Top 10 Gluten Free Pet Peeves

Look, I love that our world is becoming more and more gluten friendly and that options to experience quality gluten free dining are getting broader and broader. Having been a diagnosed coeliac for 15 years I have witnessed over that time wonderful progress and thankfully we have moved on from orange almond cake or friands as our only café cake options and we can now often find many restaurants with a variety of gluten free options actually labelled on their menus. But lets be real. Eating out as a coeliac can still be a very, very disappointing and frustrating experience, and in some cases, an emotional minefield.

Just the other day I ordered a gluten free club sandwich at a restaurant after being assured by the waiter that they had gluten free bread, only to find myself being presented with meagre fillings sandwiched between three 1cm thick layers of a brittle, chalk-like substance masquerading itself as bread. I bravely attempted to eat it, not wanting to make a fuss, but had to give up after a couple of appalling mouthfuls. It was just really, really awful. There were a few scraps of dried out BBQ chicken on one layer, and some bacon and a slice of tomato on another. There was no butter on the bread (I assume they thought dairy contained gluten as many misinformed people do), and no mayonnaise as they obviously couldn’t guarantee it was gluten free either (no pre-warning of this). The waiter, who was lovely, noticed I wasn’t eating and asked kindly if everything was OK. I just pointed to my plate and said no, not really. He said he would take it back to the kitchen for me, so I said sure. But after he left I started to get emotional and we decided just to leave. I just couldn’t take another confrontation. The back story being that it had taken 30 minutes just to order, as each time I ordered from the options the waiter had said were gluten free, he came back after 10 minutes with the news from the kitchen that no, actually that item is not gluten free, and could I please choose again. So when we eventually hit on the club sandwich, and all was good, we were all very relieved that finally, the coeliac could eat. Hooray!! And then they brought me out that rubbish that NO other paying diner would EVER choose to eat, let alone pay for, but I was meant to be so thankful that they had served me at all. It made me feel like my dining experience didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. And so I left in tears.

The range of emotions experienced in a night out can go from something like this where you are made to feel like a second class diner, to just being embarrassed that a fuss is being made over you as people try to look after your needs, or feeling bad that friends who have gone to an effort have done so in vain because it was likely to have been cross contaminated or contained ingredients that they thought were gluten free but weren’t. The journey of a coeliac is thus not just one of trying to find gluten free options, frustrating enough in itself as that is. It can actually be an emotional dining rollercoaster.

It has often been said that nothing brings people together like good food. So you would assume then that the inverse might also true…that exclusion from the good food experience can actually be very socially isolating. And this is what coeliacs encounter time after time. Whether locally or abroad, having limited dining options limits ones exposure to a culture or experience, and the shared joy that can come from those experiences. When in Paris, do we not all want to chew on a baguette or croissant as we stroll the Seine, or pop in for one of the exquisitely crafted cakes in the patisseries? In Italy, do we not hope to experiment with flour & learn from the pasta masters with the reward of a plate of beautiful fettuccine and a glass of vino? And in Thailand might we not also long for the freedom to sample street food which can open up for us a whole world of flavours and textures that will imprint the culture in our psyche…It really is quite simple and universal. One cannot truly experience a culture if you cannot become immersed in the local cuisine.

This is why a disappointing dining experience is much, much more than just going hungry or having to eat sub par food. It actually can cause feelings of social isolation, of missing out, of worlds not truly discovered, of feelings of being judged by those assuming you are making a dietary choice and therefore just being difficult/annoying, and feelings of being disrespected when it is clear your need to have an enjoyable dining experience is not important.

It was Virginia Wolf who once said “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”,

World, we too want to dine well.

So here is a list of my Top Ten Gluten Free Pet Peeves that prevent coeliacs from dining well:

1. People treating your request for gluten free options with annoyance implying it is a dietary choice that is just inconvenient.

2. It’s a buffet. You scan the expansive options for some gluten free signage. Yes! There it is at the end of the table. A small section with a few options. But wait. They look really yummy! Yay!! Not the poor cousin of the dining public this time. You reach for a beautifully decorated little cupcake smugly. Then notice other gluten-consuming diners who are filling their plates with gluten-infused food spot the appealing gluten free options and START TAKING THEM leaving none for the coeliacs!!! Do you people not have enough!!

3. Restaurants that claim they cater for gluten free but what they really mean is they will simply remove all gluten offending items from a regular menu option. So you effectively get half a meal…often with most of the ‘good’ stuff (aka flavour and texture) removed. And to insult you even further, they then expect you to PAY THE FULL AMOUNT!!!

4. Restaurants that stock traditionally gluten free cakes (aka the macaron) but make them non-gluten free...McDonalds you know who you are! This is like torture for a coeliac. And no we would NOT instead like to have the Jaffa Cake or friand that have been YOUR ONLY gluten free cake options for the last 15 years. Surprisingly, coeliacs enjoy dining variety as well.

5. You do your due diligence. You ring around to find an accommodation provider who will cater gluten free for you. You give them plenty of notice that you are a coeliac and will require gluten free options for meals. No problem they say. You turn up. But no, they did not prepare for you as promised, and the in-house restaurant wait staff have NO idea about gluten free, so you spend the first hour of EACH dining experience going back and forth between the kitchen and the waiter establishing what is actually gluten free on the menu. In the end it becomes such a drama that all potential dining enjoyment at the establishment has evaporated and you are emotionally exhausted because you’ve somehow become ‘the annoying’ one with your lofty ideals of being fed something remotely appetising.

6. Staffroom birthday morning teas where the tradition is to take turns bringing in one cake for the birthday person. And no one ever wants it to be gluten free so you never get to share in the birthday fun, you just get to listen to them all bond over how AMAZING & yummy the cake that you can’t eat is. How to not feel included.

7. Big food industry corporations who make almost no effort to cater for gluten free. You have resources and buying power people…use it! Give us variety and realise we would like to eat well too. We bring friends with us. Our friends select venues that cater well for gluten free because they want us to enjoy ourselves as well. Coffee Club you know we mean you.

8. The expectation that coeliacs do not need variety or interesting menu options. That we are happy to just get something to eat. If you expect us to pay for a meal, we expect to enjoy it.

9. Restaurants that cater gluten free well for mains…so many menu listed gluten free options! Fantastic. Really, we love you for this. But NO DESSERT OPTIONS??!! Do we not need dessert? Are you feeling that on the whole coeliacs are a bit ‘tubby’ around the middle and so you are performing a community service by restricting our calorie intake?

10. The assumption that gluten free also means dairy free. While I appreciate that many coeliacs are also dairy intolerant, is it not bad enough for the rest of us who are not, to have to cope with no access to gluten-infused yummy food without also having to involuntarily give up cream and ice-cream and cheese and chocolate as well. Airlines…I am talking to you.

So there it is.

World, please be kind. We want to play in the nice food game too.

Help us find a little bit more joy when we dine with you.

And we will love you forever.

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Interested to READ MORE of some experiences I have endured in the quest to eat out with family and friends check out my Cook Islands travel blog or my tales of a 5 star High Tea experience that went horribly wrong!

And to help you spread the word about HOW to cater safely for your coeliac needs I have put together a couple of BLOGS worth reading:

Please Take Coeliac Disease Seriously. Love Us. Coeliacs of the World xx

Cross Contamination: When ‘Gluten Free’ Is Not Gluten Free

I would LOVE to hear of any of your Pet Peeves in the COMMENTS below, or you can email me: admin@glutenfreejoy.com.au   

Jane x