Eating at conferences

Food
1

I go to my share of conferences, and I notice that often on the registration form it asks about food restrictions, and/or lists a contact. I always put my food allergy on the registration form and also always contact the conference organizers to let them know, and (more recently) also always identify myself to hotel staff.

Over the past year or two, hotels have gotten a LOT more accommodating for people with food allergies. It's still not the greatest, but I've been to two conferences in the past year where they took my allergy very seriously, going as far as to prepare a separate meal in each case. This was done for everyone who identified a serious food allergy or celiac, not just me. Compared to a few years ago, where I got served food despite writing on the conference form that I was severely allergic to it AND identified myself to the hotel, this is a complete 180.

Yet, every time I mention to hotels that I would really, really appreciate nutritional information for foods, they act like they don't know what I am talking about. Aside from the fact that 90% of the food at conferences tends to be high-carb, not having nutritional information makes bolusing very challenging.

Restaurants, in my experience, have also gotten a lot better in accommodating people with food allergies. When I was a kid my request was often completely forgotten by the server. These days, servers will often come back checking if such-and-such is safe with my allergy, or letting me know that such-and-such is not safe. Restaurants, unlike hotesl, have also gotten a lot better about making nutritional information available, either on their website or by request.

I'm curious, is nutritional information something that people tend to request at conferences? The only conference I have ever seen provide it is Children with Diabetes. I think that people in the food allergy community had to ask long and loud before hotels finally, very recently, started paying attention and doing something about it. I wonder if all of us with diabetes made this request every time we went to a conference, even if it was ignored at first, if hotels would start providing nutritional information on request as an accommodation.

2

My first year in high school (and my first year with a food allergy), we went on a weekend retreat thing that had TONS of stuff with nuts in it. Between that and the horrible food, I ended up crying on Saturday morning because I was starving and they had nothing for me to eat. The next year? No nuts. At all. (The caterer was a nut-free company.) The years after that varied, but even when they used nuts, they always, ALWAYS let me come back into the kitchen to check things out.

Nutritional information? Pffttt. No one does that. I guess they assume no one cares, and honestly, it's a lot like cooking at home--it often varies and the nutritional info is annoying to calculate. We only do carbs, but if they do nutritional info, they'll have to do fat and cholesterol and even salt. Can you imagine?

I'm not saying it shouldn't or won't happen, but I think nutritional information will be a longer time coming. Restaurants serve the same thing every, single day and therefore the nutritional information can be calculated once and that's it. Catering companies make different things for different clients, so calculating the nutritional information would be comparatively more annoying for them. They just don't have it pre-done and no one wants to do it.

But you're right--food allergy info has gotten better over the last five years or so. I wonder if nutritional information is heading in the same direction...

3

My allergy is so rare that I pretty much never expect an environment to be completely free of it. I had a colleague this summer who went to help run a children's camp in a remote location for a week, and was really happy because the entire camp was nut-free and she has a nut allergy. If I'd gone, I would have been freaking out and packing extra epi-pens. As it turns out, she said pretty much every meal had potatoes (cheap way to feed 50+ kids every day, I suppose), and the camp was an hour from any type of civilization (i.e., medical help). So I won't be volunteering to help out at that camp probably ever.

The last conference I went to the form actually had a check box for a nut allergy, as well as for vegetarian and gluten free. The buffets they had at dinner were completely nut- and gluten-free. It freaked me out because gluten-free means there's a much higher chance that a food will have potato starch in it, so I was afraid to touch anything. Luckily, they had made a separate meal for me. The whole gluten-free trend has made things more dangerous for me, which is partly why I have become more paranoid. (Ten years ago I never would have thought a typical restaurant would have potato bread or breading. Now it seems relatively common and I always have to check.)

My experience at summer camp in regards to food was generally terrible. The staff never remembered I had an allergy and I used to have 2-3 allergic reactions during the week I spent there, some serious, and they still wouldn't accommodate and would constantly bring me stuff I couldn't eat. And because I had no control over what I ate (unless I didn't want to eat at all), my blood sugars were sky-high each time I went. But that was 10-15 years ago, and I think these days a camp would at least provide a special meal even if the environment couldn't be made completely allergy safe.

I think something like 3-4% of the population has a true food allergy. And something like 8% or more of the population has diabetes. Even if only half the diabetics actually count carbohydrates, that's still more than the number of people with food allergies. Not to mention all the people who monitor nutritional information for other health reasons.

I don't know much about how catering services work, but presumably there is a menu somewhere that the organizers can choose from? Or do people just call up and give them a recipe to make? Even for a catering company, I would think providing nutritional information would be easier than making an entirely separate meal. Although, even if they had to make just one meal with nutritional information available upon request (rather then doing it for an entire buffet) that would be pretty much what they are already doing for people with allergies ...

I can hope, anyway!

4

Is it different with restaurants in the States? In Canada, I've found most restaurants have information available on their website, or at least have it available upon request via e-mail or in person.

I don't know, but I would think that restaurants and caterers would be similar in terms of food preparation and such. So, my thinking is, if restaurants have gotten so much better (and maybe this is not the case in other countries?) then I wonder why catering companies haven't followed?

5

We have a local, well respected restaurant, that serves great food. But every time I go there, no matter what I order or how I bolus, I go sky high overnight. I ordered a chef's salad recently with vinaigrette, on the side. It did have some craisans, but nothing that alarmed me. I bolused correctly for what I saw on the plate, and went up, up, and away over night.

I called. This is a fairly high end, local chain, VERY popular with a lot of locations. Spoke with the "manager" and was told that nutritional labeling was just too much work. I get that. Big chains that preprocess frozen food shipped to their locations can provide accurate nutrition info. But somewhere that truly cooks food is not able to provide that consistency.

I still believe in my husband's theory that every restaurant in the US sprinkle carb powder on my food. I can eat out without problems overseas, but US restaurants are still a true conundrum for my BG readings.

The better the restaurant, the fresher and more seasonal the ingredients make carb counting easier--less additives.

6

I haven't eaten a lot of U.S. food, but in Canada I am usually okay as long as I stick to salads. I went to Vegas a few years ago and basically split everything Ordered in half, though. In a few weeks I am attending my first conference ever in the U.S., so we'll see how that goes. I e-mailed the food allergy contact and was basically told everything is buffet style, so at least that will let me choose what I eat, if there are options that are lower carb (which there usually aren't).

I can understand little family-owned restaurants not having nutritional information. But all the catering I have seen has been the same meal for dozens or even hundreds of people. When you are making that amount of food, I may be wrong, but I'd think it would be the same as a restaurant where there's a certain recipe that's followed for each one.

7

Cool! It looks like it's headed in that direction:

It's also a helpful tool for diabetics, since TellSpec can tell you calories per gram and outline how much fat, sodium and sugar are in a particular item you scan. Down the road, TellSpec will contain a camera so the device knows the volume of what you're eating, too, and it can accurately indicate that you consumed 67 grams of sugar and 16 grams of fat in a given food. That data is powerful for people who need to be cognizant of what they're putting in their bodies.

Someone should tell them that it's carbs, not sugars, that we really need to calculate, though. But if this thing could tell me if my food contained any allergens AND calculate the carb count, I would buy it in a second!