Reading Between the Menu Lines
Food Ordering Tips for People with Celiac/Sprue, Gluten Sensitivity
Jul 8, 2009
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, as well as non-gluten-free-certified oats. These tips can help you successfully navigate restaurant menus at home and abroad.
Remember to always ask if meals are gluten-free, since restaurants don’t always list all meal components on the menu.
The best piece of advice is to eat foods that are as close to their original states as possible. For example, plain meats/proteins and plain vegetables, baked potatoes, and vegetable salads (without croutons!) are perfectly safe.
Tips for a Gluten-Free Breakfast
For breakfast, the safest bet for a person with Celiac disease is eggs, either sunny-side-up, poached or hard boiled.
While wheat flour is typically not added to scrambled eggs or frittatas, “Some restaurants add pancake batter to scrambled eggs, so the eggs will last longer after being prepared – this is often the case with buffet eggs,” says Jules E. Dowler Shepard, celiac.com's gluten-free cooking expert and author of The First Year: Celiac Disease and Eating Gluten-Free.
If you are ordering eggs or other items off a grill, ask the kitchen to cook your food on a piece of aluminum foil to ensure no contamination, recommends Shepard. Also, check to see how breakfast potatoes are prepared to ensure they are not coated with seasonings containing wheat flour.
Bacon, Canadian bacon, and sausages may be gluten-free, depending on the brands used. But when in doubt, leave them out.
Other breakfast options include:
- Cream of rice
- Gluten-free oatmeal
- Chex rice and corn cereals that use molasses rather than barley malt flavoring
- Puffed rice or corn (not dusted in wheat flour or wheat starch)
- Fresh Fruit
- Hominy/Grits (made from corn)
- Plain yogurt (flavored yogurt may contain gluten, however gluten-free brands include Yoplait, Brown Cow and Stonyfield Farms)
How to Order Gluten-Free Lunches and Dinners
Meat-and-potato-type meals are often safe if they are served plain. Fried foods such as French Fries should be gluten-free, however they are often prepared in a fryer shared with breaded/battered items such as chicken fingers and onion rings. Ask the restaurant if they have a “dedicated fryer,” meaning only gluten-free items are used in a particular fryer.
Salad dressings are hit or miss. Homemade dressings are often safe. However, bottled salad dressings can contain gluten. Always ask to see the label, or simply ask for oil and vinegar or lemon.
Tuna salad lovers beware. A new way of preparing mayonnaise-based salads is to add bread crumbs. Check to see if this has been added and if the mayo is gluten-free.
Even vegetables can be a cause for concern, as sometimes pasta water is added to vegetables to add flavor. “Lemon pepper flavoring on vegetables can have gluten too,” warned Deb Bamesberger, author of Should I Be Gluten-Free?. “Plain spices are fine, but any of those mixed ones you should be wary of.”
How to Ask for Ethnic Cuisine that is Gluten-Free
A big shocker to people who are learning the gluten-free diet is that many Asian foods contain gluten. That is because most soy sauce made in the United States contains wheat as a filler. It is always important to ask if the sauces are gluten-free first. Steamed dishes in Asian restaurants are usually gluten-free. Here are some other tips:
- Chinese white sauces are often made from arrowroot flour or corn starch.
- Japanese imitation crab meat in sushi, tempureh and miso paste contain gluten.
- Gluten may be added to rice to keep it sticky.
- Indian and Thai curries may contain gluten, particularly if the restaurant is not “authentic” ethnic.
- Mexican corn tortillas can replace (wheat) flour tortillas.
Travel Abroad Tricks for the Gluten Sensitive
Experts like Shepard recommend always stocking up on protein bars, nuts, fruit and other favorite gluten-free snacks before embarking on any trip, as an emergency back-up plan. Food options can be unpredictable.
Try to find gluten-free restaurants in the area online before you leave for your trip. Shepard lists many restaurant URLs in her First Year book. Below are just some restaurant chains with gluten-free nutritional information in-store and/or online:
- Carrabba’s
- Chili’s Grill & Bar
- McDonalds
- Outback Steakhouse
- Ruby Tuesday
- Subway
- Wendy’s
Some groups, such as the Westchester Celiac Sprue Support Group and other blogs list restaurants that cater to people with gluten sensitivities.
If you are traveling to a country where you do not speak the language, you can buy or download Dining Cards in different languages to help you explain what ingredients you need to avoid.
Knowledge is power, and for the gluten sensitive, good health too. Use all of these tips and questions to get the food that you need, safely, no matter where your travels take you.
