Travelling in the U.S.A. with celiac disease

Travelling in the U.S.A. with celiac disease

I guess it is due to the mode of travel that we chose that it all went so well. The RV had a kitchen with a fridge-freezer and even a microwave. We went to restaurants at first but non of the children liked that very much, so even the two that could choose from the whole menu prefered to eat «at home». Had we been restrained to restaurants we would have had a hard time, since it is all about burgers, pizza and pancakes. The same chains with the same type of food are everywhere and (unlike me) Lisa was not happy with having to choose from the salad-menu. Even though Lisa cannot have soy-sauce, we mostly chose Asian restaurants, where they fixed rice with vegetables and meat for her. We had a hard time explaining the problem, though, either because they had not heard of «gluten» or simply did not speak English well. At Panda Express they kept informing us about the sodium content of their meals. At a fancy restaurant we had absolutely no problem ordering especially, but that price range was not a daily option.

In supermarkets we found that the product-range varied even within one chain. We were at a Walmart that did not even have apples and very little fresh produce in general – actually nothing they had was fresh (– but  the candy-section lacked nothing).  At another Walmart it was a whole different story! Albertsons had the best selection of gluten free foods such as bread, waffles, cookies and pasta. They had it all in one place, whereas other supermarkets had the gluten free products where the regular products of the same kind were.

The labeling system is inhomogenous, so even though some foods were labeled with symbols or had allergy information, not much time was saved compared to home.