My daughter went gluten free 8 months ago.  We booked a trip to Club Med in the DR a year ago, so pre-diagnosis.  No matter what traveling to an all inclusive with picky eaters is difficult.  Traveling with a 2 year old picky (gluten) eater and a 4.5 year old picky (gluten free) eater was just about as stressful as I could imagine.  Thankfully we had actually flown to Florida a few weeks prior.  In Florida we stayed at my grandmother in laws so I didn’t need to worry about the food once we were there, just the plane ride.  It helped us to realize that while our younger son eats gluten snacks, on the plane we wanted him to have only gluten free snacks, where washing hands isn’t easily accessible.

To get ready for our trip we packed an entire suitcase (not exaggerating) of food.  Veggie straws, pirates booty,  pretzels, meringues, cereals, mac and cheese, pasta, bread, and I’m sure some other foods we’re missing.  On the plane we had some freezer packs and brought her “chicken sticks” which is what we call Ian’s frozen fish nuggets, string cheese and yogurts along with some snacks too.  We had spoken to the hotel a few times and they assured us we would have a mini-fridge and microwave in our room and that the restaurants are all knowledgeable to make my daughter safe food for the week.

First snafu – we get our room, no microwave, more importantly no mini-fridge.  It took many phone calls and trips to the lobby to eventually receive one.  Thankfully they put our food in their fridge while we were waiting and our frozen food survived.

First win – the Nima. For those of you don’t know yet, the Nima is a gluten free tester.  You put a small amount of the food into the device and within 3 minutes it shows either a smiley face (less than 20ppm), a wheat symbol with low gluten (the food has between 20ppm and 100ppm) or the wheat symbol with high gluten which (greater than 100ppm). The Nima isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t claim to be.  If you’re only testing a small piece of food there obviously could be contamination on a different section that you hadn’t tested.  I knew this before buying the very expensive sensor.  However, I believed it would give me greater piece of mind so we went ahead and purchased it.

The head chef at the buffet restaurant we frequented most was extremely nice.  He made my daughter gluten free pizza from scratch, using a gluten free flour blend.  Unfortunately the Nima tested low gluten and we wouldn’t give it to her.  We then tested French Toast, made with the bread that we brought from home, and it came back with a smiley face.  Win! This chef had his day off and a new chef made French Toast with their brand of gluten free bread (I’m not sure why as we gave him ours) and it came back high gluten.  Win for my niece, loss for my daughter.  Each test costs around $5.  We went on this week long trip with 15 tests so we couldn’t test everything.  My husband, daughter and I had to make decisions to the best of our ability.

I may have been called crazy a few times but my daughter survived the trip without getting sick. I think that’s a pretty big win. 🙂