Dating with Food Allergies

Avoiding Food Sensitivities when Eating Out

I've been allergic to tree-nuts and salmon for as long as I can remember. Throw in some of the nightshade family of veggies, some types of melons, most tropical fruits and lemongrass and you have one allergic girl. Needless to say, a dessert on a date can be quite an adventure and that end-of-the-evening kiss can be out of the question.

As my date perused the dessert menu he softly mumbled, “I don’t really want to eat dessert if you can’t have anything. I feel bad.”

I said equally softly, “Please don’t. I really can’t eat desserts out. But it would give me pleasure if you enjoyed some.”

That seems to do the trick and he settled on an allergen-friendly Key Lime gelato. I thought it was perfect time to explain to my date the Allergic Girl protocol in case anything did happen whilst eating out.

I should have said something before I ate anything. But I rectified that by going through the whole AG med kit, reassuring my date that the likelihood of a hospital trip was very low and giving him the “what to do if…” scenarios.

I get a lot of questions from readers, or maybe it’s just Catherine of Gluten-Free Guide who’s asked me a bunch of times, how do I handle dating, and dining out with food allergies/intolerances? Or dining out and then kissing someone new with said food issues?

Would you be surprised to hear that it hasn’t been a major issue for me?

Avoiding Certain Foods

Boyfriends have made it very clear early on that they understood the seriousness of the situation and would do what they needed to in order to be kissable: refraining from certain foods altogether.

Anything where potential cross contamination can cause illness is non-negotiable. This is not to say that there aren’t compromises to be made along the way. The last time I said, “To hell with it! Kiss me, dammit!” was when a guy I was dating at the time had eaten salmon earlier in the evening. We kissed hours later. And yet, I felt my face tingling and my lips buzzing. When I got upstairs I noticed a trail of hives everywhere his salmon-mouth had kissed me: checks, jaw, neck, ears, mouth. I was a hivey mess!

Needless to say, that confirmed I'm still allergic to salmon and I should never kiss someone who has eaten something to which I'm allergic, even hours later.

However, what about talking about your food allergy needs with someone new? I find that dining with new friends or colleagues, the subject of allergies comes up rather quickly, especially if one overhears the conversation I inevitably have with managers and waiters and chefs about the Allergic Girl sitch.

I've also found that more often than not, in a new date situation, we're both paying close attention to each other on all fronts. So a date will hear me taking about “allergies to nuts and fish” to the waiter and very often that will prompt the food allergy discussion. He’ll ask me if he shouldn’t eat those things either and it lets me know he's thinking about a kiss later which is great and gives me an opening to elaborate on my needs in a gentle way.

The bottom line is there are many ways to go about having the conversation, the important part is that you have it and that you get some serious allergen-free kissing done!

(Originally published on Please Don't Pass The Nuts).