Is any restaurant ever really safe?

Series: Questions that bother me as a celiac.

A problematic question that marks it’s presence every so often. No restaurants ever really do the gluten-concentration test on their food. If a server or host says that they do take care of cross-contamination, we just believe them and hope for the best. Isn’t it?

I wonder about it when people tell me that they got glutened. Or I do. We may ask all the right questions. The restaurant may even do all the pre-cautious measures. Still there could be a knowledge gap in any of the people involved, from one who orders, takes the order, forwards the order, decide substitutes, or cooks the meal.

Of course, I don’t blame the restaurants generally. The problem isn’t that restaurants aren’t trying. The problem in general is that we, people with celiac disease, are too sensitive to the gluten. It’s easy to blame the whole world and gluten-based food industry. Believe me, I come from India, where it’s much much harder to avoid gluten. My mother couldn’t avoid it. In those days, it was believed that it’s an allergy and gradual re-introduction of gluten can treat the disease. She even lost her life to complications that celiac disease brought.

However, there are things we can all do better. For starters, we need to start to cook most meals ourselves and make a part (or whole) of our kitchen gluten-free. That is the best way to ensure that exposure is minimum. Cooking for some may seem hard. It takes time. Not only to cook, but to learn as well. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself. I cook once a week and prepare meals for the whole week. An added benefit is saving money.

Another thing we can do is reduce eating out. This goes hand-in-hand with the previous suggestion. But it’s best to host friends instead of meeting at restaurants. An added benefit here is that it pushes you to clean your place sooner. They are welcome to bring/order their own meals, but at least you have the safest option with you. If a friend is hosting, packing your own meal is the safest thing you can do.

Now, I do know that eating out is fun. I enjoy it too. I pick the restaurants that have a reputation to keep up to. It adds to their honesty. I have had food at random midnight restaurants promising gluten-free food, and ended up glutened.

That brings me to something that restaurants should do. Please be honest. If you don’t know about allergens in your food, simply tell us that. I promise we wouldn’t be mad. All we are trying is to have a worry free dinner.

The next thing I am going to say is hard to accept. I think even if the restaurants are honest, sometimes they don’t know what happens to the ingredients before reaching the restaurant. A simple example is jaggery. Most sugarcane jaggery available in Canada comes from India. For a restaurant, it’s just jaggery. For people with celiac disease, it’s jaggery; plus all the things it got in touch with while processing.

Asafoetida is hard problem too. Since I got diagnosed, I realised that all forms of asafoetida (ground or crystallized) have wheat in them. Maybe many indian restaurants use them, but are unaware.

So, can we really be sure ever?