Buffet when someone has food allergy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
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.

This is what gets me. I know plenty of people with a range of allergies, and none of them would want their safe food to be more easily accessible.

[Anonymous]

Mom should’ve communicated this much better. It’s odd and uncomfortable to read as someone with food allergies.

[Anonymous]

Severe food allergy parent here, and we would have packed our own food. People without allergies generally are not vigilant enough where anaphylactic allergies are at issue - you need to pay attention to not just ingredients but also cross contamination both in manufacturing and preparation. Someone failing to notice a cross contamination notice on a package or using a dairy or nut contaminated serving spoon could be fatal.

[Anonymous]

I think details matter in this one. Was it just close family? I’m kind of in team mom, just because it seems like something else is going on (eg she had repeatedly asked not to have some dishes next to others and no one was listening). Idk. With better communication, I would have been 100% fine saying to my guests “we are keeping all the food with nuts in the other room”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Thanksgiving, one of the guests (teen) in attendance had a bunch of food allergies. The kid's mom kept setting up the buffet line with only foods that her kid could eat. She wanted the foods with the offending ingredients to stay in the kitchen instead of on the serving table. We'd move the platters to the buffet line, where we thought they belonged, and she'd move them back again until someone finally realized what was going on and at that point she explained what she was doing and why.

Is this normal procedure when there's someone present with food allergies? I've never had this happen at a group dinner before, even though I have other friends with allergies. In fact, we have one very close friend who does sleepovers and she has severe allergies to lots of things. Usually, our friends with allergies just ask lots of questions about which dishes are gluten free or nut fee and only take from those dishes that are safe for them. They don't expect everyone else to have to go to another room to get the "good" food that has the dairy or pecans or other special ingredients that people are looking forward to eating for the holiday.

Have I been doing it wrong all this time, or was this mom the one who was asking too much of the hosts and guests? Is everyone else supposed to be inconvenienced for one person? Couldn't the mom have just made the kid's plate and served it directly to them or is it rude to expect this of them? With our other friend whose kid has allergies, the little girl has learned to ask the right questions about foods and protect herself, and she's a couple of years younger than the Thanksgiving guest. By senior year of high school, shouldn't kids know how to do this for themselves? This kid is presumably going to leave for college in a year and needs to be able to figure this out on their own.

This sounds to me like there may have been a miscommunication, though I'm not sure. OP, were you the host, or were you a guest helping with setting up? If you were helping set up and the teen's mom were helping set up, is it possible that the host agreed to have the "offending" dishes in the kitchen but hadn't communicated that yet? Presumably, if that was the plan, it would have been announced before people started getting their food so everyone would know to go to the kitchen for more food, and then the teen's mom's actions make a lot more sense (as do yours, if you didn't know the agreement).

[Anonymous]

Celiac here. I do one of the following:

1. Pre eat at home and eat nothing at the function.

2. Bring my own food and eat my own food.

Understand I can get sick from contamination and that means if some is serving carrot sticks that they have chopped on a cutting board that they also cut french bread on then it will make me sick.

Please note that I have been to functions where I brought food and put it on the buffet and it was eaten first so now I bring extra and keep it in a cooler in the car for me. Usually my foods actually get eaten first because they are prepared from scratch and fresh vs. something someone brings that is processed.

In general "buffet" anything is not safe for celiacs due to people moving spoons from safe foods to foods containing gluten.

[Anonymous]

Sounds cra-cra to me. Anyone with food allergies knows to eat in advance or bring your own "safe" food.

[Anonymous]

Some people just think their kid is the center of everyone else's world.

If the person has a food allergies I would not move other people's food. If the child is young, the woman could've gotten the food for her own child. If it is a life threatening allergy, she could've just done the same. If it is a teen and the teen is capable of getting her own food and speak, she needs to manage it herself.

What she can do is mention that her child has a food allergy. Leave it at that. If it is a severe allergy, i would definitely mention that to the host and even with guests as a simple few sentences. If people want to ask more, they will. If they don't want to ask more, leave it at that.
Also, bring food that you know your child can eat. Don't expect everything to be allergy free.

If it is a severe severe allergy, for example, have a reaction when you smell peanut butter, or walk under a walnut tree, that is different. Severe reactions should be mentioned to the host. Still, educate her own child to avoid all food if they do not know how it's made and no ingredients listed.
If the child is invited to a party, mention that there is an allergy issue. The host can choose to accommodate which is the right thing to do, or say hey, i don't know how to to accommodate, can you bring your child food.
Normally, if you have a child who has allergies, you just offer to bring their own food or even extra to share.

What I don't like is when the host has known you for over 5 years and do not know how to accommodate to the allergy child each time. Yet, the child's parent has always accommodate to the other family. So, that is not reciprocated.

[Anonymous]

As a mom with two children with severe peanut and tree nut allergies, I would ***talk with my hosts*** about what was being served, and would work with my husband and my hosts to make a plan.

I would never in a million years move things around without asking. That was very rude.

An above-and-beyond hosting move on your part would be to talk to the parents/person with an allergy before the day of to get on the same page, especially if it's a life-threatening 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.

Hello, it's called TALK WITH YOUR HOSTS ABOUT YOUR NEEDS, not just move stuff and cause confusion.