Jamie Oliver - what happened after I asked for help for children with Coeliac Disease and Food Allergies
Filed under:
Health
It has been quite a week! Between school runs, homework and
tonsillitis I found myself with the opportunity to speak out about the
challenges we face when eating out with our children who have Coeliac
Disease. An opportunity to address a celebrity chef whom I greatly
admire and respect, Jamie Oliver, in The Daily Telegraph
For
those of you who don't know Coeliac Disease is an auto immune disease
which causes an immune response that damages the gut. I won't get to too
technical but basically the villi, (little finger like protrusions) in
the gut swell up, causing a range of symptoms and preventing food being
absorbed properly. Our kids both get awful stomach pains, constipation,
headaches, fatigue and muscle aches just from eating a grain of Gluten.
That's the thing you see, with Coeliac Disease you can't have "just a
little bit" and be OK, you cannot eat any Gluten which means no cross
contamination - so different toasters, chopping boards, cooking utensils
- you get my point! Coeliac Disease is also a lifelong condition so my
kids will have this for rest of their lives! Any pizza and beer nights
when older will need to be gluten free.
I am the first to admit
that I am a lazy mum, I choose convenience over labour. I choose play,
chatting, and days out over cooking and cleaning. The time I have with
my kids is so fleeting that I chose to be in the moment with them
enjoying them, watching them grow and listening to the latest about Lego
Ninjago and Frozen. So this diagnosis has hit me
hard. They were diagnosed in September and I have spent the time since
then scrambling to get a hold on the day to day challenges they/we now
face. Dealing with the emotional impact it has had on the kids and
helping them come to terms with life long sentence biology has handed
them. My five-year-old daughter, has taken it OK, she's just young
enough to not realise. My son, who is seven, however has really
struggled as he is not able to eat his favourite foods anymore. As a mum
this has been hard. How do you begin to explain this to your children?
One
of the biggest challenges we have faced is eating out. Whist I do enjoy
cooking, eating out has been something we have always done as a family.
We would decide to stay out for dinner without thinking twice. Let me
talk you through what eating out is now like. My husband or I will phone
ahead, tell them the kids have Coeliac Disease and ask if they have
gluten free choices on the menu, they say yes, we tell the kids, then
off we go. Inevitably we arrive to find that whilst they do gluten free
for adults they don't for children. We then have to spend time finding
out what can be made into children's meals. We were once asked if we
would just order an adult main meal and share it between them! This is
not nice for the kids.
This is where Jamie Oliver comes in. We
were shopping in Cardiff and the kids asked to go to Jamie's Italian as
we hadn't been since diagnosis and we used to go all the time. We phoned
before we agreed to go and were assured that yes they cater for Coeliac
Disease. So you can imagine the utter disappointment when they didn't
cater for the kids. The waiter had to go back and forth to the kitchen
and then dinner was served with a helping of "we can't guarantee it's
gluten free." At this point we probably should have walked out but
stayed and took the chance; hind sight is a wonderful thing.
Jamie's
Italian have written to me since the article, they have apologized and
assured me that staff have all been recently trained. They have also
stated that my letter has made available to Jamie. However Jamie himself
has remained silent. I get it, I really do, by engaging me he makes it a
bigger story and he wants it to just go away. Here's the thing - I
would also like to ignore my children's Coeliac Disease and for it to
just go away - but it won't. Just like the other parents out there who
have kids with Coeliac disease or food allergies, this is something we
face day to day. Jamie could really make a difference in these kids'
lives by setting an example to other chefs and including an allergy menu
for his customers that are children, let's be honest if they already do
it for adults it's not going to be that much work to do it for kids.
This may seem like a small thing for you Jamie but it would make a
massive impact on a lot of people's lives.
tonsillitis I found myself with the opportunity to speak out about the
challenges we face when eating out with our children who have Coeliac
Disease. An opportunity to address a celebrity chef whom I greatly
admire and respect, Jamie Oliver, in The Daily Telegraph
For
those of you who don't know Coeliac Disease is an auto immune disease
which causes an immune response that damages the gut. I won't get to too
technical but basically the villi, (little finger like protrusions) in
the gut swell up, causing a range of symptoms and preventing food being
absorbed properly. Our kids both get awful stomach pains, constipation,
headaches, fatigue and muscle aches just from eating a grain of Gluten.
That's the thing you see, with Coeliac Disease you can't have "just a
little bit" and be OK, you cannot eat any Gluten which means no cross
contamination - so different toasters, chopping boards, cooking utensils
- you get my point! Coeliac Disease is also a lifelong condition so my
kids will have this for rest of their lives! Any pizza and beer nights
when older will need to be gluten free.
I am the first to admit
that I am a lazy mum, I choose convenience over labour. I choose play,
chatting, and days out over cooking and cleaning. The time I have with
my kids is so fleeting that I chose to be in the moment with them
enjoying them, watching them grow and listening to the latest about Lego
Ninjago and Frozen. So this diagnosis has hit me
hard. They were diagnosed in September and I have spent the time since
then scrambling to get a hold on the day to day challenges they/we now
face. Dealing with the emotional impact it has had on the kids and
helping them come to terms with life long sentence biology has handed
them. My five-year-old daughter, has taken it OK, she's just young
enough to not realise. My son, who is seven, however has really
struggled as he is not able to eat his favourite foods anymore. As a mum
this has been hard. How do you begin to explain this to your children?
One
of the biggest challenges we have faced is eating out. Whist I do enjoy
cooking, eating out has been something we have always done as a family.
We would decide to stay out for dinner without thinking twice. Let me
talk you through what eating out is now like. My husband or I will phone
ahead, tell them the kids have Coeliac Disease and ask if they have
gluten free choices on the menu, they say yes, we tell the kids, then
off we go. Inevitably we arrive to find that whilst they do gluten free
for adults they don't for children. We then have to spend time finding
out what can be made into children's meals. We were once asked if we
would just order an adult main meal and share it between them! This is
not nice for the kids.
This is where Jamie Oliver comes in. We
were shopping in Cardiff and the kids asked to go to Jamie's Italian as
we hadn't been since diagnosis and we used to go all the time. We phoned
before we agreed to go and were assured that yes they cater for Coeliac
Disease. So you can imagine the utter disappointment when they didn't
cater for the kids. The waiter had to go back and forth to the kitchen
and then dinner was served with a helping of "we can't guarantee it's
gluten free." At this point we probably should have walked out but
stayed and took the chance; hind sight is a wonderful thing.
Jamie's
Italian have written to me since the article, they have apologized and
assured me that staff have all been recently trained. They have also
stated that my letter has made available to Jamie. However Jamie himself
has remained silent. I get it, I really do, by engaging me he makes it a
bigger story and he wants it to just go away. Here's the thing - I
would also like to ignore my children's Coeliac Disease and for it to
just go away - but it won't. Just like the other parents out there who
have kids with Coeliac disease or food allergies, this is something we
face day to day. Jamie could really make a difference in these kids'
lives by setting an example to other chefs and including an allergy menu
for his customers that are children, let's be honest if they already do
it for adults it's not going to be that much work to do it for kids.
This may seem like a small thing for you Jamie but it would make a
massive impact on a lot of people's lives.
