[*Robin*]

My DS is allergic to poultry and eggs. I am allergic to strawberries, and we avoid peanuts until age 3. We have a group of friends from college that get together once a month for dinner. The dinner rotates from house to house every month, so everyone hosts once or twice over the course of the year. We are coming up on one of these dinners and I am wondering how accommodating I should expect people to be for us.<br><br>
There is only one other allergy in the group of us, our friend has an onion allergy, so as a standard we don't serve things with onions or strawberries in the past. But now with DS's more complicated (harder to avoid) allergies I am not sure what to do. In general when going to people's houses in the past, I don't usually mention strawberries cause I can usually just avoid whatever food has strawberries in it. But with eggs and poultry, it's a lot harder to eat around. I feel bad making people turn their houses upside down finding new recipes to cook for us. But I also don't want to just stop attending these and other meals at people's houses.<br><br>
What does everyone think? Should others be expected to accommodate you?

 

[Chinese Pistache]

To be honest, I wouldn't expect others to accommodate me. I also wouldn't want to trust others with my health by hoping they don't "forget" about my allergy when putting their menus together. With your ds being so young, can't you just bring a separate meal for him? I don't see any reason why you have to stop going. I'm sure the dinners are about socializing and not just eating, right?

 

[Alyantavid]

I'd just bring something for him. Its hard for us too, especially going to my dad's every week for dinner. It is hard though for kids to see everyone else eating something that they can't have.

 

[*Robin*]

I'd have to bring food for myself too. I nurse him and therefore I can't eat the poultry or eggs too. And I don't trust others to be careful enough, so I'd have to check the ingredients too.

 

[kjbrown92]

What I usually do (with 2 kids with multiple food intolerances) is say, "We can't have such and such because of allergies. What can I bring to share so that you don't have to go to the trouble?" Sometimes they say, oh don't worry about it, I can make blah, blah, blah. Sometimes they'll say, what a great idea, can you bring a side dish? Then you know that there's one dish that's entirely safe (so that you feel included). Or you can ask them to let you know the night before what they're having so that you can bring your own food if necessary.<br><br>
We have a group of 4 couples with kids who get together. There are my two kids, and then one of my friends has two kids with celiac and diabetes, there's another child with diabetes, and then during Lent, we have to avoid meat (since we do get-togethers on Fridays) so we all try to make something everyone can have. Or if there's two appetizers, we make sure everyone can at least have one of them. If it's a bunch of close friends, they'll understand.<br><br>
Kathy

 

[USAmma]

My dd is currently only allowed to eat 10 food and we are trying another right now. I always pack her food. I don't expect people to provide safe food for her because as PP said, you don't know if it's really safe or not. It's better to be safe. I am vegetarian and likewise I don't expect people to provide a vegetarian main course, either. If I know they are going to have a big meat dish I offer to make a large side dish that our family can eat for dinner as our main dish. If it's a cookout I bring Boca burgers for us. It's just too complicated to meet everyone's needs especially when you are dealing with a lot of people.

 

[spedteacher30]

When I was milk, egg, soy, and peanut free, we usually brought along food for me.<br><br>
Just chicken and eggs shouldn't be too hard to accommodate, but we always bring food for M to eat, even though I can eat a more varied diet now because his allergies are better than they used to be...

 

[elmh23]

I bring dd her own food. She's allergic to peanuts and soy. Ds is free of all top 8 allergens until sometime after one (I'll add them in individualy after he gets testing) so if he'll be eating anything besides mama milk, we bring it.