The Oprah Winfrey Show
Oprah's Best Life Series
Harpo Films
For One More Day
The Great Debaters
O, The Oprah Magazine
Subscribe Today
Oprah Radio
Oprah's Angel Network
Oprah's Book Club
Choosing a Restaurant
While what you order is important, where you order it matters too. That's because some restaurants are more likely to not only accommodate your food allergy, but also be better educated on how best to do that.
Not surprisingly, Fischer says that the larger and more established a restaurant is, the more likely it has dealt with food allergies in the past. So the staff is less likely to be surprised or thrown by your requests.
Other good alternatives are corporate chain restaurants—places like Olive Garden, Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday. Fischer says chains often have tighter controls on their menus and ingredients than independently owned restaurants, so the staff is more likely to know exactly what's in each dish.
Field agrees. "While a local mom-and-pop restaurant may be more likely to veer from the norm in an effort to please you, there is also more variability in these places, so the dish may not be cooked the same way twice, and that can be a problem," he says.
And while not every restaurant staff can tell you exactly what's in every dish (many chain establishments use precooked foods that are only heated on site), most of their corporate websites provide either a menu listing major ingredients or an email address where you can access specific recipe information. Some, like Olive Garden, provide recipes online so you can find out exactly what is in the food on the menu.
