Dietary Restrictions are Real

Ok.

That's unfortunate OP. I agree that many of us have legit restrictions but the widespread trend of customers acting like picky little neurotic assholes has led many in the service industry to be assume that a restriction is really just a preference or attention getting. I say this as someone with a severe shellfish allergy .

Shouldn't you post this to a restaurant and food service trade journal?

R2, I feel for you. As serious as blood sugar issues can become, I still have time to make the proper corrections. You don’t have that luxury.

I totally understand the stresses of working in the service industry, but for every person who have a friend telling them to cut out ___ from their diet, there are real people who could be killed or hospitalized if they eat the wrong thing.

The server needs to be fired. That's like substituting peanuts for almonds without telling someone.

Those fucking non legit gluten free types (so I will lose weight: spoiler, you gain) cunts really ruined it for everyone.

My boss is like this too. He HATES tomatoes so tells the server that he will DIE if any are included. Same with black pepper. Just say hold the tomatoes and hold any black pepper. The more you ramp it up it sounds like bullshit. My ex was a server and he could smell the bullshit a mile away. He would laugh at the contortions and dramatics when a simply "no tomatoes, no black pepper would do just as well...if not better.

A bar that serves light lemonade? Are you you sure you didn’t wander into a children’s party?

R5, I’m really not good at confrontation, but I was very upset. I was just going to leave and deal with it, but one of them apparently did say back to talk to the manager. I don’t want to see anyone get fired, but you’re right. She definitely needs to know what she did was serious.

I was also thinking of the gluten-phobic people, R6. They’re the worst. I am totally on board with people being able to select what they would like to eat, but don’t be dramatic about it. Tell people you don’t eat gluten and leave it there.

R7, I never though about that! I don’t drink, so I just eat and sip water or Diet Coke. I noticed before we moved here (this is the neighborhood watering hole, so we came almost every time we were here) that they had the Minute Maid Light Lemonade. If you’ve never had it I recommend trying! It’s really good and doesn’t have the taste of many drinks with aspartame.

R7 Light lemonade is a thing. Light drinks, period, are a thing. Simple syrup is going the way of the dinosaur. Many ways, via bitters, or aromatics, or just a dab hand in general, can cut out a lot of the sugar in needlessly sugary drinks without simply tossing in some Splenda or Stevia (ew).

If you look at old cocktail recipes, back when sugar was either scarce or expensive, you will see that it is only fairly recently that the sugar content crept up, doing so more and more over the years. Masking the true taste of a good cocktail: decent booze and well blended, quality accompaniments.

I'm sorry, OP. I know it's very frustrating, My late father was diabetic, and he also had Alzheimer's, and I had to learn to screen everything he'd eat or drink. I could tailor his food when we'd eat at home, after testing his blood sugar, but he couldn't really communicate that something was wrong when he'd receive a full-sugar soft drink in place of the sugar free drink that we had ordered. I had to get over my embarrassment, and sample drinks before I'd let him drink. I still miss him all the time.

R10 Big hug. Damn, all of that work to keep him safe must have been hard. You are a good egg.

R10, you’re a great person. I know all it takes for me to eat anywhere other than at home. I can only imagine how stressful that would be caring for someone who couldn’t check for themselves. I hope you have great memories of him.

OP, as a diabetic, you should absolutely not be drinking lemonade whether light or normal.

Doctors now tell their diabetic patients to stay away from artificial sweeteners because it just makes it easier for you fall off the wagon with regular sugar. You should be asking for completely unsweetened drinks, like water, or unsweetened iced tea.

The fault was yours, not your friends'.

I was thinking the same thing R13. Why was OP drinking even 'light?' Playing with fire in a restaurant situation.

That Minute Maid light lemonade is delicious. It has like 5 calories and no artificial sweetener taste.

If Ernst likes it, he should have it. He already doesn't drink alcohol; a man has to have a treat once in a while.

Drama Queen!

Instead of "light" lemonade, I wonder if you had said "diet" this would have had a happier ending. I know the name of the drink is "Minute Maid Light Lemonade," but not everyone understands that "light" means the same as "diet." Or perhaps you could just ask for "sugar-free."

If it were my life, I would make sure I made myself crystal clear.

Thanks, R13 and R14. My only indulgences have been the occasional Diet Coke and Minute Maid Light Lemonade. None of my endocrinologists have ever had an issue with it. And I’ve had several doctors since I was in high school.

Also, R13, I didn’t blame the people I was with at all. I was very frustrated with the server, but I should have been smarter about it and ordered water.

R17, I was rather explicit. I asked if they still had light lemonade and she said they do have lemonade. I clarified again that it was the light lemonade. Moving forward I will only be getting water unless I pour it myself.

R7 here, and I truly meant no offense about light lemonade being served. OP and R9 make good points. Your health should be taken seriously by all staff members anywhere that serves you.

I was a waiter for a period of over 25 years and I pray that I was never so careless and disrespectful of people's dietary restrictions. I will say that I was never one of those "Well then, go somewhere else where people care." To be a good waiter you really have to listen. That skill is almost non-existent in many places.

R2 & R6 are on the right track -- people misrepresent their dislikes so dramatically that it can be hard to see the situation as it truly is. Also, I'm rather surprised when I go out with younger people and how completely averse they are to certain foods. OK, you don't like tomatoes, then say no tomatoes. Stop being so over the top.

Why don't you just say: I'd like a light lemonade. And I'm diabetic, so please let me know if you don't have it. I'll get something else if that's the case..."

I was a server and bartender for years. I'd never knowingly give someone the wrong order, but accidents do happen. I always appreciated people telling me their allergies/etc so that I'd be extra aware. Yeah, the gluten free crowd were fucking annoying (that trend was just starting when I was ending my service tenure), and I'd often just roll my eyes, but not if someone said they were diabetic or had a peanut/shellfish allergy. A safe over sorry situation for sure.

Shame on you who are light-lemonade-shaming diabetics!

People know how to manage their conditions; they do not need scolds coming for them like Church Lady.

I feel bad for OP, but unfortunately, his ordeal is an exception and not the rule. There are people with legitimate health risks and then there are a bunch of batshit crazy narcissists who want to see how many hoops they can make people jump through to accommodate them.

That said, OP’s story is a reminder it’s safer to just take peoples’ word that they have issues with certain foods (although if someone dismissed a concern raised by a diabetic, they truly are a vile piece of shit who deserves to be fired…)

I had a similar situation to OP at work. We were doing a potluck lunch, and I happen to be a lifelong vegetarian. A colleague was pressing me to try the dip that she brought. I asked what was in it and she gave me that "secret recipe" crap. I explained that I was a vegetarian and she said that I could eat her dip with no problem -so I took a bite. About three seconds later my face was purple and I couldn't breathe. I'm severely allergic to shellfish, and the dip was full of it. She knew it wasn't vegetarian-friendly, but the thought it wouldn't matter if I didn't know about it... Thank god someone thought to grab an Epi-pen. Later, in the hospital, she came to apologize -and then she put the blame on me for not telling her about the shellfish allergy. I tried to explain to her that since being a vegetarian was more restrictive than avoiding shellfish (or any other specific food) it should cover the situation. She never got it.

I don't care what you think about people being gluten-free or lactose intolerant, or whatever. You need to respect people's dietary decisions/choices. You don't need to know why -just respect them. I really appreciate servers who take the time to ask if something would be okay ("Can you have egg in the fried rice?") or who say they instructed the chef to grill your veggies on foil so that they wouldn't come into contact with the grill where shrimp were cooked. I always leave them a larger-than-normal tip.

Why does it matter why someone eats a certain way? Paying customers should get what they order when possible, or just let them know that it’s not possible to cater to their request.

I usually look at the menu online to see what I can order without having to make changes to my meal, but it shouldn’t be that complicated to deal with customer requests.

R23 numbnuts - you should have mentioned shellfish. Many OLDS and flyoverstanians do NOT understand the variations of "vegetarian" because there was a time vegetarians ate cheese, eggs and fish. DUH

I waited tables a TGI Fridays back in the 90's. At the time, they had two different varieties of cheesecake, their regular one which had a whopping 75 grams of fat per slice, and a fat-free cheesecake. A lady at my table ordered the fat-free cheesecake. I was getting slammed that particular evening and when I ran back to the kitchen refrigerator to get it for her I realized we were out of it, so I just grabbed the regular one and brought it to her instead.

She kept commenting to her other girlfriends how good it was. All I could think of was that I just dug myself into a hole. I was constantly keeping an eye out for her going forward to warn other servers if she were to order it again.

my friend has that celiac problem and can only eat gluten free stuff. started in his 30s. He went from 170 lbs to 135 and then finally got a diagnosis. has put the weight back on since. His doctors were very specific about how to treat food with his condition--he was told he has to be extreme about it. they warned him against doing things like picking croutons off of a salad and then eating it. all food has to be prepared away from gluten or the condition can be activated.

for those who dont know, celiac disease is where the cilia (i think in the intestines?) retract and you can't absorb any nutrients. and its sort of an allergic response to gluten. they think people who get it might be exposed to a virus that activates dormant genes or something because youre not born with it

R19 that is a great strategy, I think. I haven’t ever wanted people to see my condition as an “excuse” but it is probably best to be fully transparent about it to avoid anything like that in the future.

I’m so sad to hear about everyone with their allergies. I can only imagine all of the time and effort that goes in to checking everything and worrying about safety in that way.

My hat also goes off to those people who work in the service industry. I know it is tough. I know people are difficult. I only worked in the food industry for a little more than a year in college. It was hard enough for that length of time, let alone 20+ years!

I’m a fat womon would I be useful on garbage duty?

Hey Ernst is your 6'6" husband as big as Carl Nassib?

Chiming in with another "me too". Like R2, I have a severe (as in, swell-up-and-die) allergy to shellfish.. A few years ago on holiday, we went into a fish restaurant that had been highly recommended. We all ordered cod and chips, and I told the waiter about my allergy, since there was a notice on the front of the menu advising me to do exactly that. When the meal was served I noticed that there was a little pot of cockles on the plate, piled high and spilling onto the cod. The waiter offered to just remove the cockles as "they hardly touched the fish", and couldn't understand why I wasn't happy with this. I had to show him my epipen and explain what would happen if I had an allergic reaction. He finally got it into his head that I wasn't just being fussy, and I got a proper replacement.

Since then, I always produce the epipen before ordering, to avoid embarrassing death situations.

The cod was delicious. The waiter wasn't bad, either.

So sorry to hear that, R31. I’m glad they ended up making it right, but you shouldn’t have had to go through all of that for it to happen.

Thanks, R32, but as other have said upthread, the situation is not helped by idiots "upgrading" their dislikes into intolerances and allergies. On the other hand, I've never experienced actual malice from front-of-house staff, just a couple of occasions of towering incomprehension. I try to be kind and gentle when I explain why my "no shellfish" rule is a really big deal, and I'm pretty much always met with a kind and gentle response. I waited tables when i was at university, and I know how tough the job can be. I'm not going to go out of my way to make it worse.

Dietary restrictions are real.

Dietary preferences are not. Picky eating is a choice, not a requirement.