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A guide to peanut-free dining in Boston
By adamg on Fri, 04/22/2011 - 3:37pm
Steve Selnick has a severe allergy to peanuts. He's chronicling his experiences eating out on Peanut Free: Boston:
Knowing that my meal officially wasn't happening (cross contamination is one of the scariest things to me) the manager put the icing on the cake. He said that if I had an allergy so bad that I would have anaphylaxis (which I would) that I shouldn't be eating out ... at all.
So with this friendly display of allergy ignorance, I can't advise anyone with a peanut allergy to come anywhere close to P.F. Chang's.
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Comments
Allergy ignorance?
Having a peanut allergy is terrible, but a private business has no obligation to move the earth to accommodate a patron who has clearly opted to go there. Other than altruism, what's the motivation for a restaurant to expose themselves to potentially severely harming a customer through a simple mistake? It would be great if this was easy for the author, but of course it isn't and never would be. I really can't think poorly of any restaurant who simply tells this guy, sorry but no.
Given that the restaurant in
Given that the restaurant in question advertises themselves as friendly to people with allergies, I think the blogger has a point.
If you are going to offer an allergen-free menu, the appropriate response to patrons who have concerns is not "well, don't eat here, then." Either the restaurant's management should look into their food prep practices, or the chain should stop advertising their ability to serve allergic patrons.
It's a big selling point for P.F. Chang's in particular. This manager's response is way out of line.
Wasn't there
So I'm going to have to give both sides of the discussion the benefit of the doubt. The blogger is so allergic that he avoids peanut oilfumes. This is a Chinese restaurant. There are going to be peanuts, and a lot of them. And peanut oil. And peanut flour. The restaurant has made some attempts to accomodate people with peanut allergies, but cannot promise the kitchen 100% free from cross-contamination. We don't know how hard the blogger was inquiring about the kitchen's efforts to avoid cross-contamination, but if he mentioned "I could die" I'm not sure I can completely blame the manager for suggesting that perhaps this wasn't the best restaurant for the blogger.
I suspect both blogger and manager were doing their best to responsibly handle the situation. Unfortunately there wasn't going to be a happy outcome.
Agree completely. How can the
Agree completely.
How can the author expect a private business owner to cater to the 1.3% of the US population that has an allergy to peanuts?
Having that allergy must be terrible but you cannot expect others to make special accommodations for you.
When it's a matter of life or
When it's a matter of life or death, I think you can have some expectation to be accommodated for.
And this article he obviously wasn't upset that he couldn't eat there, it happens. He was just taken back by the way he was treated by the management staff.
1.3% of the US population?
You say that like that's a small number. 1.3% of the US population is nearly 4 million people. 1 in a 100 is not a tiny portion and accommodation is not especially difficult and if accommodation is not made its even less of a hassle to refrain from mocking the individual asking if they can be accommodated.
compared to 98.7 it's a
compared to 98.7 it's a pretty small number
0.0000003% is even smaller
That's your percentage of the US population.
Just because something seems really tiny doesn't mean it goes away. At in the schemes of a population of over 300 million, 1.3% is even tiny in the first place.
One in one hundred? That
One in one hundred? That would be one out of every three elementary school classrooms when I was growing up. I never heard about peanut allergies until after I was a grown man. Is this peanut allergy thing a new disease unleashed on the world? If not, why weren't kids dying every year in the Boston Public schools when I was a kid?
Why new?
Apparently, because of bad advice that became standard in pediatrics / obgyn in recent decades. Scared moms into avoiding early contact with allergens, which proceeded to produce kids who did not develop tolerance of allergens in utero / in infancy.
That's a guess, not an
That's a guess, not an answer. There is no solid evidence that it's true. There were always families that either did or didn't eat peanuts. Peanuts weren't dropped from Mars in 1980. So why weren't my classmates dying in 1965. I can pretty well guarantee that there was a peanut butter sandwich or ten in every classroom every day.
Allergies on the rise
Your observation is correct. Kids weren't dying of nut allergies in 1965 like they are today. The Center for Disease Control has documented a sharp recent increase in food allergies, but no one has been able to figure out why. But we are not making this up. My three-year-old was diagnosed with a peanut allergy. I saw first hand his scary reaction to the nut and saw the lab results with my own eyes.
Not too much to expect
If you actually read this guy's blog, you'd discover that what he is asking for really isn't too much to expect. Most establishments have no difficulty accommodating him. While a business can refuse service for a great many reasons, the flip side is that consumers get to take such refusals into consideration as well. Even without a peanut allergy, knowing the hostile approach they took with a customer makes me unlikely to go there. Especially for a chain restaurant, an awareness and respect for these issues isn't too much to expect. The restaurant showed this customer neither. They have that right, but we absolutely DO have the right to think poorly of them for it.
Business Travel
I was on a trip once where at least one meal meant abandoning the buffet and getting a sandwich across the street.
Not eating out was not a choice.
That's how arrogant that response is - you can't always buy, purchase, and store food to make due.
Let me fix that
Even worse is the case of a
Even worse is the case of a girl in Florida with severe peanut allergies. The school has accommodated her disability by asking other kids to wash their hands a couple times a day and wash their mouths after eating. Parents of the other kids are up in arms and suggest that this girl should forgo an education because their little snowflakes can't bear to wash their hands a few times a day.
Since when did we become a
Since when did we become a society where we have to change daily habits simply for the lowest common denominator. Maybe the parents should put the child with allergies to peanuts in a different school setting.
Seriously, for one person?
It is horrible that this poor girl has this life changing allergy, but I don't see how that becomes everyone else's problem.
Since when did we stop giving a fuck about our fellow man?
Really? Make the girl change schools? And to where?
My daughter spent seven years in a small elementary school with a girl with a peanut allergy. So she didn't get to take peanut-butter sandwiches to school - and we had to spend sheer seconds checking cookie packages for nuts when buying something for a class party. Amazingly, we survived the trauma.
Enough . . .
. . . to despair the species ain't it?
Never said we stopped "giving
Never said we stopped "giving a fuck about our fellow man", so what do you think? should we ban peanuts for everybody for the benefit the 1.3% of the population?
Apparently your daughter made it by, but what if one rogue student brought in a, gasp, P B &J? We would have to prosecute them!!!!
Perfect, lets band sugary alcohol drinks while we are at it too! Oh wait, the AG Marsha already beat us to it! You want Four Loco, sorry try again, what about "blast" by colt 45? Sorry, not available, the AG knows better than you or I and says you can't have it. Cause maybe a 16 year old with daddy's money might buy one of those instead of a red bull and vodka, that way Marsha can have her day gloating over a dead teenager saying she knew better than the rest of us. Darwinism will never have its day.
This is the slippery slope people. Apparently the government knows better than we do, and can spend your money better than you can.
Peanuts and soda are like apples and oranges
If you guzzle soda and develop diabetes, you did it yourself (let's forget for a second pervasive marketing, etc., etc.).
If you pour that soda on somebody who already has diabetes, you're not going to make their condition worse. You'll royally piss them off and they may take a swing at you, but their blood sugar isn't going to spike.
Peanuts are more akin to smoking - you could be affecting somebody else who has no choice in the matter. Only far more immediately - shock happens pretty quickly in somebody who's severely allergic. So it's more of a public health issue.
As for the specifics of my daughter's school. We're talking roughly 50 families that, for seven years, somehow managed to be careful out of concern for one kid (might have been more, I only know specifically about the one). And if one of them screwed up, well, that's why the school nurse had epinephrine pens.
No, we shouldn't ban peanuts for the 1.3% of the population that's allergic. But in a situation where you have a kid in close constant contact with other kids every day of the week? Yes, I'd rather have other kids take incredibly simple precautions rather than ostracizing that kid (speaking of whom, where would you send him or her? There is no School for the Peanut Impaired).
They should do it in such a
They should do it in such a way that the kids decide to do this to help out a schoolmate. That could be a great lesson.
Washing Your Hands Several Times A Day
I thought that was something we all should do anyway, as a self-serving act to avoid colds and flu. And wasn't there something about brushing our teeth after every meal?
Peanut Problem, or something worse?
First and foremost, allergic reactions to peanuts are ridiculously scary. Being allergic myself, knowing that there is a chance I could go into anaphylactic shock is never a good experience. Especially considering the last resort medicine, an epinephrine pen, could potentially give me a heart attack if administered too soon (although the chances are rare).
Now I don't set foot near PF Changs because I know how crazy their menu is. I don't think they should have to change there menu for the few of us out there, BUT, there is no reason that the manager should be so callous as to say "Don't eat out". Peanut allergies suck a lot, but it doesn't require living in a bubble. This is just an example of poor customer service.
And honestly, my bigger concern here is that they don't take the proper measures to clean out the pans that use peanut oil. I work in a restaurant, and if a customer, or worse a health inspector, saw us not taking all measures to clean our pans, we would get shut down for violations. Perhaps PF Changs has some slack because they are a chain, but if a manger told me they don't separate things out after they've been used, then I would have to assume they aren't keeping their kitchen very tidy in general. Dirty kitchens affect EVERYONE, not just us dorky allergic kids.
Oh, and the point of the blog is to help those of us with allergies find safe places to eat so that places like PF Changs don't have to accommodate for us. He wasn't asking for anything special. He just needed to know how they handle things so he wouldn't die. No special treatment required.
"the Archives of Internal
"the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2004 reported that the average person's chance of food-induced anaphylaxis is about 4 in 100,000 per year"
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/fitness/arti...
That's all food allergies. Most people who suffer with allergies do not suffer anaphylactic reactions. Fatal reactions are at the extreme end of the spectrum.