If you tell them the restaurant that your child has a dairy allergy don't complain when they won't serve the child dairy!

[Cwtches123]

Relative is a chef currently working at a restaurant at family resort in the UK. He is always happy to cater to allergies but is getting increasingly frustrated by those who make a huge fuss about ordering a special main and then deciding to order a dessert full of the allergen!
Last week a family made a huge fuss that everything had to be dairy free for their child, no problem, all dishes dairy free, then they said child wanted the same dessert as sibling as it looked nice. Siblings dessert was full of dairy, parents insisted this would be ok (after previously stated child had severe dairy allergy) restaurant manager refused to serve it.
People like this give genuine allergy sufferers a bad name, I'm glad the restaurant called their bluff!
Parents were furious that the restaurant would not serve dairy to the child they had said had a severe dairy allergy!!!!

I have severe allergies. However it never ceases to amaze me that diners expect restaurants to cater to them. If your allergies are life threatening don’t take the chance. Have a plain steak and salad. Have fruit. Yes it’s boring but is it worth the risk.

The other day I was moving through a train with my small terrier looking for a seat with my husband. I stopped and turned round for a second as my husband said something I didn’t hear.

Straight away a woman in her early 20s said to me very nicely ‘I’m really allergic to dogs’ insinuating that I don’t sit near her.

What the hell? First of all I wasn’t going to but secondly if I did isn’t it up to her go move?

And are people really allergic in a dangerous way to dogs like people are nuts? I might be wrong but can’t these people just take a daily allergy tablet?

I developed an allergy to dust and mould about 5 years ago and therefore now take a tablet every day. If I don’t I have flare ups with horrible hayfever symptoms.

@Cafeaulait27 my son carries an epi pen for that very reason. Rabbits do it too.

Cafeaulait yes you can be really allergic to dogs, my IGE is nearly 2000. My eyes swell and look like red jelly. However, Yorkshire terriers, poodles and shi tzu’s are more hypo allergenic and do not have glossy coats. I’m even allergic if I sit next to someone who has a dog and the dog isn’t with them. I agree with taking antihistermines but some days I take 10 tablets. I love animals and don’t consider it someone else’s problem just mine. I am even more allergic to cats and horses.

I'm milldly allergic to dogs and would have been looking visibly unwell after about 20 minutes but if you had been travelling with a cat and sat next to me a could end up in hospital. Allergy meds have very little impact on the cat allergy I'm afraid.

Have you tried fexodenadine for your cat allergy Disfordarkchocolate? It is prescription only and you have to ask for it, but it helps mine and mine is also very severe. It is the only anti-histamine that works for me. I am also allergic to dairy and eggs but it is more severe in the raw form, if the foods have been baked I can get away with a bit. My animal allergy and my dairy allergy are quite different but I can get very ill with both.

*fexofenadine

The people in the OP's post - and in many of the subsequent stories by other people - do sound like idiots.

HOWEVER, I think it is difficult if you have an intolerance to something, and it's not straightforward, to explain it. I can't have milk (triggers a three-day migraine, has me puking and wishing to die) but I can have hard cheese and cream. On the very few occasions I order a Starbucks, I'd want it with all the frothy ridiculous cream and syrups, but also made with soya milk. I am very careful not to use the word "allergy", but it can be confusing to baristas when you are very insistent on soya milk but then say yes to the cream. (Sometimes I refuse the cream anyway, even though I want it, as I am so tired of trying to explain, also I don't want the baristas to take someone else's allergy lightly.)

archeyannie I can imagine that gets very annoying. I wonder (hope) if that will change a bit in future if non-dairy milks become more mainstream. Lots of coffee shops add a surcharge for non-dairy anyway so you'd hope that you could just be "allowed" to have soya milk as your preference rather than them working on an assumption that you only have non-dairy if you cannot take dairy products.

Thanks Mummadeeze, the last one I had was from the GP but I can't remember what it was called. We were house hunting and lots of houses have cats, even with two deeps cleans and daily meds for a month I still felt pretty rough (new house had been a cat house). All these people who say just take an antihistamine make me cross, like we haven't tried that already.

Too many people mix up intolerance with allergies. It annoys me when people do the stuff mentioned in the OP. If you tell a restaurant you can’t have dairy or gluten or whatever due to allergies then don’t expect them to let you order a pudding that contains it. If you inform them of an allergy then they don’t want to be sued if you do have a reaction to it.

I’m intolerant to a few different things which means I can eat a little but more that likely will suffer with stomach cramps and bad wind later on. I try to avoid said food stuffs if possible but I know eating them won’t kill me and this is not really an allergy. Soya is one of the things my body doesn’t process very well. I can tolerate small amounts (usually listed way down the ingredients list in pre package foods) but couldn’t handle a coffee made from soya milk - that makes me curl up in pain due to the tummy cramps I get.

Allergies are more severe. I have one food stuff (Quorn) I would say is in the allergies category. That causes me to break out in a rash all over my face and I can feel my throat swell up and my tongue itch. I would never eat that again for fear of a more severe reaction happening (as can happen when you continue to eat foods that cause your throat to swell).

@LadyBunker no way. I hope you have given them a proper bad review! These actually deserve it!

Having worked in hospitality the two classic 'allergy' stories I recall are firstly the woman who ordered an "icecream sundae without the whipped cream as I'm allergic to cream" but was adamant she could eat icecream (I presume she didn't like whipped cream/was on a diet) and secondly a woman who insisted she was gluten free and therefore could not have icing sugar sprinkled over her dessert (fair enough) but ordered the meringue (i.e. mainly icing sugar). Ended up having to pull a chef from the kitchen to discuss how meringues were made and the ingredients - resulted in her getting a meringue in the end.

I think with dogs is that some people don't like dogs and think that saying they have an allergy is more acceptable.

I have witnessed this a lot - and those who genuinely have an allergy keep away from dogs but don't pull faces and squeal. I was at a coffee morning and the host's small French bulldog broke in and ran round the sitting room before he could be corralled back in the utility room. One woman was shrieking and climbed up on her chair. Allergy my arse. She is also a ring-leader in trying to get dogs banned from the local recreation ground...

I think with dogs is that some people don't like dogs and think that saying they have an allergy is more acceptable.

It's possible to have both though. I am allergic to dog hair and thus have spent very little time with dogs, and thus feel uncomfortable around even the non-allergenic ones.

I don't scream, but I would feel very uncomfortable if a dog bounded up to me. I mostly only mention the allergy in situations where people I'm with are petting a friendly dog, then I feel like the dog owner feels insulted if you hang back unless you explain!

Honestly @ArcheryAnnie, try not to worry about it, I work in a cafe and most people getting non-dairy milk just get it for calorie/taste/bloating reasons. Baristas won't judge you for it, and will still be very careful to avoid cross contamination next time. If we ask someone multiple times if they wanted cream its cos we always forget by the time we make the order As I mentioned upthread, the only thing I don't get is those who won't have milk for ethical reasons but will have cream?