Traveling with Food Allergies

Food allergies can be a real bummer, especially if you are a family who loves trying new food wherever you. I (Sean) am the only one in the family with food allergies, and these weren’t diagnosed until 5 years ago. For me, the allergies are gluten, dairy, and tree nuts.

What this means is that I am often the one watching everyone else great looking (and tasting) food while I sit on the sidelines. Luckily, I’ve been able to adapt and can usually find something everywhere I go. It still takes planning for those allergies to not have an impact.

Here are the steps I take to minimize the impact of allergies on the overall trip for myself and my family.

Bring your own snacks just in case

Whether I am travelling for work or family travel, I always bring my own snacks just in case.

The reason I do this is:

• You never know what you’ll be able to eat on the plane. I’ll be writing a separate post about flying with food allergies, but in general you are going to be limited, especially if you have multiple food allergies. As an example, I always request a gluten free meal, but most of the time it will be cooked in butter or slathered with cheese, so I can’t even eat the special meal. Qantas has been the only airline I’ve flown that takes into account multiple food allergies combined.

• If your options are limited at your destination, you’ll have this as a fall back.

• During your excursion days, you never know if the food being served will conform with your dietary needs. Most of the good tour companies will ask about food allergies up front, but having a back up is better than being really hungry.

• Depending on when you arrive to your destination (or have an airport layover) food options that are open will be limited.

Do research and ask questions

Anywhere we go, I always research the most traditional and common foods in the country we are visiting. In Thailand I was lucky because they use coconut milk instead of dairy in many dishes, and they use rice noodles with Pad Thai, which is one of my favorite Thai dishes.

I’m used to letting servers know about my allergies, but you’ll need to plan ahead if you are going somewhere that speaks a language other than your native language. I make it a habit to learn phrases / words regarding my allergies. Also, print out a sentence about your allergies (Google translate is great for this) and carry it around with you to show the server / cook.

In general, it take a little planning and an ability to roll with the situation in order to ensure that your food allergies don’t have an impact to your trip.