You are Gluten Free and Have a Dinner Invitation
December 10th, 2009 -- Posted in friend and family support, gluten free, living without wheat, wheat alternatives | No Comments »When those of us who are gluten-free find ourselves in social situations that can be awkward. For example, you are newly gluten-free and you are invited over to a friend’s home for dinner. Or you have a company function to go to that involves food. Or the holidays are coming and the highlight of the meal contains gluten. It can get tricky to navigate while not starving or “gluten-ing” yourself.
When I was initially diagnosed as gluten-free I was told by my doctor to see how much gluten I could tolerate. Initially I could tolerate small quantities of bread or soy sauce, but the longer I went without wheat in my diet, the more it affected me when I did have it. So now I am almost 100% gluten-free. The times I get gluten are purely accidental and I can tell by my body’s reaction within 24 hours.
Let me clarify that for those with Celiac they need to be 100% gluten-free (not “almost” as I said I am). The places I am the most likely to get exposed to gluten are from cross-contamination (the restaurant uses the same prep space for a sandwich as for my lettuce wrap; a fellow guest puts the humus directly on their pita pieces and some bread crumbs end up back in the humus) or from small quantities of gluten in a dish that you wouldn’t think would have wheat in it (enchilada sauce frequently contains wheat; a little granola mixed in a yogurt parfait; nutritional yeast in vitamins or food). For people with Celiac, they must be extremely careful l to not allow even the smallest amount of gluten into their diets so they need to be extra careful when eating at someone’s home.
When you have a dinner invitation to someone’s home, I suggest the following:
- Tell them right up front, “I have a serious food allergy, would you mind if we connected on the menu to make sure I know ahead of time what I will and won’t be able to eat?” I have never had a host turn me down on this request, they always ask for more information.
- Try not to overwhelm them. You are giving the “Cliff’s Notes” for ONE meal, not so they can cook gluten-free for the rest of their lives. I never ask a person to have an entirely gluten-free meal (some friends choose to out of love, interest, and empathy, but I never ask). I just try to make sure that there will be enough food there that I can eat without drawing attention to myself.
- Give simple suggestions and focus on the menu the host is planning on: Have all the ingredients for the salad separate so each person can put what they want on their serving and the croutons won’t contaminate the rest of the salad; Prepare my non-marinated chicken in the pan first (or on a separate dish) so it doesn’t get cross contaminated; Let me give you a bottle of some gluten-free soy sauce that you can use; Do you mind saving the packaging from prepared foods that I can look at before the dinner to check ingredients?; Could you put the cheese and crackers on separate plates? On a side note, just because someone says, “I know all about gluten-free cooking because…”, still clarify your own gluten-free needs. A friend once glutened me with spelt noodles because she thought gluten-free people can tolerate spelt.
- Offer to bring a dish, especially one that usually has gluten. If you have a bread recipe you enjoy, offer to bring bread. I often bring dessert too because so much dessert has gluten in it.
- Eat before the dinner party. Even the most considerate hosts make mistakes and I find it better to arrive to a dinner party with a semi-full belly and eat less there than to be starving and get there to find croutons ON the salad and that all the meat got marinated in regular soy sauce.
It is important to be proactive and gracious. We don’t want the host to go through a bunch of extra trouble for us but hosts want all of their guests to have a great time. So speak up and help out the next time you are invited to someone’s home for dinner.
