Have you ever just had the equivalent of a 'fruit salad' as a meal because the caterers forgot to ask about dietery requirements?

[chomalungma]

Watching the Apprentice last night.

Ooops.

A fruit salad - on the bright side, she got a bottle of wine.
Has that happened to you?

Last year at a conference where I had, as requested submitted dietary requirements in advance (veggie) was served the same roast as every one else but with a slice of cheese and tomato omelette to replace the meat, all covered in gravy. It was just plain odd!

On a plane back from the US dairy intolerent DS was given a large plate of rice and stewed green cabbage, it looked absolutely gross

The cabin staff were emabassed and kept apologising and gave DS her crew chicken portion

Fancy retirement meal booked by the admin staff at DH's work. He has worked there for over 20 years and has a severe nut allergy. They know this.

Only 20 people at the meal and it was a set menu, so no reason whatsoever why the desert couldn't have been chosen with his allergy in mind. But no. He gets a special nut free menu comprising the usual slightly unripe fruit salad.

And then to add insult to injury, no-one has remembered to check that the chocolates with coffee are safe for him. They weren't. So he couldn't have them either.

Vegetarian here. Visited (now ex) parents in law for dinner after a busy day at work. I was also 3 months pregnant and ravenously hungry due to morning sickness hich prevented me eating anything for half of the day. Dinner was meat stew. I was given a plate of lettuce leaves and cheese cubes. I may have asked where the rest of my food was...

I’m a T1 diabetic. I work really hard to maintain stable and excellent blood sugar levels. For me this means a low carb diet (no pasta, rice, any thing with white flour), and knowing what type of carb is in certain foods.

It’s not as severe as an allergy, but mis-labelled food or waitstaff not checking ingredients has lead to a lot of grief managing blood sugar levels.

There’s been a few occasions where I’ve had to miss the first afternoon session of conferences because I’ve had to go and buy myself lunch.

There’s also the “but it’s refined sugar free”...doesn’t matter still needs an insulin response.

In a largish UK hospital last year

I have intolerances (well I had intolerances but after the surgery we now know I have bowel damage) to egg, dairy, soya, coconut & almond

I marked my issues and was told I can't eat anything they provided, what about Toast I said and jam (not spread) "oh no they said, toast has Gluten in"
That's OK said I - I'm not allergic to gluten
"no they said - if you have allergies you can't have gluten!"

No baked potato, no beans, not a banana in sight!

A few over the years.....

On a flight from London to Jamaica - no dairy free option loaded despite being ordered so offered whatever’s they could organise. Turned out to be cabin crew member’s lunch of jacket potato and baked beans. Poor crew member wasn’t allowed to eat a passenger meal so ended up with snacks they’d brought with them and that their colleagues had got.

Flight with BA from London to Mumbai - again, dairy free option ordered. Served a sandwich which clearly stated on the back that it contained dairy products - offered another sandwich which had cheese in it. This was a flight in the gap between 2 periods of industrial action and they were refusing to serve dietary requirement meal so I had taken dried noodles etc onboard that just needed boiling water to prepare. Anyway, very nice crew member found me a meal from first class and had to serve it on the crockery used in first class as that’s how it’s done!!

Recent 3 week stay in hospital with newborn twins. Cannot have celery which, on the surface sounds easy, however it’s in most stock cubes and gravy granules. I was able to have cauliflower cheese but not fish pie, could have roast beef but not chicken and all pasta dishes had it somewhere. The maternity ward had a system where’s you could order from a list of about 15 dishes every day for lunch (and for dinner if in for more than 7 days) I ended up having the same few dishes on rotation plus a jacket potato and cheese (am no longer on dairy free diet thankfully) for supper most nights. When admitted with DS last month on children’s ward, I ordered ham salad for dinner every night and a few times the catering department didn’t s end one as they couldn’t understand why any child would order salad - no thought or breastfeeding mothers!!

Wow.

This must be why a vegan was really impressed at a party that there was food she could eat.

But can I recommend Adam's in Birmingham? I'd seen it trecomendedon here and I wanted to go for my 50th but my friend who is also my carer has a very limited diet, not allergies but he's had an interesting relationship with food.

I emailed them and they asked what he did eat and created a three course menu just for him, they even printed it out so he was just handed a menu the same as everyone else.

When we sat down they asked i there was anything I didn't or couldn't eat, I didn't realise at the time but this was because they bring out small tasters between courses so where everyone else got a fancy prawn taster mine was mushroom.

Oh and I got a birthday card from as well.

I don't work for them, I was just really impressed.

www.adamsrestaurant.co.uk/gallery/

Yep! Long-haul flight and the only thing that was vegan was pineapple sticks! I had requested the vegan meal but they forgot to load it, apparently. The cabin crew were apologetic and rounded up all the pineapple sticks on board for me, though!

(This was quite a few years ago now, before being vegan was really a thing)

Training course at work: a sliced up avocado on a plate. I'm vegan, not GF so no idea why it couldn't have been in a wrap (everyone else got sandwiches/wraps). I went out to Pret and expensed a salad.

In hospital recently:

Ordered a veggie burger and apple crumble, but they got given to someone else before I could claim them.

Was offered a beef burger, then some fish fingers. Just had chips in the end.

Gave up on dessert after being offered stewed apples in custard, then yoghurt, then a cake of unknown provenance that they weren't sure whether it contained eggs, then a jelly that they weren't sure was vegetarian.

I'm a chef and I always say no if I cant be 100% sure something isnt being cross contaminated.
The buffets however for us the host pays for things individually so they will order 50 meat things and only 10 veggie, we then get shit off the veggie because the meat eaters took all the veggie options.

we then get shit off the veggie because the meat eaters took all the veggie options.

There needs to be a total shift in the way veggie food and meat options are labelled and ordered. We need to completely change our thinking with this.

Food without meat to become the default option and labelled for everyone.

Meat option to be smaller, much smaller - like the veggie food used to be. Think a couple of plates on the buffet only.

@thenightsky I think this is starting to happen. When I've been on training courses recently the food has all been veggie, and friends in other organisations have mentioned the same. It make sense, given more people can eat the veggie options