Tips for eating out on holiday

[Clara35]

Hi all, I'm always amazed reading about people going on holiday abroad with their allergic kids. We have just been to Ireland the last 3 years - due to money reasons mainly but the thought of being abroad & trying to explain allergies fills me with fear. The last time we were in France ds was 1 so I could get away with jars & brought snacks with us. Would love to go away this year & know ds shouldn't be missing out because of allergies & my nerves!

we've only had a milk allergy to contend with over the years but it's not easy; if we mess up DD gets eczema so it's nothing like peanut allergy etc which must be beyond awful.

You can always do America, Canada, NZ or Australia!

You can buy cards with allergy information translated into the language of the country you are going to. Go self catering and you can have more control over the food.

OP, what allergies exactly, if it's ok to ask?

we have been to france, italy, spain and usa twice.

it is do able.

we are going to france this year, and have new allergies to add to the mix. part self cattering holiday, and taking lots of safe food.

will be eating out in resturants. use translation cards etc.

people in other countries have severe food allergies, and they find something safe to eat.

same rules at home apply to traveling really.

It's just an egg allergy now as he has grown out of dairy but what scares me most about the egg allergy is we dont know what his reaction would be as he has never eaten egg - just showed up in tests. Eating out at home is still not great as most places use same oil for chips & everything else eg chicken goujons & burgers mixed with egg so end up still bringing own food. Really admire people on here who deal with multiple allergies & don't let it stop them travelling

We've been to Spain, the Canaries, Denmark, France, Germany.

I agree with Eragon, people in other countries also have allergies. Most waiters and chefs were used to dealing with people with allergies. The French were a bit dismissive of allergies, but we managed fine with no reactions.

We've been abroad twice with DD (coeliac) and coeliac uk were able to give us translated phrases which I just pointed to when we went to restaurants... We were self catering, but more because it's generally easier with toddlers. And I took a carry on bag of her gf foods ( including a bad of gf flour, which I had to explain to security on the way thru the airport..!).

We've been to Australia when dd was 2 with stopovers in Singapore and Japan, with allergies to dairy, egg, nuts and fish. Ironically Oz was quite hard because most bakery products in supermarkets were labelled as 'produced on a line handling nuts/milk' so dd couldn't have a lot of foods she normally had, restaurants were also quite difficult and she ended up having chips a lot when we were not near any shops which was not great.
Don't let that put you off though. We had allergy cards printed out and when we were at a stall in a Tokyo shopping mall a lady whipped out her allergy chart to show us exactly what dd could eat. I can't tell you how happy we were. If you wanted to stay safe stick with self catering and stock up on fruit, veg and meat, and check all packaging (the time consuming bit!)