<p>I'd like to know what college dining accommodations you or your child received?</p>
<p>My son has Crohn's disease and will be living in a dorm, and eating on the meal plan. Schools starts on 9/4. He's hoping to find enough food that he can tolerate. I know there are others on CC with celiac, food allergies, IBD. Did you manage to find food on a meal plan? Did you get accommodations? If so, what? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>The cafeterias at umich were willing to prepare special meals for me in the event that nothing on the menu that day was appropriate for my allergies/IBS, I just had to let them know. We had a website online with the menus for the week that could show me the ingredients for everything they prepared. The menu was great, but the special meals ultimately ended up not working out so well for me, because almost every day there WAS something on the menu that in theory I could eat but it wasn’t something I was WILLING to eat… so I ended up eating a lot of bagels, which as you might imagine didn’t do great things for the IBS. Before agreeing that that accommodation will work, consider how picky your eater is. :P</p>
<p>I think Emaheevul07 hit the nail on the head. Most colleges do have available food to accommodate most allergies and issues, but the hammer meets the nail as to whether the person wants to eat that particular menu item.</p>
<p>I hope you’ve had a chance to see the dining hall, in advance. My kids have extraordinary dining services, multiple stations, a pretty complete range of choices. Where I worked this summer, it was miserable. </p>
<p>In the first examples, he’d only ccasionally need an adjustment. In the latter, he’d be sunk. You can call Dining Services and ask how closely they support dietary needs. See if he needs a medical note. Good luck.</p>
<p>He can’t eat things with sauces or spices, raw vegetables, many fruits, seeds,nuts, oily things…and he should eat a lot of protein.</p>
<p>This is his sophomore year but first year with Crohn’s, so he knows what’s available in dining, and IS worried.</p>
<p>Contact the director of dining facilities and explain the situation. Your DS isn’t the only one with special dining needs. My friend and her DD have Celiacs. Her DD is a freshman at UD. She contacts them and lets them know when she will eat (this is the hassle part) and they will prepare a special meal for her. She can decide whether to eat from the regular choices, but with cross contamination she has to be very careful.</p>
<p>Plan to meet personally with the director or head chef of the dining facility and speak with them in person. They will probably have plans already in place for special diets and will be happy to help your DS stay healthy.</p>
<p>We’ve been in contact with the dietician who coordinates with dining on these issues. Thus far, it doesn’t seem like they will make anything special for him. It’s good to know that they did for your friend’s daughter. I will be back in touch with him, and try the director of dining. I may give my son a few days to identify all of the issues.</p>
<p>If the dining director doesn’t come through for you, you can speak with the housing/residence director, who generally falls a bit higher on the totem pole, but in the same arena. (IME, their focus is more holistic than the dining folks.) Or the disabilities coordinator. Technically, Crohn’s falls under one section of the ADA, but I don’t know how much colleges are required to do. There are some good web sites about Crohn’s and college life. Even offering him sliced deli meats and veggies he can tolerate (and microwave, plain) and canned fruits is something. Good luck.</p>
<p>Maybe have him keep a food diary of what he eats for a week at home and when he eats out (if he does that sort of thing) and use that to compare to the menus from the dining hall when you converse with the dining director. Every college we’ve seen has multiple dining venues and a huge variety of available food either made to order or cafeteria style. How did you handle lunches in high school? Did he bring his own or eat cafeteria food? That might be another clue.</p>
<p>He’s been eating pbj with natural creamy pb sandwiches. Lunch is probably the least challenging. </p>
<p>He eats cereal at breakfast and said that the dining hall choices were not good, either sweet or fibery of rice puffs stuff. </p>
<p>Dinner will be difficult as will finding a way to get fruits, veggies and protein he can eat. He can eat melon or bananas if they’re quite ripe but he said the dining hall fruit is usually not ripe. Canned fruit without sweeteners might work. He can eat a few very well cooked veggies plain and can tolerate greens juiced. He can eat plain chicken but not with coating, or pepper or garlic.</p>
<p>Disabilities says talk to dining. Dining suggests disabilities… I think at this college, folks who have issues with eating end up living in an apt. My son would prefer not to shop and cook for himself because of the time involved.</p>
<p>I still think if you have him keep a food diary for one week you’ll have a clear picture. He should write down exactly what cereal he’s eating, what kind of bread he’s using for sandwiches. Bananas are easy as he can grab some from the dining hall to bring back to the room until they are ‘ripe enough’ to eat. Check to see if they have a stir fry station at the college, that might be a great solution for some dinners or the veggie issue. I think if he keeps a diary you will have a clearer picture of what he is actually eating and might be able to put a plan in place with dining services…make sure he is along for that conversation so that you aren’t the conduit with the outcome a bunch of pessimism from your son and I don’t mean that in a cranky way, it’s just that he should hear that conversation himself.</p>
<p>I’ll add, I have a son with alot of food issues and I heard much whining that “there’s nothing here I can eat” from him freshman year. He has a prescription for his issues and i made sure he never ran out as a precaution. He did end up grilling alot of chicken on the dorm room grill and the George foreman he was able to have in his room and he moved out the dorms for the rest of his college time. Fortunately this son works in restaurants and loves making his own food, he made (and fed) alot of friends over the dorm grill, but I think all you can do is help facilitate dining services helping him find out what there is he CAN eat and then back off and let him figure it out.</p>
<p>The reason I am worrying here is that his BMI is <3rd percentile so it’s important for him to get enough food.</p>
<p>You’re presenting an impossible problem… he knows what’s in the dining hall and that it won’t suit him, disabilities wont help, and it sounds like the dietician won’t help. He doesn’t want to cook for himself. He has to work with what options are available to him. It seems that his only options are to find dorm-cooking friendly meals to either replace or <em>supplement</em> his dining hall options, or to start cooking for himself… the time involved with the latter seems more daunting than it really is. He has to weigh how stressful making time to cook is against how stressful it will be likely eating some things he shouldn’t because there aren’t other options. I had to deal with the latter because I didn’t have money for groceries and it was hell on earth… I don’t recommend it.</p>
<p>Ultimately I ended up eating the one or two non-gross cafeteria meals a week that I wasn’t allergic to, and I made myself stuff I could make in the microwave the rest of the time-- lots of pastas, soup, and sandwiches on those desperate nights the cafeteria couldn’t help me. It was that or not eat. Not a great position to be in, but also not a difficult decision. It was not difficult to keep some fresh fruit, cereal, and sandwich fixings in my dorm room-- he should at least be able to easily handle breakfast, lunch, and snacks if he has a mini fridge of some kind. As for dinners, something has to give. He might have to get creative and maybe invest a little more time into feeding himself than he would like, but now that he is sick this is a fact of life for him now. I sympathize, my allergies were a major source of stress for me during college and learning to deal with it isn’t easy. But it won’t be any easier to find time to cook when he graduates and starts working full time, this is just something he may have to adjust to. If the cafeteria won’t work there’s nothing he can do to make it work, and he still has to eat.</p>
<p>Yes, if dining doesn’t work, he’ll have to move to an apt and shop and cook. </p>
<p>When he is actually trying to get food at dining, he may be able to determine minor requests that dining will be able to accommodate. Alternatively, he may see that it’s more of a hassle to search for food everyday at dining and would be better to shop and cook himself.</p>
<p>Even at my d’s very small college, it has not been a problem. D was very recently advised to give up gluten because of IBS. She’s also lactose intolerant. So far, no problems. She usually only has one option per meal, instead of 3 or 4 like the other students, but there is always something to eat. The only thing she really misses is dessert. She got one no- bake cookie the day, and you’d have thought she’d struck gold. All she needed to do to have her needs met was meet with the dining hall director. </p>
<p>Now, not every meal is delicious, but I would be surprised if any facility wouldn’t be willing to respond to reasonable requests. Now if you go to food service with a list of needs AND a list of preferences, you might not get everything you want.</p>
<p>I don’t know what area of the country your son’s school is in, but one additional option might be an apartment supplemented with a personal chef that will create a set of meals for the week (lunch and dinner or dinner only) that can be frozen and reheated. It is more expensive than cooking for yourself, but isn’t time intensive. Not the same situation, but a number of people at my work do this because both spouses work full-time and they wanted to spend less time in the kitchen and more time with the kids. These are not rich people by any stretch of the imagination. In another case, I have someone who works for me that hires someone to do the food shopping and prep work (lots of chopping of vegetables for traditional Indian meals), but she does the cooking. Once again, not knowing what area of the country you’re in, this could be around the same cost as a university meal plan.</p>
<p>It’s OK to worry but your son will be feeding himself or choosing from menu items for many years to come. My son was only ten when our physician decided to give him a prescription strength medication. He looked my son in the eye and asked him if he knew when he wasn’t feeling well and my son said “sure.” He asked him if he knew what foods made him feel bad and he said “well yeah.” The physician told him to keep his medication on hand and to take it when he started not to feel well. I started to say something and the physician looked at me and said “Don’t worry mom, he knows what he needs to do and he doesn’t want to feel miserable so he’ll do the right thing.” He was ten, I was freaked out but kids learn at a very young age how to manage insulin and when to eat and what to eat day in and day out. Kids learn at very young age to put in contacts. They learn at a young age about Epi pens and how to use them if necessary. Your son will learn how to find food that won’t bother him. Learn what he needs to keep on hand in his room for when food isn’t there. He’ll be fine. You can help him become more aware of what the dining services had. Start with what can he eat and not what can’t he eat and perhaps the dining service director will be more forthcoming. You can send him his favorite peanut butter and bread and whatever he loves in care packages on a regular basis! My son is now a college graduate and on his own, but when he’s home I always ask him how he’s feeling if he still uses the medicine…etc. etc. that part never stops. Because he spent so many years working in restaurants I know he occasionally eats things he shouldn’t and is sicker than a dog for a day or so, but it’s his life to live.</p>
<p>Your son could always keep nutritional drinks in his fridge in the dorm room for those times when he just can’t find something to eat, or is hungry when food is not available. If he needs to gain weight, you may have already considered these anyway for nighttime snack,etc. If you can’t get anywhere with dining director or disabilities, and you have made a list of simple foods your son can eat that won’t mean huge differences in practice for dining hall staff (like leaving a couple pieces of chicken plain and baking or boiling, listing the vegetables he can eat if boiled or microwaved, etc - ) then I would contact the Dean of Students. Most Deans are used to working with students who have needs, and should be able to communicate the importance of student retention, the ADA, etc, to the employees who may not get that they MUST help your son have food he can eat! I know that with a new diagnosis, your son is still adjusting, but he isn’t a little kid anymore, and will have to get used to figuring out what he can eat, and maybe even become a “big boy” enough to try new foods that could agree with him, be nutritious, but he has not yet been brave enough to try! I’ve known people in their later twenties who finally discovered they did like fish etc, afterall!</p>
<p>OP- does your son’s college have a Hillel with a Kosher meal plan? Many college’s with a Kosher meal plan have multiple food restrictions to deal with in addition to the religious restrictions- i.e. vegan/kosher, food allergies/kosher, etc. You may find the chef or food coordinator at Hillel much more sensitive and much more willing to attack the challenge of keeping your son healthy than the main dining hall folks. I know kids with severe nut allergies, dairy sensitivities, problems tolerating gluten, corn, etc. who do very well eating on the kosher meal plan- not that those foods aren’t used, just that the chefs are more careful about cross-contamination, and very sensitive towards using (or eliminating) ingredients while still providing a protein sufficient diet.</p>
<p>Worth checking out.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions!</p>