Readers of the AllergyEats Blog know that I recently finished a 3-day weekend with my 2 food-allergic boys (peanut and tree nut / peanut, tree nut, dairy, egg and sesame) and my father to Toronto and Montreal.  I wrote a piece in this blog on the “Big 8″ allergen-free restaurant, Zero8, in Montreal (Zero8 Resto-Bar, free of ALL “Big 8″ allergens… and then some!).

On this same trip, however, we had what many would consider a negative experience – though I saw it as a great training opportunity.

We were in a food court and my youngest son wanted a little food to hold him over until dinner.  He asked for french fries from Burger King.  We’ve never had problems with fries from BK before, so I agreed.  Of course, as always, I asked the question.  “Do you use peanut oil to cook the fries?”

Blankish look, before a hesitant side-to-side shake of the head.

“Are you sure?  My son has a severe food allergy?”

Affirmative nod of the head, but not very encouraging.

Finally, I asked the key question.  “What kind of oil do you use?”

He goes back to the cooking area for 15 seconds or so, then comes back shaking his head side-to-side.  I said “Peanut oil?” and he says “yeah.”

Wow.

On the one hand, you might think “bullet dodged”… that was my first reaction.  Though a close second was “I bet they don’t actually use peanut oil – they were just too lazy to check, or were scared, or just plain clueless.”  Either way, I’m glad we had that conversation in front of my boys and then of course walked away.

I used this simple encounter to point out a few important lessons to them.

Lesson 1:  Read the rest of this entry »

Close followers of the AllergyEats Blog and AllergyEats Facebook page have probably detected that I’m an intense hockey fanatic. Originally from the New York area, I have retained my allegiance to the New York Rangers, much to the chagrin of my friends here in Boston. I have also brainwashed my children into sharing my passion for all things hockey and Rangers.

Recently, during a 3-day holiday weekend, my two oldest sons (both of whom have food allergies – peanut/tree nut and peanut/tree nut/dairy/egg/sesame) embarked with my father and I on an exciting boys hockey weekend in Canada. Our first stop was to be Toronto, where we would visit the hockey Hall of Fame and Wayne Gretzky’s restaurant before watching our beloved Rangers take on the Maple Leafs. On the next day, we would follow the Rangers to Montreal where they would play the Candians.

I was a little extra enthusiastic about this trip because I knew I’d finally get a chance to try an exciting new allergy-friendly restaurant in Montreal that I’ve heard a lot about called Zero8. (I would’ve loved to have taken my kids to a Moxie’s in Toronto as well, but the day was full. See my prior AllergyEats Blog post about Moxie’s here.)

I have read a lot about Zero8. Situated in the heart of Montreal’s Latin Quarter, its name comes from the fact that NOTHING on the menu has ANY of the “Big 8″ allergens (or gluten, sesame, and sulfites either). They don’t even keep these products on the premises! Read the rest of this entry »

AllergyEats, the Most Comprehensive Source for Finding Allergy-Friendly Restaurants,

Reports Details of Wendy’s & Burger King’s New Menus, Ingredients, Preparation Techniques

BOSTON, MA (January 30, 2012) – In many instances change is good, but as restaurants update their menus in an effort to stay competitive, these changes can be dangerous for the food allergy community. When restaurants periodically revamp their menus, seemingly minor changes (like buttering a hamburger bun) can have a major impact on food-allergic customers, causing them to get ill or even have life-threatening reactions, according to Paul Antico, Founder of AllergyEats (www.allergyeats.com), the most comprehensive source for finding allergy-friendly restaurants.

Fast food chain Wendy’s recently changed their menu and now, for the first time ever, they’re serving some of their burgers and sandwiches on buttered buns, significantly impacting dairy-allergic customers. Additionally, Wendy’s is toasting their buttered buns, so any toasted bun – even unbuttered ones – could potentially become cross-contaminated with butter in the toaster, creating a risk for dairy-allergic diners.

And Burger King just introduced a new Read the rest of this entry »

For months prior to the launch of AllergyEats in February, 2009, I sought out and incorporated the opinions of many people associated with food allergies to determine what the site should include and look like.  However, I knew that whatever initial plan and layout I finally decided upon would still not be perfect and that AllergyEats’ best recommendations would come from its users.  I welcomed all ideas and encouraged criticism, as I still do today.  After all, the whole point of AllergyEats is to be a site for the community, by the community – so how foolish would it be not to listen to the community and be willing to change?  Today, I can say that AllergyEats is much improved versus February, 2009 thanks to your input… and it will be even better in another 2 years as well.

One concern that had been shared with me a few times since inception was that no matter which allergies an individual clicked in the search box when running a “Find Restaurant” search, the resulting restaurant list still looked the same.  Many users didn’t understand why, and some that did still didn’t like it.  (The answer, by the way, is that we still think the OVERALL allergy-friendliness rating is a better gauge of whether a restaurant “gets” food allergies or not – see our FAQs for more details.)  So why have users check off their allergies at all?  The original idea was that when an individual restaurant received a very high number of ratings, AllergyEats would display “sub-ratings” for each individual allergy.

Yet after much listening, thinking, and discussing, I decided that enough members of the AllergyEats community wanted these sub-ratings now and that it made sense for me to accommodate those wishes.  Therefore, while search results are still listed in order of the restaurants’ overall allergy-friendliness, which I still believe is the most important gauge, you will now see allergy-specific sub-ratings in the resulting restaurant lists as well.  These sub-ratings represent the composite reviews of all raters with one or more of the food allergies you clicked in the search box on the home page.  See below for an example of what the sub-ratings look like and how they work.

In this example, I assumed the user had ALL of the ten allergies/intolerances listed at the top of the home page (peanut, tree nut, dairy, egg, wheat, gluten, shellfish, fish, soy, and sesame) and I thus clicked all 10 boxes.  I then ran a basic search of Boston, MA.  The following is part of the results screen.

What is not noticeable from this small excerpt is that the full table of restaurant results is still listed in order of overall allergy-friendliness ratings (represented by the number in the circle).  However, you can now see that allergy-specific ratings were added to each of the restaurants in this results list.  Read the rest of this entry »

I often get questions directly or on the AllergyEats Facebook page about taking a cruise with food allergies.  Having never done this myself, I was grateful to AllergyEats friend and user Heather Sires for writing up her recent experience and allowing me to print it here.

I want to start off that I have multiple severe food allergies: tomato, fish, and peanut. They cause anaphylactic reaction within minutes, if not seconds of consuming (I can’t even touch fish). I am also allergic to wheat, dairy, melon, and green peas. I get anxious when I eat out but for a couple places in my area. These few places are very good about cross contamination and treat me like a human being. Other places I try to keep away from because when I hand them a chef card, they look at me like I just spit on them, and these places have sent me to the emergency room. I cook at home a lot. I can regulate my food that way. So when my parents said a few months ago that we were going on a cruise to the Caribbean over Christmas, I was anxious. I made sure I had enough epipens, prednisone, and benedryl to staunch a reaction. I printed up both English and Spanish chef cards, just to be safe. Mom said there was a way to signal them about your food allergies, but it would only allow one allergy to be selected. I was prepared to eat very simple, plain food. 

The trip was completely different than I thought it would be. Read the rest of this entry »

[this AllergyEats Blog entry written by Sharon Studley and Paul Antico]

So another fast food chain is upgrading their menu to stay competitive – and confusing all of us dealing with food allergies and intolerances in the process.  Two months ago it was Wendy’s introducing a new buttered bun for their sandwiches.  Now it’s Burger King introducing new french fries.

When Burger King first announced “there was a new fry in town” at the beginning of the month, AllergyEats started investigating. In order to avoid the problems we had uncovering the details about Wendy’s new sandwich buns, where we made several phone calls to Wendy’s only to  discover that each call resulted in a different answer to our questions, we took a little longer this time. Over the course of a week and a half, we made a few phone calls, on different days, asking the same questions to different customer service representatives. Fortunately, this time the answers were consistent on each call (kudos to you, BK).

Burger King’s new fries should be in all of their restaurants by now. So what’s changed? They have a new coating that results in a crispier outside and fluffier inside. They also have gone with a thicker cut.

With respect to the impact on those of us dealing with food allergies, Burger King reps stated every time we called the exact same message that is on their website nutrition information sheet (click through via this page) - these fries contain none of the “Big 8” allergens.  Unfortunately, we were not able to ascertain which other ingredients might have been added or deleted – trade secrets, of course.

We also asked about cross contamination with other foods, particularly the onion rings which do contain milk and wheat. Read the rest of this entry »

New AllergyEats Disney World Microsite
Spotlights Allergy-Friendly Restaurants in (and around) the Popular Orlando Theme Parks

AllergyEats, the Biggest & Fastest Growing Source for Finding Allergy-Friendly Restaurants,
Helps Diners Find the Most Accommodating Restaurants in and around Walt Disney World

BOSTON, MA (December 5, 2011) – Walt Disney World, known for being the happiest place on earth, is one of the most popular vacation spots for families. Now, families with food allergies will be even happier because AllergyEats (www.allergyeats.com), the biggest and fastest growing source for finding allergy-friendly restaurants, has just launched a new website focused exclusively on restaurants in and around Disney (www.allergyeats.com/disney).

People who log onto this new, free AllergyEats Disney World microsite can quickly and easily view and rate the food allergy-friendliness of all the restaurants in Walt Disney World’s parks and hotels, as well as thousands of restaurants in the greater Orlando area.

“Walt Disney World is widely-regarded as the ‘gold standard’ in terms of accommodating food-allergic guests, but some establishments still handle food allergies better than others and not all of the local restaurants are run by Disney itself,” said Paul Antico, Founder of AllergyEats and the father of three food-allergic children.

“The new AllergyEats Disney World microsite allows people with food allergies to learn more about their restaurant options and make more informed decisions about where to dine while visiting the area,” Antico added. “Whether people are planning their vacations in advance or looking for a meal while onsite at the parks, the AllergyEats Disney World microsite is a great resource to access restaurants’ AllergyEats allergy-friendliness ratings and review peer feedback from other food-allergic and gluten intolerant diners.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I remember when “Pizzeria Uno” was a new restaurant concept.  I couldn’t get enough of their delicious Chicago deep dish style pizza.  As a matter of fact, I still can’t get enough of it!  Despite the fact that “Uno Chicago Grill” is much more than a pizza restaurant now, with wonderful pasta, chicken, steak, seafood, and other menu items, I still like going back to the deep dish pizza I can’t get anywhere else.

Fortunately, I can still do that – even with 3 food-allergic children.  Thanks to a culture of accommodation for food-allergic guests, I can comfortably bring my family to any of Uno’s over 150 units.  But don’t trust me – trust yourselves!  On the AllergyEats allergy-friendliness scale of 1-5, Uno’s score an excellent 4.2!  Uno’s also just signed on as a partner in the AllergyEats Great Gift Card Giveaway, once again highlighting their commitment to serving our community of food-allergic and intolerant diners (see prior AllergyEats blog entry, “Uno Chicago Grill becomes the newest partner in the AllergyEats Great Gift Card Giveaway“).

I recently had the opportunity to interview management of Uno Chicago Grill about their food allergy and gluten intolerance policies and procedures.  Enjoy.

 
 
AllergyEats: Uno’s has a strong 4.2 AllergyEats allergy-friendliness rating.  What is your motivation to be so allergy-friendly?

Read the rest of this entry »

I am very happy to introduce Uno Chicago Grill as a new national partner in the highly-successful AllergyEats Great Gift Card Giveaway.  Uno’s has over 150 units nationwide, focused on both their classic Chicago deep dish style pizza as well as a wide variety of pasta, chicken, steak, seafood, and other classic dishes.  Uno’s also has a strong reputation as an allergy-friendly restaurant, which is further supported by your ratings on AllergyEats, where the chain sports an impressive 4.2 out of 5.0 AllergyEats allergy-friendliness rating.

The AllergyEats Blog entry immediately following this one is an interview with members of Uno’s management team (“An interview with Uno Chicago Grill about accommodating food-allergic diners“).

Read the rest of this entry »