Celiac Disease Program and Support Group - Children's Hospital Boston

300 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
(617) 355-6000

Clinical Services (Celiac Disease Program and Support Group):

Traveling Tips

Traveling with a child who has celiac disease presents certain challenges. The longer the trip, the more interesting it becomes to provide a varied diet.

The type of vacation you are planning will affect your approach to the diet. If you are renting a vacation condo or home in another place and plan to do some of your own cooking, you will either need to bring gluten-free staples and mixes from home. You can also call a local support group in advance to see where and what gluten-free products might be available for purchase onsite.

Resorts or Cruises

If you are going to a resort or on a cruise with a number of restaurants, you should contact the executive chef before attending. Discuss your child's dietary restrictions and ask for suggestions that will meet your dining needs. Try to call at least three to four weeks before the trip. Often the more time a chef has before your arrival, the more elaborate the gluten free meal can be. If your child has certain favorite foods that can only be made with particular gluten-free ingredients, like pasta, offer to supply these items to the chef. (Don't forget to go over the methods of safe preparation as well as what ingredients are safe).

When you call to make your hotel reservation, request a small refrigerator for your room. They may even give it to you without charge if you explain it is for a medical reason.

Disneyworld is a true paradise for the parents of a child with celiac disease. If you take the time to call the Food Division Offices for the different parks (a different person is the chef in the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and MGM), they will bend over backward to ensure that your child is served a gluten-free meal. It does not require a lot of time to pull this off, and they can deliver the meal to the restaurant of your choice. Now, there is a catch to dining at Disney World. Depending upon the time of year, you could be trying for a specific reservation with the rest of North America. Although it may force more preplanning than you desire, your dining will run more smoothly if you place a few calls from home before you go.

Disney World Food Division Offices:
Magic Kingdom - (407) 824-6993
Epcot - (407) 560-7713
MGM Studios - (407) 560-7830

Ski Resorts

If you are planning to go on a vacation at a ski resort, a call to the head chef or manager of the mountain cafeterias is well worth the effort. Determine what foods and safe choices there are for your child. Is the hot chocolate distributed from the machines gluten-free? What drinks are offered? What choices do children get for lunch? Is it preset or do they just get to go through the cafeteria line and pick for themselves? Several ski resorts also offer gluten-free hot dogs and chili. If your child can eat yogurt, it is often available in the lunch line. With a bag of chips, a piece of fruit and a candy bar available at the cafeteria you do not need to supplement the meal. Of course, you will need to check the brand of yogurts offered, making sure they are gluten-free.

Teens may want to pack crackers and cheese or a sandwich in the pocket of their ski parka to supplement the cafeteria's offerings. Depending on your child's age, you may even be able to tell the ski instructor that your child needs to be able to have a free choice about what they know is safe to eat. You will, of course, have prepped your child on to the safe choices available to them on the mountain. For your child, the freedom and trust you give them to make the right decision about what to eat is a great first step to the ownership and control of their diet.

How Much Gluten-Free Food to Bring?

The amount and variety of food you need to bring with you on a vacation depends on how much your child wants a varied diet. Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones and your child will sit down to a dinner of hamburger and potato chips for seven days straight. If your child prefers a variety, you can still offer them something more than grilled chicken, steak, burgers or fish. You can bring pre-made gluten-free pasta mixed with gluten free sauce or tossed with butter and cheese with you, or call ahead to the head chef of the restaurant you are planning to eat at and ask if you can bring your own pasta for them to prepare. Most chefs are quite accommodating of special dietary needs. Just remember to call them before the dinner rush or after lunch.

When you are planning to stay in a place without cooking facilities, pack a small cooler for the trip. Take gluten-free ketchup, mayonnaise, margarine, sandwich meat, peanut butter, jelly, salad dressing, pasta sauce or some pre-cooked noodles in a sealed container. Depending on the length of your trip you can bring uncooked gluten-free pasta and your own colander to supply to the hotel chef. Before you go, bake or purchase fresh gluten-free muffins, bread and crackers for the trip. Also pack gluten-free breakfast cereals in single serving portions. Always pack small zip-lock baggies and small Tupperware containers to transport individual servings to the restaurant. Bring a small container of gluten-free salad dressing and gluten-free crackers. We even travel with a few sheets of aluminum foil to offer to the servers to have the bread toasted on or meat cooked on if it is necessary.

By the end of your travels, the freshly baked goods will probably be consumed or stale so at this point open up some pre-made muffins or donuts available from several gluten-free vendors and store extras in a freezer or fridge until needed.

Have your child select some favorite gluten-free desserts to bring along. It is almost impossible to find a safe dessert in any restaurant, home or away. It is always safe to store one or two of the hardier selections in the glove compartment of the car for any unexpected road trips when a treat is needed.

Fast Food or No Food?

There are times when it seems that the only oases on those long highway drives are the glowing yellow arches. Don't panic. Even McDonald's can be relatively gluten-free. Bringing a car cooler of fruits, gluten-free drinks and other snacks keeps the pressure off and most likely offers healthier snacks for the entire family.

Burger King is another fast food restaurant with a good source of gluten-free foods. They usually use a dedicated "fryolator" for the French fries as they claim to cook them in a different temperature of oil than the other fried foods. Always ask the manager of the individual Burger King to confirm this policy. The meat from the hamburgers is gluten-free; just make sure that they remove it directly from the grill with clean utensils. Burger King uses Heinz ketchup, which is gluten-free, and the little packets are very handy for traveling.

It takes the time to call before you go so that people can look up every ingredient and the source and then you simply tell your child the gluten-free choices and let them go.

Resort Child Care- Is it Worth the Risk?

When your child is young he or she may only be eligible for the daycare program, in which case you would be supplying everything your child eats. Advance contact with the providers is a must, but the high at some resorts could be a problem. Also, these environments have to deal with so much separation anxiety that most of the daily effort goes into comforting the distraught children and the chance that your little one could consume the stray goldfish cracker or cheerio. Strong warnings about the dangers of gluten containing snacks and crumbs from other foods should be given. A better choice in this situation might be a sitter that comes to your room or condo.

Condos & Vacation Rentals

Does the condo kitchen have a toaster or toaster oven? If it doesn't have a toaster oven you can always toast bread on tin foil under the broiler. Does it have a microwave? Does it have utensils and pots to cook in? It will be much more relaxing (not to mention less expensive) to have at least a kitchenette on longer stays.



	The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional.

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