Parent of current HS junior interested in UD for Chemistry. She has several severe food allergies - milk proteins, sesame, shellfish, peanuts, and most tree nuts. Does anyone have first hand knowledge of how well UD dining service handles special diets and food allergies? We have been told that what is written in school publications doesn’t not always reflect the day to day experience of the severely allergic individual. We were advised to talk directly to students with food allergies to get a real idea of how accommodating a school is. Any input would be most welcome!
My daughter is a freshman who was invited to live on campus this fall - yay!! They have a True Balance Station in two of their dining halls (only one is open right now) that is free of the 8 major allergens. I don’t know about sesame, though. My daughter has celiac disease and she loves being able to grab food from this station without having to play the 20 questions game with the server. She says there is a really great salad bar, too. They also will make food to order but students have to pre-order it before 5:00 am and set up times to pick it up so they are kind of bound to dining at those pre-arranged times. She has done this a few times and it has worked out OK for breakfast and lunch as she either goes alone to eat (she has to eat at strange times due to her class times) or brings them back to her room to eat. She doesn’t like to pre-order dinner as the time she chooses to get the food doesn’t always coincide with when her. The only thing she can’t eat is gluten and so far, so good! The dietician, Debbie, is AWESOME to work with and very responsive to emails. Diet factored into her college decision quite a bit and so far UD has been great! Chem lab is another story, though:( Hopefully you will have a chance to visit colleges before she applies, if the world opens up, and we highly recommend meeting with the dieticians during your tour and eating a meal in the dining hall.
@Topcat123 Thank you so much. This is SO helpful!! So tell me about Chem lab… 