Gluten Free Self Advocacy Tools: Your Shopping & Dining Life

In the last Gluten Free Self Advocacy Tools post we discussed the meaning of self advocacy, and talked about advocating in your personal life, specifically with friends and family, at school, and in medical environments. Another big area for advocacy concerns advocating for food you can eat outside of your household, specifically with grocery stores and restaurants.

Self Advocacy at the grocery store or a restaurant might make you feel ‘needy’, but you are incredibly entitled to requesting products from the stores and restaurants that supply your food! Just think about it, if the  ‘normal’ non-restricted individual can find what they need anywhere then why aren’t you entitled to trying your best to make that the case for you as well?

Please feel free to review the below, and if you have any other ideas please leave a comment.

Grocery Store and Product Advocacy


 Many companies, such as Trade Joe’s or Whole Foods encourage input from their shoppers regarding the products they would like to see stocked. Specific Product companies offer tools with which you can encourage stores to carry items. They can be as simple as a business card that you can get from the company, to a complex form or letter you can download. It is best to speak to the manager for best results. Depicted above, and listed below, are just a few examples or product request forms from food producers.

What other companies do you know of that have some sort of Product Request resource or tool for their consumers? This seems to be a newer form of advocacy, and one I truly appreciate!
Self Advocacy with Restaurants 

From Triumph Dining.com


Restaurants are one of the situations in which individuals with restrictive diets can feel least in control, which can lead to a lot of anxiety or avoidance. However, with a little bit of advocacy on your part you can improve your dining experience, and that of other gluten free folks. In these cases, it is again best to work with the manager or chef. You can do so in many ways, and here are just a few ways to do so:

  • Use Triumph Dining’s Cards (available in ten languages) to educate servers, chefs, and kitchen staff. 
  • Suggest that your favorite restaurant seek out Gluten-free Resource Education & Awareness Training from the NFCA in order to boost their knowledge about, and ability to serve, those with Celiac Disease.
  • For restaurants that do offer gluten free items, and have gluten free serving experience remind them that they can get Gluten Free Certified by companies such as the Gluten Intolerance Group or  Celiebo
  • Advocate for the restaurants you do enjoy, or point out the ones that have been less than helpful by offer up a review of that restaurant on restaurant review sites. You can use typical review sites such as  UrbanSpoon to indicate if a restaurant is gluten free friendly or use one of many gluten free Apps or websites. A few of these are listed below:
Lastly, although not a tool, it is important to remind restaurants that transparency is key. If a restaurant you do frequent already provides gluten free options and is a safe environment  suggest that they create a gluten free menu or indicate gluten free items in a clear way on their menu. Stress that they should provide this information for review on their websites, as it will boost the awareness that they are gluten free friendly to customers, and may even boost business! 
As you can see, advocacy is all about letting your voice be heard and there are so many ways to do it!

In my final post about Gluten Free Self Advocacy Tools I will talk about what many people think of when they hear the word Advocacy: Legislative and Political Action. I feel this warrants it’s own post given the hold that policy has over most aspects of our everyday lives. Of course all of these areas overlap, but I wanted to keep it separate to remind individuals that advocacy can be more than just political advocacy. I hope the previous two posts show just how far self advocacy can go in changing the way our systems (friends, family, schools, doctors, restaurants, stores etc.) view Celiac Disease and treat not only us, but others with CD. 

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** Udi’s Gluten Free is a company which I have been familiar with since the start of my gluten free adventure. They have a wide array of gluten free products that take away the restrictive feeling of a restrictive gluten free diet. As part of this years Celiac Awareness Month Udi’s partnered with bloggers to spread our story, and our tips on making gluten free life easier. This series, and my diagnosis story, were my contribution to this mission, which is a great one. As part of it, I received a goody box of products from Udi’s. This box was a great treat, and it included many products I hadn’t tried from them before! I am excited to dive in, and will share a few reviews as well along the way! 
Celtic Celiac @ http://celtic-celiac.blogspot.com/

2 thoughts on “Gluten Free Self Advocacy Tools: Your Shopping & Dining Life

  1. I prefer Schar & Canyon Bakehouse gluten free products. I’ve had problems with Udi products. Their bread is so dry and crumbly not to mention the huge holes that I found in slices which were in the middle of the loaf.

    1. Thanks for your comment Janet! It is so great that we have a variety of options on the market for us gluten free folks, and I am happy to hear you enjoy Schar and Canyon Bakehouse. Udi’s cookies are great, have yo ever had those?

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