Here. Take my card.

Food was on the top of my list in terms of nerves before I left for my European adventure. Although most countries I was going to explore were English speaking, the daunting feeling of having to explain my gluten allergies for every single meal of the trip was in the forefront.

What did I do? I turned to the interbot. The interwebz. The World Wide Web. Mostly I turned to the lovely and ever-so-helpful blogosphere. My initial research immediately showed me that I should be skipping all other countries and heading straight to Italy where the rate of celiac diagnosis grows exponentially every year. Woops. But since I was not heading in that direction, I turned to gluten free girl, celiac.com, and what really saved me what David Lebovitz and his gluten-free eating and dining in paris. One of the most common suggestions was the download dining cards via CeliacTravel.com What a relief. With nods and exclamations in french, I was never poisoned and always treated well.

Research says that gluten intolerance/allergies are looking like a combination of genetics and overexposure to gluten. I am part of those statistics as I am not the only person quite sensitive to food and gluten especially in my family. I have others close to my heart who not only suffer from sever allergies, but also choose to eat ethically and responsibly as they see fit. I do believe that the ability to communicate with a kitchen at a restaurant is a of utmost importance to ones comfort at the time and for days after the meal. When everyone is on the same page, and all information is communicated clearly, its smooth sailing.

Research ensued about how to communicate with the my allergies and their severity when it came to being here in the states too. I came across Triumph Dining. Triumph dining is a company dedicated to making sure that those with Gluten Allergies are catered to in terms of eating out, buying groceries and even cooking!

Working in a restaurant has also provided me the insight about how hectic a restaurant can be, but how capable they are to take care of special circumstances. Calling ahead is always helpful, being clear but not overbearing is important, and a double check when the food is put on the table never hurts.

Wouldn't it be great to have Vegan cards too??

love you, mean it.

barton