When anyone in your family has certain dietary restrictions, you have to account for them with each and every meal. If someone in your home is sensitive or allergic to gluten, then you might do only gluten-free grocery shopping to accommodate that. However, if you are trying to find places to eat out, then you need to know how to find gluten-free options for local dining so they can be safe eating away from home.
Dining Locally Free of Gluten
Eating out in your local area at restaurants can be possible while still adhering to a gluten-free diet if you take the right steps.
- Know What Constitutes Gluten: Several specific grains contain gluten. You need to know what they are so you can avoid them. However, you also need to watch out for potential cross-contamination as well.
- Use an App: There are lots of apps and websites you can use to look up potential places to eat out. They might let you sort by options including niche, menu, price, location, distance, and customer ratings. Some will also let you search by how gluten-free they are. Some will be entirely gluten-free, whereas others are going to just have gluten-free menu options you can order from.
- Look Up the Menus Online: If you already have specific restaurants in mind, then you should contact them directly. This is a good idea if you have places your family likes to eat but someone’s only recently started following a gluten-free diet.
- Contact the Restaurant Directly: Talk to a manager or someone in the kitchen about gluten-free dining options or what modifications they can make to dishes they have.
- Inform the Staff: No matter how much prep work you do finding restaurants or menu options, always make sure you let your server know about someone needing to eat gluten-free to be on the safe side.
You Can Still Dine on Chinese
Your family can enjoy healthy gluten free Chinese dining, even in states like Utah. This is a great option to have at your disposal because you can simultaneously keep anyone in your family who needs to eat gluten-free safe and healthy while letting everyone enjoy Chinese food.
Chinese restaurants are very popular across the country and for good reason. For starters, most of the cuisine is just so different than what people eat most days. Second, people can choose their own flavor profile, be it sweet, sour, salty, or something else. If you’re a parent, then you know the value of taking your kids to a place where they can always find something they like on the menu.
Why Eating Gluten-Free Is Important
Mayo Clinic says that in order to adhere to a diet free of gluten, a person has to avoid all wheat. There are also other grains they need to skip out on while picking substitutes that are still healthy and nutritious.
Gluten is itself a specific protein, one found in rye, barley, and wheat. It’s also in triticale, which is a cross of rye and wheat.
The whole point of a diet free of gluten is to manage symptoms and signs of medical conditions related to gluten. Celiac disease is the most prominent example. Avoiding gluten is crucial to disease and symptom management. Fortunately, in some cases, following a gluten-free diet for a year or more might restore a person’s ability to consume it without complications if their sensitivity is not high to start with.
Some who aren’t diagnosed with gluten-associated complications still follow a diet void of gluten. They do this in the belief that it improves their health, boosts their metabolism, and promotes weight loss. These particular health claims aren’t fully backed up by scientific research yet.
Balance Healthy Eating With Dining Out
Dining out has many benefits. Your family can enjoy time together outside the home, sample cuisine that doesn’t happen in your own kitchen, and not bother with cleaning up or cooking. When you can dine out and still eat gluten-free, then you can keep your family’s happiness and health in harmony.
