Daughter with Celiac disease, needs Gluten Free dining options

<p>My D’s college actually has pretty good food. A few years ago, students asked to have Kosher for Passover food and since then, it has been offered.</p>

<p>There is a hospitality program as part of the curriculum and a nutrition major. The school offers the services of a dietician to any student who wants one. My D has no food allergies or other issues, but she met with the dietician a few times in her freshman year to get some ideas on how to meet her nutritional needs without putting on the freshman 15.</p>

<p>For students with special needs foodwise, the website recommends contacting the dietician. From my D’s experience, they are very good at working with students.</p>

<p>My best friend and her daughter (2012) who both have Celiac disease, have begun the college search process, and were happy to find out that UCONN has gluten free food readily available in all dining halls on campus.</p>

<p>I didn’t look through the thread, so maybe this has already been said, but I know Macalester College has a lot of gluten-free food. (:</p>

<p>I’m a current freshman at BU, and although I met with numerous people before getting here in September, and I was reassured that safe food was readily available, I’ve been sick for the past two months from cross-contamination. There are constant issues of negligence and ignorance around each dining hall I’ve tried. Although they are building a new student center with a GF area/kitchen, I’m betting on the continuance of the current practices, seeing as it will be staffed with the same workers and overseen by the same management.</p>

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<p>LOL, you were lucky. In my dining hall there was always “yogurt for the vegetarians.” Someone should have done a SuperSize Me experiment and chronicaled what happened when they tried to live on yogurt three meals a day for a whole school year.</p>

<p>As far as being accomodating or not, might it be a question of whether the school’s food service is contracted out to a company like Aramark or Sodexo? In many dining halls, there isn’t real cooking going on - there is just heating up of prepackaged or frozen food. My guess about those who don’t want to talk about the issue until the student is admitted probably know that over the summer, they figure out how many gluten free kids they are likely to have, then order that many gluten free meals from the big corporation per day.</p>

<p>^^ daughter’s school is run by Aramark…but they do not have pre-made meals…every dining hall and retail establishment has GF stations that are exclusively prepared…this has been in place for about four years now and options increase every year. Cross contamination has been addressed by blocking out an area of each dining hall for GF.</p>

<p>BUceliac2015</p>

<p>I am so sorry to hear about your situation. BU is on the top of my daughter’s list of schools.</p>

<p>What is your dorm situation like? Do you have the space to have a larger refrig/freezer available to keep food?</p>

<p>I hope you can resolve your issues. I am always concerned that cross contamination occurs whenever we go out to eat with our daughter. As a result we don’t even go out to eat very often.</p>

<p>I did hear on this site that BU was building a cafe with a G-free area.</p>

<p>Someone already mentioned Tufts. My DD found out early summer she’s Celiac so this is all new to her and not something we considered when visiting colleges. Tufts has been very accommodating for all the Celiacs (that they know about) - they were invited to come taste test GF baked goods and added items to what was already offered. My DD said they were really good (muffins, cookies, coffeecake, hamburger rolls, even ice cream cones). They recently taste tested GF pasta and it was a hit so now they’re offered GF pasta one night a week. My DD enjoyed it and she never actually liked pasta… </p>

<p>My DD says the school provides menus listing all ingredients on every item so it’s easy to read and decide if the food item is appropriate. If she’s unsure, she just asks. Seems the staff is careful about cross-contamination and very helpful/considerate and open to discussing these issues. Separate toaster for GF items (which are kept in a separate refrigerator that the GF kids have access to). Lots of fruit and veggies offered and my DD eats lots of chicken. I asked about sandwiches and my DD said she hasn’t had them (has never been a fan) but she could. I’m fairly sure Tufts offers GF pizza also.</p>

<p>What’s also nice is going out to eat with friends hasn’t been an issue - seems she can find GF food at most places. On parent’s weekend, we had a choice of several restuarants with GF menus and we wound up getting GF pizza in Cambridge one day. Only issue was choice was limited to maybe 3-4 kinds and she had to order a med size (took some back to her dorm fridge for snacking). The pizza place even offered a GF choc dessert. I think there’s a Whole Foods nearby too which should have GF food. And I believe there are GF frozen yogurt places nearby as well. And then there’s Boston a short T ride away where anything can be found.</p>

<p>The downside: I think she will get sick of the food faster since she has fewer options but most kids get tired/bored after awhile. She certainly can eat healthy and enjoy it. She has always liked fruits and veggies so she seems content. Her only complaint is that she can’t eat the french fries (one of her favorite things). Apparently Tufts has a separate frier for vegetarian food so it would be too much to have a 3rd frier for GF. Not a big deal. I’m sure I’ll be asked to make french fries over Thanksgiving. Since she has a full kitchen on her dorm floor, I suggested she make some fries (or other GF food) and she just rolled her eyes indicating she didn’t really need to go to the trouble = apparently she isn’t starving.</p>

<p>This is one awesome list of foods. Wonderful @ Shanghai Mom!!!</p>

<p>There is a website which posts user reviews of gluten free friendly restaurants which is trying to develop a section of reviews of gluten free dining at colleges. The url is gluten free travel site .com (all one word, no spaces). There is a link that is somewhat hard to see at the bottom right of the page, where you can see all reviews posted thus far, and you can also add your own reviews. I have no financial connection with this website, it is just something my family has used. </p>

<p>My daughter, a high school senior, also has celiac and we have tried to meet with dining services when we visited. Vassar seemed to have one of the best set ups, and the dining service manager seemed really accommodating; same with Skidmore. In fact, at Skidmore, there were bins in the kitchen area for each student with food restrictions, where students could store special foods. However, as others have mentioned, it is easy to talk the talk, but much harder to implement a program that has some variety and where there aren’t a lot of problems with cross contamination.</p>

<p>Re: post from Rodney about Elon; page 1 (I can’t figure out how to quote it – new at this)</p>

<p>Rodney, I was so excited to read your post. Elon is #1 on my daughter’s list anyway, and this is like icing on the cake. Would love to talk to you about it, but the system won’t let me PM you (I don’t have enough posts yet). How has your daughter done there since your post. Has the gluten free dining worked for her? Problems with cross contamination? Any other insights?</p>

<p>I will try to PM you.</p>

<p>Thank you rodney for your help. We visited Elon and were very impressed with their GF offerings (as well as everything else). D has been admitted there ED for fall of 2013. It’s so nice to know that she’ll be able to eat well!</p>

<p>Also, our S is GF (and dairy-free and soy-free), diagnosed halfway through college. He’s at Vanderbilt and has had a great experience working with food service. He says he’s always been able to find great food and has not become bored with it or gone hungry.</p>

<p>Cornell does a great job on G-F dining, I have heard from someone with celiac disease who goes there.</p>

<p>When we were at American there was quite a bit of food labeled gluten free. The mark GF options on the daily menus. I can’t help wondering though why they don’t have meat on the grill that’s GF. I realize burgers may be adulterated, but chicken? <a href=“http://www.cafebonappetit.com/menu/your-cafe/americanuniversity[/url]”>http://www.cafebonappetit.com/menu/your-cafe/americanuniversity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Rutgers has plenty of GF foods. They offer GF mac & cheese, stuffed shells & pizza, all of which D1 believes to be Amy’s. You just need to ask the manager when you arrive & they fix it for you. I believe you can call ahead to speed up the process.</p>

<p>St. Olaf is very diligent about providing safe food for every student. They have a GF station with several options every meal and GF-only toasters. I was once at dinner with the college president, and a mom told him about her DD’s health issues, including several food allergies. The prez asked her what the dining hall manager was doing to meet the student’s needs. The mom told him that her DD had the manager’s cell number. He would bake her food that was safe, but if she ever wanted to eat something else, she was instructed to call him on his cell, and he would come and cook it for her. That brought a smile to my face and my heart!
Btw, I just finished reading “Wheat Belly”. Anyone else read this book?</p>

<p>At UC Berkeley, [url=&lt;a href=“http://caldining.berkeley.edu/special_needs.html]CalDining[/url”&gt;http://caldining.berkeley.edu/special_needs.html]CalDining[/url</a>] serves vegetarian, vegan, kosher, halal, allergen-free, or gluten-free [url=&lt;a href=“http://services.housing.berkeley.edu/FoodPro/dining/static/todaysentrees.asp]meals[/url”&gt;http://services.housing.berkeley.edu/FoodPro/dining/static/todaysentrees.asp]meals[/url</a>] with a side of militancy. ;)</p>

<p>My son is at Case Western and they have specific gluten free entrees in addition to foods that are naturally gluten free. The menus are color coded for dietary needs. Here is the link to the current menu.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cafebonappetit.com/menu/your-cafe/case[/url]”>http://www.cafebonappetit.com/menu/your-cafe/case&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Does anyone have a child with Celiac Disease at Syracuse University? My daughter will be attending in the fall and any insight/advice would be greatly appreciated. I plan on contacting Disability Services and Food Services, but I was hoping to get some firsthand feedback on the gluten free experience there.</p>