#avoidgf

Weather it is in the UK or abroad, one thing that can be annoying is eating out.  So when we decide to eat somewhere, A little research goes into the place such as Trip Adviser (I always use this anywhere new) and looking at a restaurants main website.  My Girlfriend fancied a Sunday dinner and noticed that Toby Carvery has a gluten free food now available.  Since I had to go Gluten Free, I missed a good Sunday dinner and we thought to give it a try.

Our closest Toby Carvery is the one in Bridgend and decided to go there for lunch as we were out and about.  We got there and advised the guy on the desk that I had a Gluten Allergy and had to make sure that I couldn’t have anything with Wheat / Gluten in.  He advised us on the Meat, All the Potatoes, Carrots and the Veggie Gravy was Gluten free and gave me a nutrition folder (seems to be a classic sign of the staff not understanding the situation in most places I have been) so I could double check the food.  After looking at the folder, I confirmed with him that he was correct and those were fine.

We got sat at our table and as usual, went up for the food. Unknown at the time it appeared that the guy serving the meat, gave my girlfriend (who was behind me) a Yorkshire pudding but using the same utensil as he used to give me the meat.  Same went for the utensils when handling the potatoes as it seemed that they were in the same area as the stuffing.  Also, the Veggie gravy was right next to the normal gravy which could also lead to contamination.

Though I had some faith in the place as why would they offer Gluten Free?  Well, after nearly 15 minutes of eating my food, I had been glutened however this time; it seemed a lot stronger than usual.

Within about 20 minutes I had excessive sweating, massive headache over the right eye (this seem to be the place it hurts once Glutened), foggy vision, stomach cramps and for the first time I struggled to breath and had a massive rashes across my arms and face.

This sucked!

Luckily my girlfriend is always on form for this type of thing and within minutes she had paid (yep, they made us pay for something I couldn’t eat) and over to Tesco to get some Antihistamine.

Why Antihistamine? Well this is the third attack I have used them and it seemed to decrease the amount of time I recover from the attack?  Coincidence? Maybe however I managed to get out of the attack within roughly 2 hours.  A lot quicker than mild attacks that could last a few hours.

What was the next Step?  My girlfriend was on it and contacted them directly on their Facebook page as I was unable to do anything for a while.  They replied back and now we have a complained raised.