're sneaking sucralose into everything nowadays it seems. In small amounts, such as drinks, I'm fine. Food though? Nope. I get horrible intestinal issues that rival my issues with dairy. Blaaah. So I have to be careful with things in restaurants because lots of sugar-free things now? Yup. Splenda.

[psyco_chick32]

My friend is here and wanted me to put this down,
"I worked at McDonalds... and as much as I feel bad for that person, I'll be honest. I didn't get paid NEARLY enough to find out what was in each piece of food... especially since it came pre-made... and the turnover is so high that I doubt the managers would ever have time to teach it to people.
Plus, half of my co-workers were people who were forced into the job. I'm sure they wouldn't pay attention... even IF the managers force-fed us the info."

So... yea, don't kow if it adds anything, but there's something for honesty's sake.

[natsukaze]

You know, that's fine. I don't expect anyone in fast food to know what's in the ingredients. I'm more annoyed that there isn't something at the restaurant (brochure, poster, etc) that has that sort of information. Just giving a brochure referring me to the website is stupid.

[katai]

BTW if you have chilis in your area, most server, if not managers can look up what foods you can eat, they have all received a list of what is ok for gluten free, and what not, just ask, hopefully they won't look at you like you are crazy...