What is it that restaurants don’t get about food allergies?

It amazes me that even today with all of the talk about food allergies, and all of the training on food allergies available to them food allergy incidents in restaurants still happen quite frequently.

I have a food allergy myself, although it is not one of the most common food allergens known as the “Big 8”. I am allergic to dill. So when I order at a restaurant I am very careful to notify them when I am placing my order of my allergy to dill. Unfortunately since I do not trust them to take proper care of my special food order, as a backup I also carry 2 Epi Pens strapped to me in an ankle-holster when I eat out. Thankfully yesterday I had my Epi Pens on me.

I was in a hurry so I decided to stop at a local Mc Donald’s to grab something to eat, I ordered 2 “plain cheeseburgers” and notified them that I was allergic to dill and dill pickles. The counterperson read my order back to me for 2 plain cheeseburgers and I again reminded her of my allergy to dill and dill pickles.

A few minutes later I received my order. The counterperson read off the order again to me as 2 plain cheeseburgers with out pickles. I read the grill slips attached to each one of the cheeseburgers that showed to be a special order and said that it was a plain cheeseburger. I thanked her and went on my way.

Since I was in a hurry I decided to eat as I drove into Honolulu for a meeting. Since I was almost at my destination I decided to save the second cheeseburger until after the meeting.

A few minutes into my meeting I noticed that I was starting to itch and saw a faint red rash starting to appear on my arms. Recognizing the symptoms of an allergic reaction right away I apologized and rescheduled the meeting.

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I reached my car just as my face started swelling and I was starting to feel like my throat was closing off making it difficult to breath. I grabbed one of the Epi Pens from my ankle-holster, opened it and stabbed myself in the thigh with it. I readied the second auto injector just in case the first dose of Epinephrine was not enough.

Within seconds I was breathing easily again and the intense itching had subsided. Thankfully I only had a minor reaction this time and did not have to spend hours in the Emergency Room being treated for a severe reaction.

I then opened the second “plain cheeseburger” to investigate what happened. Sure enough I could see the telltale imprint of pickles left in the cheese. Instead of making my order from scratch as should have been done to make sure that my food did not come in contact with the dill pickles, the lazy cook merely removed the pickles from the sandwiches.

Removing the offending item from the food may be good enough if the customer merely does not like the item, but it does absolutely nothing if a person is allergic to it.

To have an allergic reaction to a food the food item itself does not have to be present itself, merely the microscopic proteins from the food allergen that are left behind are enough to cause a severe allergic reaction. Be removing the dill pickles from the cheeseburger the cook may have made the cheeseburger “look better” and changed the taste of the cheeseburger to my liking, but it was still an allergic reaction waiting to happen. Once a food is contaminated with the proteins from a food allergen, there is no way to remove them. That food must not be served to a person with a food allergy.

Apparently I did not make myself clear enough about my food allergy when I placed my order to the person at the counter. Perhaps I should have worded it differently.

Here’s a thought, from now on maybe I should word it something like this: “I am severely allergic to dill, dill pickles, and anything containing dill. If I have an allergic reaction to the food that you serve me after I clearly warned you that I had a severe food allergy, if I live through it I will come back with my gun and see if you and the cook are allergic to lead“.

Perhaps something like that is what it takes to get through to people how serious food allergies can be, and how serious they should be in taking your order and verifying that your order is safe for you to eat. People with food allergies have a life or death worry every time they eat out, perhaps if the people taking their orders and making their food had the same worry the food would be safer for them.

Fortunately for the staff at that Mc Donald’s we live in a civilized society where people don’t go around shooting other people for getting their food orders wrong.

Mc Donald’s themselves had a 10 million dollar law suit filed against them back in 2007 concerning food allergies, apparently that was not enough to get through to them.

What is it going to take to get through to people working in restaurants and foodservice operations that food allergies are a serious, and in many cases a life-threatening concern?