Would you have eaten the pudding?

[NoSourDough]

I have celiac disease and just a few crumbs of gluten will cause at lease 3 weeks of damage and illness for me, so eating out means I have to be very careful.

I’m on holiday in a UK destination, gone to a hotel restaurant, made it clear I have celiac disease, asked for the gluten free menu.

Main course, all is well.

Pudding time, I ask for a gluten free Sticky Toffee Pudding. DH asks for a normal one but with vegan ice cream (he is lactose intolerant).

A different waitress brings both puddings out, both in the same coloured bowls and is temporarily perplexed with regard to which one has the vegan ice cream.

i make it clear that one should be gluten free. She disappears and comes back and gives me the one that she says is gluten free.

We start eating, DH tastes his and says his ice creams tastes normal and not vegan.

i have a mouthful of pudding and spit it out - fearing that I’ve actually got the gluten pudding.

I decide not to eat mine as I cannot take the risk.

When waitress returns, I explain my dilemma, that I cannot take the risk and I want the pudding taken off the bill.

I couldn’t believe her reaction. She spoke to her manager, and said “it was 100% gluten free” with such an attitude and as I went to answer, she walked off.

They did take off the pudding on the bill but it was the fact they didn’t take it seriously and that it felt I was making a fuss about nothing. Why they didn’t put the food in separate coloured bowls or flag it is beyond me.

i did want to speak to the manager but it was mayhem outside in reception and I just wanted to leave. I will be leaving a review online.

Exactly. I would have stuffed my face with two sticky toffee puddings if I could eat it and had no allergies, rather than see the food going to waste.

I will find out tomorrow (Saturday). My reactions are around 48 hours after I’ve eaten the gluten. It begins with an awful low mood, then the flu like symptoms begin, then full body aches, then stomach issues last for many weeks.

To give you an example, I was accidentally glutened on 13th July and my left side is still aching at the moment. My gluten free burger was put in the same oven as a normal breaded burger. They were not touching. I was so unwell and I hadn’t even put the gluten in my mouth properly, it was likely a crumb that had migrated from one burger to the other.

This is exactly how we tackle it too.

The allergen menus only confirm the top 14 so nothing would have told you if there was hidden carrot unless it’s all cooked on site from spec sheets that are never deviated from.

No, this isn’t accurate. Coeliacs don’t react to touching gluten ie having a mouthful and spitting it out. We react when the gluten proteins hit our system and our bodies trigger an autoimmune response.

I’m now thinking you are right, but for some reason she didn’t want to admit to us that the STP on the non gluten menu wasn’t in fact, gluten. If this is the case and she had of spoken up it would have saved a lot of stress, food waste and misunderstanding.

Yes this is true. I was very concerned that I may have ingested some of the mouthful.

Lactose intolerance is not as serious as celiac disease. He should have had a taste of both ice creams and then he would have been sure.

In all honesty, they sound very accommodating. They had all these options available and they had clearly never had the combination of identical puddings with different special dietary requirements ordered simultaneously. They’ll probably find a solution now. I feel for restaurants these days. Their energy bills are the highest in the world. Their NI bills have gone up. They have extremely exacting standards to meet and they are expected to accommodate a zillion different dietary requirements. It’s a wonder we have any left at all.

I think it’s to avoid what someone said up thread - it tastes different (worse) when GF.

However, GF cakes etc when baked properly, you can’t actually taste any difference, it’s just a misconception. Whereas pizza, bread etc….nobody sane would eat those if they didn’t have to!

You queried it, the waitress checked it for you, you didn't eat it, your decision to not believe the waitress, and you didn't pay for it, nice of them since they were adamant it was gluten free. The chef may well have been able to tell for certain by the consistency, etc. Now you want to blacken their name on social media, for what reason?

I would be too. (To state the obvious, no way would I have eaten the pudding, they had no idea which cup the pea was under, so to speak!!)

I’m not sure I would leave a bad review anywhere where I hadn’t formally complained to the management first and seen what their response was. For me personally, it seems the fair thing to do but I know it’s not the way these days.

OP and others with serious allergies, I don’t know how you eat out anywhere. I’d be constantly anxious especially given your comment that you are still feeling the effects from eating something cooked in the same oven as gluten.

Absolutely write a review because the restaurant actually had two jobs here.

1. (the most important) make sure your food was gf
2. give you confidence that it was gf.

Because it is no bloody good delivering all the gf food in the world if their customers are not feeling relaxed and happy that their food is safe for them. So they might argue that they knew your food was gf, but unless YOU knew that, and felt like they were taking your needs seriously, you are not going to have an enjoyable experience. So yes, definitely write a review.

What has energy bills got to do with this conversation?

Let’s not derail the thread here, this is a catering business. Food can kill people. If that pudding was full of nuts and I was allergic, how could they 100% guarantee my safety?

@CarlaLemarchant I don’t know about others but I have a strict ‘one strike and you’re out’ approach. I go to about three places that I trust. But if they poisoned me they’d be off the list forever. And the upset stomach and other symptoms you get from being glutened are very specific and I wouldn’t mistake ‘normal’ food poisoning for being glutened.

I have sat with no dinner among my party if a new place doesn’t give me reassurance. I’d rather be embarrassed than ill.

If I’m booking, I ring them first and don’t book if they can’t explain their kitchen processes safely enough for my confidence.

I wouldn’t blacken their name on social media.

i think what really upset me was that I was so polite to the waitress and her attitude toward me was terrible. She took issue with me. I thought “you have no idea what it’s like for me, saving up all year for this holiday, to eat this meal, to put my trust in an establishment, to be mostly limited to only certain foods on a menu and then when I query it with you, you walk off almost huff like”. I still wouldn’t blacken their name as I’m not that person, the review would be constructive.

I’m not. It’s part of the general pressures restaurants and pubs are under. They really struggle to make a profit. They were making an effort to provide for a variety of dietary requirements, double checked which was which and removed the cost of the puddings from the bill without resistance when you refused to trust their word. This eats into their narrow profit margins. I think you need to see the good in others and empathise with their situation a bit more.

I feel a bit sorry for people who have allergies / intolerances and need flags to mark what is safe to eat.

As someone who has to spend ages on the toilet with cramping stomach pains if I eat dairy I can tell you it's no fun.

My husband is coeliac and no way would he have eaten it. It's not worth it. To be honest, we barely eat out anymore because he's been made ill so many times due to stuff like this.

It's not worth the risk. It's nothing at all against people with allergies, it's not personal. But you have to understand what goes on behind the scenes. These are not highly paid or skilled jobs, there is high staff turnover, and are often not the most educated or engaged with their role, and even, often young, people who are and are doing challenging subjects at uni, can have spectacular and inexplicable lapses in common sense. And that's those with English as a first language. Add in how busy and pressured these kitchens can be, grumpy scary senior colleagues with no patience for the extra time this all takes.There is only so much training you can do, and drilling down of the importance of avoiding cross contamination. Most do get it right, but for every waitress who takes extra care to remember which is which, the risk of one poorly washed utensil, incorrectly stored item, hand wiped off on contaminated apron, is too high if its going to make you very ill. I don't think you were unreasonable not to eat the pudding, but you're better to stick to food you made yourself or that comes sealed in packaging from factory conditions where there is nothing to cross contaminate. It's a big ask to ensure kitchens handling all allergens to ensure that precisely zero make it to your table. It causes you stress and it causes kitchens stress. It's unfortunate, but it's nobody "fault". Though I agree with someone who has a mild to moderate allergy, an entire pudding should be kept track of.

But you don’t know they messed up! You assumed they had.

I think you may have glossed over the part of me being unwell for at least a month. How about the profits I loose from my business that I cannot show up to because I cannot work due to the illness? I need to stress this isn’t an exaggeration, celiac disease is a serious disease which hospitalises people. I can’t take the risk on a pudding to spare the feelings of a restaurant. And I’m one of the most empathetic people you will ever meet..

Same coloured bowls, same puddings, confused look on waitress’s face (like she didn’t even know one contained gluten free) - that’s enough for someone staring down the barrel of a month of illness…

Some places would rather you provided your own food to be reheated and served by the establishment. Under these circumstances this is likely to suit both parties best. You shouldn't have to sit with nothing.

I know it's serious. But it's an unrealistic demand. Even if you had the right pudding, you could never be confident it hadn't been cross contaminated. It's better the waitress expressed doubt rather than tried to mask it and just had over plates she knew might be wrong. I do realise how disappointing that must have been. But I think for such a serious allergy its better to stick to businesses oriented around being able to provide sage food and will have all the procedures in place, and idiot proof.