Dining in Europe: Dietary accommodations

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Traveling with food allergies can be rough. Trying to get dietary accommodations everywhere you go can be frustrating and potentially embarrassing, when you have to ask about what’s in every item on the menu that looks good to you.

Conversely, in Europe, one of the things I found to be fascinating is how thoroughly food is labeled in the countries I visited. Are you allergic to gluten, lactose, and soy? Many restaurants and shops you visit have you covered. As  you can see in the image below, there is a reference key for allergens at the bottom of most menus.

The bottom of the menu at Cafe Bacchus (Warren Schultz)

The bottom of the menu at Cafe Bacchus (Warren Schultz)

This particular menu was at Cafe Bacchus, in Oslo, Norway. (Mentioned previously, here.)

Some restaurants will spell out in more detail as well, depending on how much they are catering to tourists:

Detail from the Jacob Aall menu, highlighting the food allergen labeling. (Warren Schultz)

Detail from the Jacob Aall menu, highlighting the food allergen labeling. (Warren Schultz)

This is a particularly nice example, since the entire menu was bilingual, so you can see just how thorough they can be.

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