#glutenfreenightmare

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.

On Friday I went to the Goldfinger gig at The Globe in Cardiff.  In all gigs I have been to, I pretty much drink water as I get sweaty real quick and need to keep up my water intake.  What I usually have is a pint of tap water as its free and gets you the water you need.  Most gigs seems to have plastic disposable glasses but some places have the thicker plastic ones or even those flimsy ones.

The cups that were used looked to be the classic disposable pint cups but, after having my second pint of tap water, I found that I had a slight gluten attack.  Its possible they were re-suing the cups again as they were pretty good quality and the attack wasn’t as bad as the Toby Carvey nightmare but it was enough for me to have a bad stomach, stomach cramps, headache and fuzziness.  Have you ever tried to have a Number 2 at a Gig? Wasn’t fun :/

I cant blame the club as I should have thought about the use of cups in a club and that it would be used for Beer etc. and neither does the club advertise its gluten free.

Nevertheless , going forward, I MUST ensure I have bottle water in the future to stop this happening again and something else to think about while out and about.

Even though I was glutened, It was an awesome gig and had a bunch of fun and I will be going to more gigs at The Globe as it is a nice intimate location for bands.