nighttowll
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2013
There isn’t a whole lot of information out there about allergies and Universal restaurants, so I wanted to post a bit about our experiences recently in the hopes that maybe it will help others.
Over the summer, I was living with my sister in Fl, so we went to the parks together quite a bit. Luckily, I don’t have any allergies or food restrictions because she has enough for the both of us.
For those of you who don’t care about her personal allergy background, you can skip the below and jump straight to the reviews in the third post.
I’m not going to go into detail about all her health issues, but I will try to explain a little about her food issues for context. She doesn’t have typical “allergic” reactions to foods such as a rash or trouble breathing, so thankfully, we don’t have to worry about cross contamination causing anaphylaxis. However, certain foods can make her physically sick and cause other health problems I couldn’t even begin to explain as I’m not a Dr and her list of medical issues is long and complex. My point is every one of the foods she isn’t supposed to eat is a restriction a team of doctors has placed on her. These are foods she has a documented physical reaction to. This isn’t a diet or life style choice she’s making.
However, since trace amounts one time don’t have a large impact, she sometimes has to compromise. For instance, if a dish comes out containing both foods she can and cannot have, for the most part, she can simply remove the forbidden food and eat the safe food without any major issues. It would be better if the food wasn’t contaminated, but in her situation, as long as that doesn’t happen frequently, she’ll be ok. That doesn’t mean she is ok to do that repeatedly or that enough of a specific food won’t make her sick or that even trace amounts over time won’t add up to cause problems. But in moderation, cross contamination is ok in her case. Even eating a small trace amount of a food she is allergic to is ok, if the alternative would be to not eat at all which would cause other worse problems for her. She tries to minimize this happening, but sometimes menus and dishes that seem safe really aren’t after you speak with the chef. They contain what I call “invisible” foods, and you are left with choosing the option that contains the least number of these.
Ok, so let me stop for a second and explain what I mean by “invisible” foods. This is my own little term I’ve made up because it just makes sense to me. These are foods that like an invisible illness you can’t see and have no idea they are there unless someone else explicitly tells you. What’s worse is they can pop up in even the most benign safe sounding dish.
You’ve got your traditional invisible substances, things like gluten, soy, and dairy. These are pretty straight forward as you don’t expect to be able to see them in a dish but are very annoying since unless the restaurant provides allergy information up front, you’ve got no way to know if they are present or not.
Then, you’ve got whole foods that traditionally you would think would be easy to avoid. These can be any whole food, a vegetable, fruit, nut, or meat, but when a part of one of these is used in cooking, it can become invisible. For instance, let’s say you are allergic to apples. You check the menu before going to the restaurant, and there are plenty of apple free entrees on it. However, you tell the chef you are allergic to apples, and he proceeds to tell you that all of their meat is actually marinated in a sauce that contains apple juice and some of their vegetables are also cooked with a dried apple spice. It sounds crazy, but that’s the kind of stuff that really causes my sister issues. Especially, if it turns out that all the entrees we thought were safe for her actually aren’t and contain multiple invisible foods she is allergic to. This is the type of situation where she might have to pick the entree that has only one invisible food as opposed to all the others that have multiple.
So, that’s basically where we are coming from food restriction wise. It won’t kill her if she has a small amount of something she isn’t supposed to have. It might make her sick, depending on what and how much, but she’ll live. However, it does really upset her if she has to eat something she knows isn’t good for her. She tries very hard to follow her doctors instructions and eat only what she is supposed to eat.
As far as the specific foods she is allergic to, she has a long list her doctors have asked her not to eat. There’s no way I will remember everything, but I’ll try to list as many as I can remember.
Gluten
Soy
Peanuts
Corn
Potatoes
Bell peppers
Mushrooms
Lettuce
Watermelon
Strawberries
Bananas
Apples
Imitation butter
Plus everything else I’m forgetting!
Thankfully, dairy is ok. She has to be careful with quantity but used in cooking it is ok. Drinking a whole glass of milk probably wouldn’t be a great idea.
The four worst offenders are soy, corn, potatoes, and bell peppers, in that order. Speaking in general, not just about Universal, everything has soy or corn syrup or both in it, and the number of foods that contain potato starch really surprises me as well. It also doesn’t help that corn and potatoes seem to be the go to alternatives for creating gluten free products. Gluten itself, though, has been easy to avoid. It’s such a trendy thing right now that gluten free is the one thing we easily find everywhere and is usually clearly marked on almost all menus. The downside I have noticed is that basically no one is concerned with cross contamination. This is not an issue for my sister, but I can see how it would be for those who suffer severe reactions. Bell peppers have been the other surprise that keeps turning up in dishes. I guess it’s such an inexpensive way to flavor things. We picked up a box of rice the other day, read the ingredients on the back, and... bell peppers. They crop up in everything!
Over the summer, I was living with my sister in Fl, so we went to the parks together quite a bit. Luckily, I don’t have any allergies or food restrictions because she has enough for the both of us.
For those of you who don’t care about her personal allergy background, you can skip the below and jump straight to the reviews in the third post.
I’m not going to go into detail about all her health issues, but I will try to explain a little about her food issues for context. She doesn’t have typical “allergic” reactions to foods such as a rash or trouble breathing, so thankfully, we don’t have to worry about cross contamination causing anaphylaxis. However, certain foods can make her physically sick and cause other health problems I couldn’t even begin to explain as I’m not a Dr and her list of medical issues is long and complex. My point is every one of the foods she isn’t supposed to eat is a restriction a team of doctors has placed on her. These are foods she has a documented physical reaction to. This isn’t a diet or life style choice she’s making.
However, since trace amounts one time don’t have a large impact, she sometimes has to compromise. For instance, if a dish comes out containing both foods she can and cannot have, for the most part, she can simply remove the forbidden food and eat the safe food without any major issues. It would be better if the food wasn’t contaminated, but in her situation, as long as that doesn’t happen frequently, she’ll be ok. That doesn’t mean she is ok to do that repeatedly or that enough of a specific food won’t make her sick or that even trace amounts over time won’t add up to cause problems. But in moderation, cross contamination is ok in her case. Even eating a small trace amount of a food she is allergic to is ok, if the alternative would be to not eat at all which would cause other worse problems for her. She tries to minimize this happening, but sometimes menus and dishes that seem safe really aren’t after you speak with the chef. They contain what I call “invisible” foods, and you are left with choosing the option that contains the least number of these.
Ok, so let me stop for a second and explain what I mean by “invisible” foods. This is my own little term I’ve made up because it just makes sense to me. These are foods that like an invisible illness you can’t see and have no idea they are there unless someone else explicitly tells you. What’s worse is they can pop up in even the most benign safe sounding dish.
You’ve got your traditional invisible substances, things like gluten, soy, and dairy. These are pretty straight forward as you don’t expect to be able to see them in a dish but are very annoying since unless the restaurant provides allergy information up front, you’ve got no way to know if they are present or not.
Then, you’ve got whole foods that traditionally you would think would be easy to avoid. These can be any whole food, a vegetable, fruit, nut, or meat, but when a part of one of these is used in cooking, it can become invisible. For instance, let’s say you are allergic to apples. You check the menu before going to the restaurant, and there are plenty of apple free entrees on it. However, you tell the chef you are allergic to apples, and he proceeds to tell you that all of their meat is actually marinated in a sauce that contains apple juice and some of their vegetables are also cooked with a dried apple spice. It sounds crazy, but that’s the kind of stuff that really causes my sister issues. Especially, if it turns out that all the entrees we thought were safe for her actually aren’t and contain multiple invisible foods she is allergic to. This is the type of situation where she might have to pick the entree that has only one invisible food as opposed to all the others that have multiple.
So, that’s basically where we are coming from food restriction wise. It won’t kill her if she has a small amount of something she isn’t supposed to have. It might make her sick, depending on what and how much, but she’ll live. However, it does really upset her if she has to eat something she knows isn’t good for her. She tries very hard to follow her doctors instructions and eat only what she is supposed to eat.
As far as the specific foods she is allergic to, she has a long list her doctors have asked her not to eat. There’s no way I will remember everything, but I’ll try to list as many as I can remember.
Gluten
Soy
Peanuts
Corn
Potatoes
Bell peppers
Mushrooms
Lettuce
Watermelon
Strawberries
Bananas
Apples
Imitation butter
Plus everything else I’m forgetting!
Thankfully, dairy is ok. She has to be careful with quantity but used in cooking it is ok. Drinking a whole glass of milk probably wouldn’t be a great idea.
The four worst offenders are soy, corn, potatoes, and bell peppers, in that order. Speaking in general, not just about Universal, everything has soy or corn syrup or both in it, and the number of foods that contain potato starch really surprises me as well. It also doesn’t help that corn and potatoes seem to be the go to alternatives for creating gluten free products. Gluten itself, though, has been easy to avoid. It’s such a trendy thing right now that gluten free is the one thing we easily find everywhere and is usually clearly marked on almost all menus. The downside I have noticed is that basically no one is concerned with cross contamination. This is not an issue for my sister, but I can see how it would be for those who suffer severe reactions. Bell peppers have been the other surprise that keeps turning up in dishes. I guess it’s such an inexpensive way to flavor things. We picked up a box of rice the other day, read the ingredients on the back, and... bell peppers. They crop up in everything!
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Because of course the menus list all of the ingredients! I know I can immediately tell if there’s soy, corn syrup, or gluten in a dish just by the name! Not to mention all the other invisible foods, I’d never expect to find. Universal’s next bit of advice if you aren’t happy with the first suggestion is to simply contact them or talk to a chef. As we found about 99% to 100% of most menus contained foods my sister couldn't eat, talking to the chef was the only real option, so I basically gave up on the research before hand, and we sort of winged it. This delivered mixed results.
