MA Restaurants and Food Allergies

Food Allergy Signs

Our family recently visited the great state of Massachusetts and found a posting about food allergies in every restaurant we saw. From fast food to fine dining, some statement about food allergies was apparent. When we spoke to restaurant staff, nearly everyone was well-versed about food allergies and needed little coaching from us in discussing and preparing allergy safe foods. From the guy at Subway® who immediately washed his hands, changed his gloves and took out fresh utensils, to our server at the Omni Parker House Hotel who took the time to write down our allergen concerns and then discussed safe options, it was delightful to dine out in MA. 

This may not be big news in MA as they've had 
food allergy legislation since 2010 requiring all restaurants in the state to adhere to certain guidelines, but it's a big deal to those of us from out of state. While a few other states have passed similar regulations (RI and perhaps soon MD), most states lag far behind, making eating out with food allergies very challenging. Anyone interested in helping to enact similar legislation in their state is encouraged to contact FARE. 

Everyone should have the right to walk into a restaurant and have a safe dining experience. Paul Antico, founder of Allergy Eats is sponsoring the second annual Food Allergy Conference for Restauranteurs this November. Share registration information with your favorite restaurants and encourage them to become food allergy savvy. It's good for everyone.

Teen Makes Eating out With Food Allergies a Little "EZier"

Eating out with Food Allergies

I first wrote about 16-year-old Emily in July 2009. At the time, the industrious 13-year-old had launched EZgreetings and was donating a portion of her proceeds to food allergy research. 


Emily is at it again with a new site in her EZnetwork. This one is designed to help people with food allergies navigate restaurant menus. EZeatings provides links to over 50 (and counting) restaurant menus. Whether at home or on the road, finding ingredient information from major chain restaurants just got a whole lot easier.


Check out Emily's new site, and use the "Expand EZeatings" tab to recommend more restaurant menus, or to find a letter you can use to ask favorite restaurants to provide important ingredient and allergen information. 


You can also "EZily" find EZeatings in the resource section of Food Allergy Assistant. When eating out, always be sure to make the restaurant staff aware of your allergens and confirm ingredients and preparation techniques with the manager or chef. EZeatings, combined with direct communication, will go along way in making restaurant dining more palatable for people with food allergies. 

Eating Out with Food Allergies

Here is the perfect name for a site dedicated to helping people with food allergies dine away from home:

Lonely Plate

Sharona Schwartz has just launched lonelyplate.org, an interactive database that allows visitors to read and write reviews of restaurants, hotels, airlines and kid-friendly venues. The unique aspect is that the reviews pertain specifically to how food allergy and food sensitivity issues are managed.

So, let's say you're planning a trip and one or more family members has a food allergy. Check out the site to see which airline receives the highest ranking from other food allergy families. Read about restaurants at your your destination to choose the allergy friendly spots. Find out which hotels cater to food allergies. Then, after your trip, go to Lonely Plate and post some reviews yourself. It's a great way for food allergic families to share information.

Sharona has also made a commitment that if certain establishments continually pop up as mis-handling food allergy concerns, they will contact them to bring these reports to their attention and to offer help in amending procedures.

A win-win for all, I say. Check out lonelyplate.org and share some of your experiences.

Follow-up: Food Allergies and Disney

Remember my interview in April with Lissa, blog writer for RFAK (Raising Food Allergic Kids)? I wanted to let you know that Lissa has combined her passions for food allergies and Disney World to become an authorized Disney Vacation Planner.

She's started a new site, My Magic Journeys, to help Disney travelers plan the perfect vacation. Lissa's expertise is Disney travel for those with special dietary needs. She's done all the research and taken out all the worry.

Check out Lissa's site the next time you're considering an Adventures By Disney package, a trip to Disney World or Disneyland, or a Disney Cruise.

Watching your milk, egg and peanut allergic child eat at a Disney character meal...priceless!

Food Allergies and Travel Abroad

I like free stuff.

Anyone traveling in another country with food allergies should know about food allergy cards. Allerglobal lets you create your own personalized card. For free. Simply check off the allergens from the list and choose from over 25 different languages.

Even if you're not traveling, it's pretty cool to learn how to say or read your allergens in common languages. "Amendoim" is "peanut" in Portuguese.

Go ahead, play around with it!

As a Guest, I'm a Pest

As a follow-up to last week's post, "Hostess With the Mostest...Stress That Is", I must note that being a guest isn't easy either. This is something many of you pointed out in your recent comments.

Both Jes and Sabrina K. commented that they think it's harder to be a guest in someone else's house. They prefer to host because they have more control over what foods come in.

Nowheymama keeps everyone out of her kitchen to ease her stress. ChupieandJ'smama is already stressed about hosting an upcoming company Christmas party where traditionally shrimp and crab legs are served. Infant Bibliophile just starves her houseguests rather than dealing with the stress. Col has a list of rules for her guests. Liz uses red stickers to identify unsafe foods in her house and Karen keeps very few unsafe items in her kitchen.

This week-end we brought most of our own food when we visited family. I baked up a storm before we left- chocolate chip cookies, granola bars, doughnuts and chocolate cake. I marinated chicken, prepared burgers, precooked pancakes and made bread. We were well prepared and yet still hit a few stumbling blocks in our host's kitchen.

Just a few of my rants:
"Don't use that olive oil! It's in an old pickle jar and who knows what else that jar has been used for."
"Don't touch those pretzels. I know they look friendly, but they're stored in a chocolate covered raisin jar."
"I know you're trying to help, but please don't cut my son's roll with the knife that just cut those bakery rolls."
"No, don't put those birthday candles in my safe cake! Do you have any idea where those candles have been before?!"

We all survived the week-end, but I think this glimpse into each other's lives made us all grateful to go back to our own kitchens. I know I hugged my toaster as soon as I got home!