Thread for allergy foods updates

[ls15]

hey everyone! I was the one that started this thread very concerned about the changes. I finally did my trip report and, to say the least, the food was nothing short of amazing. I did a lot of preparation beforehand but it was worth it!

Here is my review. Please let me know if you have questions!

http://lauriesadowski.wordpress.com...-vegan-2012-disney-world-trip-report-part-ii/

 

[kck182]

First thank you for taking the time to share this with everyone. What a great resource.

What do you suggest that we do to help make dessert a success for my little guy? Looks like you had lots of great options. We generally only get rice dream ice cream or sorbet. He is avoiding Milk and Eggs. That banana split looked awesome.

 

[kck182]

Just got off of the phone with special diets. THEY ARE TRYING TO FIX THIS!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the first conversation that I had where they said they are aware of the problem and looking for new vendors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Disney.

I hope it is in place before our trip in 23 Days but even if it's not I feel so much better.

 

[stackyallred]

Just got off of the phone with special diets. THEY ARE TRYING TO FIX THIS!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the first conversation that I had where they said they are aware of the problem and looking for new vendors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Disney.

I hope it is in place before our trip in 23 Days but even if it's not I feel so much better.

That is great news! Thanks for sharing.

 

[livndisney]

Just got off of the phone with special diets. THEY ARE TRYING TO FIX THIS!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the first conversation that I had where they said they are aware of the problem and looking for new vendors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Disney.

I hope it is in place before our trip in 23 Days but even if it's not I feel so much better.

They have been "fixing" it since December. According to what I have heard, vendor contracts were signed for a year-so it may be quite awhile before we see "improvement".

 

[ls15]

First thank you for taking the time to share this with everyone. What a great resource.

What do you suggest that we do to help make dessert a success for my little guy? Looks like you had lots of great options. We generally only get rice dream ice cream or sorbet. He is avoiding Milk and Eggs. That banana split looked awesome.

We didn't get many desserts because we weren't on the dining plan, but I would call in advance and see if they can do what they did for us. It also depends on where you are eating! Some are more accomodating than others.

If he can eat rice dream, ask the chef if they have any of the safe cookies or products he can have and make him a sundae or sandwich - at least something a little different. Most chefs are more than happy to!

 

[nfceagles]

First thank you for taking the time to share this with everyone. What a great resource.

What do you suggest that we do to help make dessert a success for my little guy? Looks like you had lots of great options. We generally only get rice dream ice cream or sorbet. He is avoiding Milk and Eggs. That banana split looked awesome.

My 6yo DS is milk, egg, and nut allergic so we probably see a lot of the same desserts. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream....

Are you getting anything with the ice cream? My DS usually gets chocolate sauce (Hershey's) and sprinkle with his. We have a 4yo with no FAs so I was worried on our last trip about her getting fancier desserts than DS. Well, the regular kids menu doesn't have very many choices for the "regular" kids either. Standard is a make your own sundae that consists of a dish of vanilla ice cream and small cups of sauce, sprinkles, and M&Ms. The only thing lacking from DS's dessert is the M&Ms.

One thing I do as "insurance" is carry a small Betty Crocker sprinkle bottle in my bag filled with some kind of ice cream topping. Chocolate chips, sprinkles, safe candies of any sort. Just in case all they can offer is plain ice cream. I've also used a small snack bag of mini Oreos as a back up topping. I have rarely had to use them, but they take up little space and give me peace of mind.

As long as your expectations about what they have on hand are realistic, don't be afraid to make suggestions.

Another dessert we ask for to mix things up is a root beer float. Every restaurant has root beer on tap and they almost all have tofutti or rice dream ice cream available. Nobody has ever offered it up without us asking, but they've never turned me down when I've asked if it was possible. DS LOVES them.

We also eat at Chef Mickey's every trip and they stock top 8 free cupcakes so that's at least 1 non ice cream dessert in the mix.

 

[kck182]

My 6yo DS is milk, egg, and nut allergic so we probably see a lot of the same desserts. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream....

Are you getting anything with the ice cream? My DS usually gets chocolate sauce (Hershey's) and sprinkle with his. We have a 4yo with no FAs so I was worried on our last trip about her getting fancier desserts than DS. Well, the regular kids menu doesn't have very many choices for the "regular" kids either. Standard is a make your own sundae that consists of a dish of vanilla ice cream and small cups of sauce, sprinkles, and M&Ms. The only thing lacking from DS's dessert is the M&Ms.

One thing I do as "insurance" is carry a small Betty Crocker sprinkle bottle in my bag filled with some kind of ice cream topping. Chocolate chips, sprinkles, safe candies of any sort. Just in case all they can offer is plain ice cream. I've also used a small snack bag of mini Oreos as a back up topping. I have rarely had to use them, but they take up little space and give me peace of mind.

As long as your expectations about what they have on hand are realistic, don't be afraid to make suggestions.

Another dessert we ask for to mix things up is a root beer float. Every restaurant has root beer on tap and they almost all have tofutti or rice dream ice cream available. Nobody has ever offered it up without us asking, but they've never turned me down when I've asked if it was possible. DS LOVES them.

We also eat at Chef Mickey's every trip and they stock top 8 free cupcakes so that's at least 1 non ice cream dessert in the mix.

Thanks for the suggestions. I really hadn't thought about bringing sprinkles. You are right it's mostly ice cream, ice cream, sorbet, ice cream

He loves the root beer floats and we always get one at the Parlor. I hadn't thought about it for dessert. We have gotten a milk shake at 50's prime time and a candy apple once at the drive in at HS.

I wish I had known about Chef Mickey's, 6 months ago they brought out a cupcake for my daughter's birthday and nothing for my son. He got a little sad and then we asked for rice dream for him even through it was breakfast.

Although it literally was the first time we did the whole it's your sister's birthday thing. It was her first.

The next meal went much better.

 

[poober25]

This may not be the right place to ask this question, but I'm hoping someone might be able to help. My DD is allergic to cashews, pistachioes, and mangoes. She did not react to any other tree nut on her allergy tests, but we avoid them anyway, including almond extract.

She will be celebrating her birthday w/ some good friends later this year at WDW and wants to have tea at Grand Floridian. Does anyone know if the scones contain nuts? I know she will have to avoid the pastries, but if she can't at least have the scones, I will need to find another alternative for her. There's no point in going to have tea if you can't have scones. I'm not worried about cross-contamination, but just wonder if the scones themselves contain nuts...anyone have any idea?

 

[DCDisney]

Once you mention nut allergies it's almost impossible to get good info from the Chefs because of cross contam issues. When we went to GF I was told absolutely nothing baked was OK and normally in real life I can eat produced in the same factory with nuts things. At WDW I found they wouldn't often give things to me even when I knew they were ok for me. Like the prepackaged rice Krispy treats ate plenty of them that I bought but chefs at buffets wouldn't let me have them. The scones they had the day we were there had raisins but not nuts but I was told no baked goods AND they were out of all prepackaged allergy options.

 

[poober25]

I was afraid of that. This is our first time really travelling to Disney since her allergy was diagnosed. I was hoping that I could find out the ingredients and not even mention the allergy if the scones don't contain nuts. Does anyone have any idea if the recipes on the Allears site are accurate. The scones recipe is there and there is no mention of any kind of nut.

 

[Elinor Dashwood]

I was afraid of that. This is our first time really travelling to Disney since her allergy was diagnosed. I was hoping that I could find out the ingredients and not even mention the allergy if the scones don't contain nuts. Does anyone have any idea if the recipes on the Allears site are accurate. The scones recipe is there and there is no mention of any kind of nut.

One of my children has a treenut allergy, we have to carry multiple epipens. At Disney, every chef told her that she couldn't have any of the baked goods due to possible cross contamination. Not even the bread they put on the table. If the scones are that important to her, I'd skip the GF tea room. Or at the very least, bring in something else for her to eat that is safe. It's a real bummer, I know, my child was disappointed that so many options were off limits. For our next trip, I'm planning to hit up Babycakes at Downtown Disney, they're nut free apparently (except for the coconut they use). Good luck!

 

[DCDisney]

If her allergy is not a serious one that's up to you but GF for me has been the most problematic about storing things together which is never an issue for me at other WDW locations. Maybe they have limited storage space? The tea will probably not be fun for her unless she just wants tea and berries and whipped cream. Even the sandwiches weren't considered allergy safe. It's possible they would also have allergy safe brownies and/or cookies they just haven't on our visits.

 

[ekatiel]

UGH!! Just now finding this thread since we booked for Thanksgiving week. It will be our third trip to Disney. The other two went really well, as far as food allergies are concerned. Unfortunately, DS has allergies to eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts. It sounds like the new Udi's products all contain eggs . Maybe they'll have this supplier problem fixed by late November . I now have two major food concerns:
1) Safe bread/bun options-- Are there any?? In the past, they've given us the Ener-G rolls b/c their normal bread products are cross contaminated with nuts. Well, if the GF bread now has eggs in it, where does that leave us??
2) Safe desserts. Sometimes the regular ice cream is safe for us (the places that carry Edy's brand), sometimes we were given strawberry or itskadoozie pops, sometimes we were given Enjoy Life cookies. Which of these options are still available?

ls15-- It looks like a few places got you Babycakes desserts. How did you make that happen? Did you bring them yourself??

It will sadden me if I need to bring safe food with us to Disney (like we have to do everywhere else) . It was the one place where we could vacation without having to bring a grocery store with us. I will be contacting special diets soon. --Katie

 

[DCDisney]

It seems like some places still have enjoy life but the main option now is omg gluten free cookies which I believe most of the varieties do have eggs. I hope they get the sorted out soon! Though on my last trip I kept finding they were out of some of the allergy safe foods they normally carried which maybe s why the change n suppliers?

 

[AEPaul]

One of my children has a treenut allergy, we have to carry multiple epipens. At Disney, every chef told her that she couldn't have any of the baked goods due to possible cross contamination. Not even the bread they put on the table. If the scones are that important to her, I'd skip the GF tea room. Or at the very least, bring in something else for her to eat that is safe. It's a real bummer, I know, my child was disappointed that so many options were off limits. For our next trip, I'm planning to hit up Babycakes at Downtown Disney, they're nut free apparently (except for the coconut they use). Good luck!

Just an FYI that coconut isn't considered a nut by doctors. No one can figure out why the FDA considers it as such for labeling requirements. And while there have been reports of people with nut allergies reacting to coconut, the Dr. community seems to have come to the conclusion that those situations were such that the individual was allergic to nuts AND coconuts, but that there wasn't a causal effect.

I would love for someone to double-check me as I don't want to give medical advice, but I believe Babycakes is thus nut-free and shouldn't be a cross-contamination risk either.

 

[kkandaj]

Just an FYI that coconut isn't considered a nut by doctors. No one can figure out why the FDA considers it as such for labeling requirements. And while there have been reports of people with nut allergies reacting to coconut, the Dr. community seems to have come to the conclusion that those situations were such that the individual was allergic to nuts AND coconuts, but that there wasn't a causal effect.

I would love for someone to double-check me as I don't want to give medical advice, but I believe Babycakes is thus nut-free and shouldn't be a cross-contamination risk either.

The above is true and the same way coconuts are explained to us by DS's allergist. The medical/allergy community does not see coconut as a tree nut. We just went to Babycakes last week (May 17) and they did make sure I knew about the coconut products when I asked about tree nuts. I just said that DS was okay with coconut. Below is DS with his chocolate iced donut from Babycakes. DS has life threatening food allergies to eggs, dairy, soy, pn and tree nuts.

Ds got a button for his shirt that said "I ate my first dessert at Babycakes." DD (who has grown out of her milk/egg allergies, and was never allergic to nuts) also wore one. When DD and I walked into Goofy's candy store at Downtown Disney and she was wearing it, the man handing out samples of fudge stopped and said "I see her button. This has nuts in it." I reassured him that she had no issues with nuts, but was so appreciative that he recognized the button.

 

[DonnaBoo]

Ds got a button for his shirt that said "I ate my first dessert at Babycakes." DD (who has grown out of her milk/egg allergies, and was never allergic to nuts) also wore one. When DD and I walked into Goofy's candy store at Downtown Disney and she was wearing it, the man handing out samples of fudge stopped and said "I see her button. This has nuts in it." I reassured him that she had no issues with nuts, but was so appreciative that he recognized the button.

It's late at night for me and I'm a bit confused. Did the button say "I ate my first dessert at babycakes"? Do they hand these buttons out at random?
Your son looks so happy with his donut. He's adorable.

 

[Random Ninja]

It seems like some places still have enjoy life but the main option now is omg gluten free cookies which I believe most of the varieties do have eggs. I hope they get the sorted out soon! Though on my last trip I kept finding they were out of some of the allergy safe foods they normally carried which maybe s why the change n suppliers?

I found Enjoy Life cookies at Sunshine Seasons a couple weeks ago. There were a couple of omg gluten free products now that I think about it. I hope they aren't switching brands again. I can't eat anything that omg gluten free makes due to dairy and tapioca allergies. At the rate things keep changing, I'm going to be stuck with just plain meat and salad soon.

 

[livndisney]

It's late at night for me and I'm a bit confused. Did the button say "I ate my first dessert at babycakes"? Do they hand these buttons out at random?
Your son looks so happy with his donut. He's adorable.

They give the pins out at Babycakes. There are two that I have seen. One says I ate my first dessert at Babycakes-and we have one that says "I ate my first cupcake at Babycakes".