Dining Out With Folks with Food Allergies

It�s always an adventure when I am dining at a restaurant with my sister, Kathy, and niece, Desiree.  Kathy is allergic to crustacean shellfish (crab, lobster, and shrimp), and Desiree has to carry an epi-pen (epinephrine by autoinjector) because consuming even a morsel of peanuts or tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, and pecans) can cause her to have a severe immune system anaphylaxic reaction.  Her throat will swell up and the airways in her lungs will constrict, which throws her into a state of panic worried that she will have difficulty breathing or worse.

Currently, up to 15 million Americans suffer from food allergies. Between the both of them, Kathy and Desiree have 3 of the 8 major foods: milk, eggs, wheat, soybeans, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts that cause 90 percent of all food allergic reactions.  According to Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), this type of severe reaction lands more than 200,000 folks in the hospital emergency room annually because of inadvertently consuming a food allergen that they should have avoided.

Because of these threats, an endless amount of time is spent communicating with wait staff about their allergies.  Desiree�s allergy is so severe that she needs to have a level of confidence that there isn�t any cross-contamination in the kitchen.  If an utensil that has come in contact with nuts even touches her entr�e, she could have an allergic reaction.  More times than not, the wait staff person has to go back to the kitchen staff to obtain the chef�s reassurances that their food will be allergy-free.  By the time we get around to placing our order, I have already finished my first glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and have emptied the bread basket. 

This type of wait staff interrogation and anxiety when dining out is familiar to Paul Antico, a father of five children, who has three children with three different food allergies.  After years of trying to locate restaurants that he could take his brood safely out to dinner, he realized that other families may have the same issue.  In 2010, he created a free online and mobile app, Allergy Eats, that rates allergy-friendly restaurants nationwide.  The rating system is done by crowd sourcing.  Individuals with food allergies rate a restaurant according to how well that specific restaurant has accommodated patrons with food allergies or intolerances during their outing.  Over the years, their database has grown to include over 850,000 restaurants, including large and small chain eateries such as Maggiano�s Little Italy, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Burtons Grill.

Allergy Eats is not the only app to help dinners find allergy-free meals. DineSafe, AllergyPal, and Biteappy are all apps that can all be download free of charge and help take the anxiety out of dining out for folks with food allergies.  

The next time I am thinking of dining out with my sister and niece, I am downloading one of these apps to use before I make the reservation.  I am no longer going to have to eat the entire bread basket as my first course while I wait to place my order. 

Be well, Joan

Twitter: JoanSalgeBlake