Tuesday, May 3. 2005

Guilty on all counts of providing a wheat laden canteen

Most of our dedicated readers of the wheat-free blog have probably thought that we've got bored with writing it and given up, well in actual fact our wheat-free blogger has been doing their public duty, and serving on Jury Service.

And this brings us nicely onto a bit of a rant. Our wheat-free blogger has dutifully attended court each day, and the jury room is quite luxurious, low soft chairs, vending machines, spotless 'facilities' and a canteen.

But it's the canteen that's the problem. Everything on sale has wheat in it, except the cans of soft drinks.

Jurors are given an allowance everyday to spend in the canteen on food and drinks, but, and it's a big but, there is no provision for special diets at all, so our wheat-free blogger has had to take all their days food with them everyday.

Now to be fair, once the court staff knew there was a problem they were able to offer a subsistence payment instead, to cover the food bought in. But it's still a pain in the butt having to take a bag of food each day, and our wheat-free blogger likes their food, so it's a big bag!

Once the canteen knew there was a problem why couldn't they make some arrangement to provide at least something wheat free? And then of course what about vegetarian, vegan, nut or dairy allergy, kosher, halal etc etc.

At one point an excited juror came racing over to our wheat-free blogger with a wrapped flapjack. "It says 'gluten free' on it" they said, "No, actually it says 'guilt free', are you sure you're observant enough to be a juror?".

After the first week there was still no effort made by the canteen to cater for anyone on a 'minority' diet. Did the canteen staff care? What do you think...
Posted by Helen Fletton in wheat blog at 07:09 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

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Actually, I find that hardly any catering establishment has the facilities to cope with a wheat allergy (and I mean allergy not this intolerance rubbish!)

What do these people expect? We are to go without food all day - and when you have a wheat allergy your stomach can't cope with this, so you munch on crisps or chips because they can't provide a low fat alternative to their sausage rolls, pies and pasties!

My daughter can't get wheat free food at her secondary school, so she has to have a packed lunch - her old school had a lot of wheat free choices!
#1 Carol Hitchcock on 2006-01-04 08:51 (Reply)

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