MIL or BIL unreasonable over dietary needs

[Bettyknocker]

Name changed for this. DH has two brothers, Adam and Ben (not actual names) their wives both have dietary requirements. Adams wife has a dairy, wheat and egg allergy. Bens wife is Muslim so doesn’t eat pork.

MIL has, since Ben first got in a relationship, omitted any pork from meals when Ben and family came over. So on Christmas she makes chicken stuffing, doesn’t serve pigs in blankets and takes bacon and sausages off the breakfast and subs for something else.

However MIL always has and still does serve desserts, cheese, cakes with egg in on every occasion and Christmas Day. She doesn’t make any alternative for Adams wife so she brings her own dessert or I make something vegan because I like baking. MIL says it’s not the same thing but can’t articulate why.

For full context non of the wives have actually mentioned it recently- Adams wife is very careful with what she eats anyway but does find it stressful when there are eggs about, Bens wife would prefer absolutely no pork so no risk of accidentally eating it.
Adam and Ben had a bit of a debate about it today because Ben wants to make trifle and pavlova for dessert on Xmas and Adam said “My wife can’t eat any of that stuff and I would rather we didn’t use eggs that day because the likelihood of contamination is high with everyone pitching in with the cooking” Ben was not happy said you can’t omit all that stuff every time we have a family meal and pork is just one thing so not as much of a PITA.

Side note so I don’t drip feed- Ben is absolutely the favourite of the four children but MIL is very very close to Adams wife.

So who’s BU? MIL and Ben or Adam? Me and DH are in no way involved in this, I am not sure who is right but I do know her egg allergy is really quite serious so I don’t agree with the pavlova or trifle idea. I am just curious to be honest.

I'm making my daughter a vegan trifle as she's allergic to dairy. Totally doable with birds custard (made with replacement milk) and squirty fake cream (can get it from Asda and Tesco).

Maybe the Mil can supply an appropriate desert but really not ok to expect everyone else to not eat what they want.
What is the Bil Saying? that no food that's not allergy free must not be served on that day? Or is he upset about nothing being provided?

I'm sort of with your MIL. Wheat, dairy and egg are very limiting when it comes to puddings and I think it VERY unlikely that she's actually allergic to them all.

Says someone who knows nothing about allergies!! The SIL has to be careful everyday of her life to not DIE, but it's too much effort for the MIL to occasionally avoid these things.

I used to regularly cook a nut free, egg free, dairy free Christmas dinner for 12 people. It's easy and adding wheat free is no hassle, you just use gluten free flour and gluten free bread both of which are easily available. Bread sauce is best made with hemp milk. Use one of the dairy free spreads instead of butter, and the health food shop will sell you dairy free cheese, cream etc. You can make a meringue from the leftover water in tins of chick peas so that's your pavlova sorted. Roast the potatoes in goose fat. Dairy free ice creams are readily available for pudding.Try the Allergy Free Cookbook by Alice Sherwood - it has egg free, gluten free and dairy free options for all sorts of family staples, cakes etc, perhaps a Christmas present for someone in your family? My DD had egg allergy and we were advised not to have her in the same room as a cracked egg - egg white protein gets into the air very quickly and she would react to the tiniest trace, it is serious. The Anaphylaxis Campaign and Allergy UK are helpful organisations that have advice on allergies and as I recall advice on how to deal with tricky family members. Personally I didn't want to kill a member of my family on Christmas Day so I took every precaution I could to make sure I didn't. You could suggest to the family that dialling 999 while one of your nearest and dearest struggles to breathe may put a bit of a damper on the festivities? And that in contrast the religious imperative to avoid pork, while important in its own way, could perhaps take a second place?

Epwell. You do realise that your list of food suggestions requires an entire new ingredient shopping list. Extremely ridiculous for someone to go through all of that for one person. I highly doubt everyone else is going to be happy with this as their Christmas dinner.
And way too much for mil to prepare two sets and worry about cross contamination on top.
Best would be sil brings her own food and mil can provide a desert whether it be shop bought or not.

It wouldn't require a whole new shopping list roast dinner, assuming it's all home cooked (no packaged gravy or stuffing), would just need bread sauce replacing with an alternative milk and removal of any cauliflower cheese (as vegan cheese is awful so not worth the replacement). Puddings can easily be dairy, egg and wheat free, easily make rice pudding, trifle, fruit crumbles simply with flora and a replacement milk. So that's two ingredients, hardly a huge issue

To the pp who thinks it's very unlikely sil will be allergic to all three, the fact is that if you have one allergy your liklihood of having other allergies is increased. Many are related too such as cows milk protein (which will be what sil allergy is if she is having skin reactions too as opposed to lactose intolerance) is often found with soya allergy as molecularly they are very similar. This is unfortunate as often with cows milk allergy the obvious and simplest alternative is soya products!

I personally think it rude to invite someone with allergies or other dietary requirements and not cater for them. As someone said upthread they would prefer not to invite them which seems more reasonable to me than exclude them in your company! Could mil be concerned over appearance of "i had all the dc and partners over for xmas dinner, what a good hostess i am" as opposed to actually being a good hostess?

This is my first Christmas breastfeeding my baby with multiple allergies. We are invited to in laws who would go out their way to cater for our needs so as to not hurt their dgs but im chosing to take my own. If ds doesn't grow out his allergies then his grandparents will undoubtedly learn how to cater for his needs for the occassions when he eats with them. 11 years this woman has been part of the family but not important enough to leave eggs out one family meal a year so as to not risk her health? Even cross contamination from dairy could cause big issues without being an anaphylactic reaction as it takes weeks after exposure to be removed from your system so she would likely have diarrhoea and/or bloody stools for around a week, a painful rash or hives, sickness and more. It's not a case of she will have a sore tummy that night!

Op could perhaps offer to take an appropriate desert and suggest to sil about an appropriate starter for all? Although even at that, your standard supermarket turkey can contain milk products etc too but at least would allow for a more inclusive Christmas. Surely at Christmas it's important to be kind?

Mouse I was replying to the list of hemp milk, dAiry free butter , milk, spread, Gf flour etc. Sounds like quite a lot to me for one use.

wheat, dairy, and egg free roast dinner is easy. There is no wheat, dairy or egg in the bird or the veg and a gravy can easily made without flour. there are lots of alternatives, same for stuffing... I get that cooking dairy,wheat, egg free can be daunting but not with a roast.

Sorry I'm laughing at the PP who have put lists of ingredients. They seem unaware that unless you live in certain places you simply cannot get them.

I'm lucky enough to live in a place where there are enough allergy suffers so all my local supermarkets that aren't mini stores have at least an aisle of allergy free food and fridge space for it, but loads of supermarkets even in large cities don't have them. In fact even my local Lidl and Aldi's have their free from sections.

A very religious woman won’t accommodate a guest with allergies...

I guess it goes to show that the religion isn’t teaching tolerance if others in this particular instance 😢

I guess it goes to show that the religion isn’t teaching tolerance if others in this particular instance.

Not necessarily. People don’t always follow what their religion teaches about treating others.

Is there such a thing as being "culturally Muslim"? Because Ben's wife doesn't seem at all observant aside from not eating pork. Which makes MIL's pandering to her even more ridiculous.

@Christmasgravy @OneDay10
Sorry to clarify, Adam was not suggesting the whole day become egg, dairy and wheat free. He was saying he didn’t see the need to serve two desserts that both contain her allergens, especially if Bens wife was to be catered to. DH said they spoke last nite and Adam was annoyed that MIL is unwilling to budge on the dessert options and to not consider subbing one as an alternative but MIL has said she will see what she can do for the main, if SIL wants a starter she will have to bring her own cream cheese and bread.

SIL text to ask if I was making a vegan dessert so she will have my chocolate cake and Adam is making a berry fruit salad too.

Crying out loud! She's got an allergy! An allergic reaction can result in death even if it hasn't previously. The other woman just has a (religiously motivated) food preference - she won't die if she eats pork!!
It's very obvious who IBU

Maybe say to mil. No it's definitely not the same thing you are right. Adams wife can die from her dietary allergies.
Bens wife is only her own choice. Maybe that might make her think. X

Crying out loud! She's got an allergy! An allergic reaction can result in death even if it hasn't previously
My DS has an anaphylactic allergy, posts like this really really annoy me

Good grief. This is one meal. Just one. It’s easy to omit pork and eggs, dairy, gluten, etc. from Christmas dinner. If your MIL and Adam are so desperate for eggs and pork they have 364 other days of the year to eat them. Is it that hard to pull together soup, turkey dinner and a fruit salad or something without starting world war 3? This is not that difficult. If you choose to have guests you are choosing to accommodate their dietary requirements. If you don’t want to do that then don’t invite them.

Coeliac reporting for duty here.

Both Ben and his mother sound horrible in the way they disregard Adam's wife in all this. Just so you know, we serious allergy people really don't enjoy making a fuss or having others make one at the table. It's very boring, it's one meal for you but a life sentence for us, and always being the odd one out is tedious and hurtful.

It's also really bloody frustrating how everybody dances around people whose choices are at the end of the day lifestyle choices, as opposed to something that will make you ill, increase your chances of cancer etc. To the PP who described checking pudding ingredients as you can see already where it gets a bit dull, seriously, just fuck off ( and I never swear on here usually). How self absorbed and entitled are you? The poor woman isn't asking everybody else not to eat these things (unlike possibly Ben's wife?), she'd just like something safe and enjoyable to eat on Christmas Day. How unreasonable.

Adam needs to stand up for his wife, he or his mother need to buy a seriously nice pudding or cake that's suitable, keep it separate, not make any comments about it and offer her the first, very large slice.

Job done. Repeat every year.

Or for the love of god, do NOT offer her a bloody fruit salad!

(can you tell I feel quite grumpy about this after forty years of it?)

😄

My DS has an anaphylactic allergy, posts like this really really annoy me

How come?

I'm Coeliac, if someone invites me somewhere and they're putting on food and I know they won't do gluten free for me then I simply won't go!

Surely it’s doable to omit all the foods.

And if it has to be a pavlova use alternatives. I went vegan a while ago for a test.

Use chickpea water (aquafaba) instead of egg and use coconut milk (thickened) instead of cream - with pineapple on top. Sort of like a pina colada dessert.