Buffet when someone has food allergy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

+1. So sorry OP had to walk 10 extra steps from the dining room to the kitchen to get her “good” food (that the child can’t even enjoy). Why on Earth do you care about this? It’s unusual for a teen this age, but you have no idea what this family has and has not gone through. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

+1. So sorry OP had to walk 10 extra steps from the dining room to the kitchen to get her “good” food (that the child can’t even enjoy). Why on Earth do you care about this? It’s unusual for a teen this age, but you have no idea what this family has and has not gone through. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

No. It was rude and even ruder to do without asking the host.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

+1. So sorry OP had to walk 10 extra steps from the dining room to the kitchen to get her “good” food (that the child can’t even enjoy). Why on Earth do you care about this? It’s unusual for a teen this age, but you have no idea what this family has and has not gone through. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

No. It was rude and even ruder to do without asking the host.

+1. People may not have known dishes were missing.
Host wraps up the dinner party and nobody has touched several dishes. Waste of time for them. Why even host these people at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

+1. So sorry OP had to walk 10 extra steps from the dining room to the kitchen to get her “good” food (that the child can’t even enjoy). Why on Earth do you care about this? It’s unusual for a teen this age, but you have no idea what this family has and has not gone through. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Wrong. Guests may not ever remove foods from a host's table. The guest here was wrong. If she was worried about cross-contamination then she should have plated her child's food before everything had been moved to the buffet table. The guest was wrong in all counts.

My daughter has life-threatening food allergies and I would never have done what this woman did. In fact, I would have brought food for my daughter because I would have been worried about cross-contamination in the cooking process.

This rude guest was using the allergy as an excuse. Dimes to a dollar the kid doesn't have "real" allergies just strong food preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the weird part was not asking if they could do that. If that was really the accommodation needed, I as a host would be fine with it. But it's a strange thing to do on the spot.

My kid has food allergies. And as mentioned above, if the allergies are that severe, other cross contamination that happens during cooking and not just serving is a concern as well. If I am toasting the nuts for the stuffing and put the nut spatula down next to the spoon for the safe cranberry sauce, the nuts can contaminate the sauce before it even ends up on the table. And yes, by that age I expect most kids to be able to ask questions, advocate, or bring their own.

+1. It is super weird that this guest would not bring up concerns before the meal so you could be extra careful during the cooking process and then make a plan for how to do the buffet. My guess is that the husband was forcing her to go and she never wanted to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

+1. So sorry OP had to walk 10 extra steps from the dining room to the kitchen to get her “good” food (that the child can’t even enjoy). Why on Earth do you care about this? It’s unusual for a teen this age, but you have no idea what this family has and has not gone through. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Wrong. Why ok earth would you post such a stupid reply?

[Anonymous]

I wonder if there is more info. E.g. she came in with allergen free food and asked where to put it to keep it separate and someone pointed out that table.

The way it went down seems really weird but it’s equally weird that OP hosted people and didn’t ask about allergies and have a plan in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

+1. So sorry OP had to walk 10 extra steps from the dining room to the kitchen to get her “good” food (that the child can’t even enjoy). Why on Earth do you care about this? It’s unusual for a teen this age, but you have no idea what this family has and has not gone through. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

But this doesn’t even make sense. The mom wasn’t asking how the food was prepared. For all she knows the serving spoon for the mashed potatoes could have been on the same spoon rest as the roasted brussel sprouts. If the kid is so deadly allergic then he needs to bring his own food OR work it out with the host ahead of tim.

Hiding the other food is idiotic.

Think about it: From a purely selfish standpoint, if all the other guests see is the allergy safe food, that’s what they’re going to serve themselves. Then all the safe food is consumed super fast and your kid has nothing to eat if they want seconds.

Again, this is rude, but more than that it’s also incredibly stupid.

[Anonymous]

People with severe allergies to ubiquitous foods (soy, for example) should bring their own food to an event like this. The onus is on the person with the allergy (or their parent). That's what my SIL does with her two kids who have severe allergies to multiple common foods.

I have a food allergy, but it's to a fruit that's easy to spot and "cross-contact" isn't an issue. Only time it comes up is with desserts and breakfast garnishes at restaurants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised nobody thinks this is okay. I would assume the child has severe allergies and if somebody mixed serving spoons it is literally a matter of life or death for the child. I would never have trouble accommodating someone with an allergy. They kill. That is pretty anxiety-inducing. I would be grateful I didn't have to deal with it and be happy to make them feel safe. I would also have asked about allergies before hosting and not have included any foods that contained those allergens.

She could have asked to use the buffet line first, asked for the hosts to make a plate before hand, or brought her own food. You do not go into a persons house as a guest and start moving food around.

[Anonymous]

A good compromise might have been to have one very clearly delineated section of the buffet being the foods the child could eat. And I don’t think it’s harmful to tell people not to use specific utensils for specific foods. There’s always going to be some damn auntie or uncle that messes that up but by large most people can follow that rule. I have pretty significant allergies and tend to label my dishes in case others do as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good compromise might have been to have one very clearly delineated section of the buffet being the foods the child could eat. And I don’t think it’s harmful to tell people not to use specific utensils for specific foods. There’s always going to be some damn auntie or uncle that messes that up but by large most people can follow that rule. I have pretty significant allergies and tend to label my dishes in case others do as well.

Damn was meant to be dim here. Autocorrect. 😬

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good compromise might have been to have one very clearly delineated section of the buffet being the foods the child could eat. And I don’t think it’s harmful to tell people not to use specific utensils for specific foods. There’s always going to be some damn auntie or uncle that messes that up but by large most people can follow that rule. I have pretty significant allergies and tend to label my dishes in case others do as well.

Damn was meant to be dim here. Autocorrect. 😬

Damn works just fine...because those aunties and uncles that are dim, are usually referred to "damn aunt carol"

I like to host events, and daughter and friends have their allergies, religious, veggie, etc... no nuts, someone cant eat port, someone cant eat beef and so on. I'm super careful during prep and i'm 100% certain about no cross contamination. I do my best to ensure that there is little chance of cross contamination (each plate/bowl has it own serving utensil) when the food is set out but the chance is always there...

this parent was wrong to remove the allergic food from the buffet line. end of story. she should have asked if she could have segregated the allergen free stuff to its only little section in the buffet line... and in a pinch, make up the plate or be first in line....

[Anonymous]

A teenager should be able to put a plate of food that's appropriate for their restrictions without an adult intervening.

If we were talking about a little kid, I'd understand mom hovering to make sure the kid didn't go back to the buffet and grab something that wasn't safe for them. But not rearranging the whole buffet! That's weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the weird part was not asking if they could do that. If that was really the accommodation needed, I as a host would be fine with it. But it's a strange thing to do on the spot.

My kid has food allergies. And as mentioned above, if the allergies are that severe, other cross contamination that happens during cooking and not just serving is a concern as well. If I am toasting the nuts for the stuffing and put the nut spatula down next to the spoon for the safe cranberry sauce, the nuts can contaminate the sauce before it even ends up on the table. And yes, by that age I expect most kids to be able to ask questions, advocate, or bring their own.

Agree completely! If someone took me aside when they arrived or called me in advance, I would be 100% happy to check and double check dishes and serving spoons, etc. Removing dishes from a table without notifying someone is just weird.

And if the allergy is as life threatening as a nut spatula next to a cranberry spoon, then a busy, chaotic holiday dinner is not going to be safe no matter what. You simply can't keep an eye on every single dish all the time. It sucks, but the teenager would probably be best off with dishes from their own home that never went into the communal kitchen/buffet line.