Most of us are sure that we are going to be served what we order for in a restaurant or a food can will contain what the ingredient listing claims. However, we live in a world of cross-contamination, mechanical glitches and human errors! So, food allergy sufferers should always be wary of anything that they have not prepared themselves from scratch…
Yesterday I ran into a friend whose 4 year old son has severe peanut, dairy and egg allergies and had this scary incident to relate. The family had gone out for dinner to Cheesecake Factory. My friend had ensured that her little boy had already been fed dinner to avoid the risk of giving him something that he might be allergic to at the restaurant. Just so he did not feel completely left out, they ordered an orange juice for him. What harm could good old OJ do apart from injecting an extra dose of immunity boosting Vitamin C into the tiny sweetheart?!? Not so…the little one wanting to be extra affectionate to mom insisted that she take a sip of his orange juice. Not wanting to create a scene in the restaurant, she took a small sip and suddenly felt a big solid particle in her mouth. Imagine her horror when she spit it out on to a napkin…the particle was a big chunk of peanut!!! That chunk would have sent her son into anaphylactic shock in seconds had he ingested it. Recovering from her shock, she asked for the waiter. The waiter was apologetic and the only way he felt he make up for it was by offering a free meal. It reminded me of an episode from ‘King of Queens’ where Doug and Carrie are offered a free week at a hotel when their house gets infested with bed bugs after a stay at that same hotel 
A similar incident happened to me on 3 separate occasions at Taco Bell. One would wonder why I went to the place 3 times but Taco Bell is one place which offers a huge number of choices for my son and it is one the few places he loves eating at. The particular franchise (located at (225-227 US Highway 22, NJ 08812) that I visit has extremely poor service. Despite repeating many times what I don’t want in the taco, they have served it up with allergens and their attitude to the mistake has been, ‘what do you want me to do?’ I sent a mail to the parent company and within a couple of days got a call from the manager of the local Taco Bell. He apologized profusely and begged us to visit him again for a meal on the house. So, we decided to give them another chance but managed to get there only a fortnight later. Here the joke was on us…the manager had got transferred and they were not able to honor their commitment 
One is not sure if in Cheesecake factory the peanut was in the can it was packaged in or got cross contaminated when it was being served up. At Taco Bell, it was obviously a case of human error because the order was taken correctly but fulfilled with mistakes. Whatever the case maybe, a few valuable lessons reinforced…
1) When ordering in a restaurant, first order clearly for the person with food allergies. Once the waiter has completed that order, the others should place their meal request. I had noticed that the Taco Bell made mistakes whenever I ordered other things apart from what the allergy friendly meal I was ordering for my son at the same time.
2) A food allergy sufferer should always have epipen handy.
3) Always check the food before ingesting it. The more layered the food is, the more thorough the examination should be – an orange juice versus a chicken taco!
4) Food companies and restaurants should have social responsibility. I wish Taco Bell would have taken a more socially conscious approach when dealing with my complaint. The bitter truth is we cannot rely on that. A particular franchise of even the best chain of restaurants may have a few careless employees so, we have to be careful always.
Safe eating out!
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