If you are brand new to gluten free, Celiac.org has a great Gluten Free 101 Guide that has a LOT of useful information.
When you go out to eat, you are taking a risk of whether the kitchen will use safe gluten handling practices to prevent cross-contamination.
Safe Gluten Free Dining
It is important to alert both your waitperson and the manager to your gluten allergy. You need to advocate for yourself and these safe gluten free dining tips will help you!
Many restaurants cannot differentiate between a person avoiding gluten as a fad diet, and a person who is Celiac or gluten sensitive. You will not believe how much this comes up in my interviews with restaurants.
If you are new to Fearless Dining, start here.
You need to help restaurants and the wait staff understand how gluten affects you because most restaurants don't know as much about gluten as you may think.
The biggest rule about dining out is to ask questions! If you do not speak up, the restaurant will not know you have a medical reason to avoid gluten.
Here are the biggest questions to ask:
- Where does the kitchen prepare gluten free meals? Do they have a separate section of their kitchen? If they do not have a separate area, do they put a liner under the prep area when they prepare your food?
- Do they use separate cutting boards, utensils, knives, pots, pans, dishes for gluten free orders?
- Do the cooks wash their hands and change to new gloves before preparing a gluten free order?
- How does the kitchen keep your plate separate from the others if it ends up under a food heater? Cross-contamination can happen if your plate is below plates containing gluten.
- If the cook wipes a spill on your plate to make it look nice, do they use a fresh towel for this?
- Is there a separate fryer for gluten free foods?
- How about breakfast? Is there a separate toaster for gluten free bread? Do they use a separate grill for gluten free orders? Do they sterilize the waffle iron, or have a dedicated waffle iron for gluten free orders?
Here are a few of my favorite resources for safe gluten free dining:
Gluten in the Wine Making Process - what you need to know if you drink wine.
Top 7 Tips for Sushi Restaurants - some of these things may surprise you!
Top 6 Questions to Ask at a Pizza Restaurant
If you are completely new to gluten free, or not, here are some of my best tips for gluten free living.
Debbie
Where do I find your data base for 650 Bay Area Restaurants? thanks, Debbie
Sandi Gaertner
Unfortunately, the database is no longer active. I didn't have the bandwidth to keep up with all of the openings and closings of local restaurants. Thank you so much for asking, I removed mention of it to avoid further confusion.