Taking Off the Croutons

We've all heard it. Someone offering to take off something that you can't eat or something that you're allergic to off of a dish. And if you haven't heard it, here's an example: Imagine that you have ordered a salad without croutons and have made sure that the dressing and everything else on the salad is gluten free.  The server brings the salad to the table full of croutons. Upon clarification that you can't have the salad because it now contains gluten and you are celiac, the server offers to bring it back without croutons and to take them off in the kitchen. Now imagine if you have a nut allergy and the same thing is being done with walnuts or pecans. Regardless of your allergy or dietary restriction, the server is not taking into account cross contact that happens when the the gluten or nuts touches the food, leaving a small trace of the food that you can't eat behind. While celiac disease and food allergies don't follow the same processes and reactions, ingesting food that you aren't supposed to eat can have horrible results for both. There needs to be better education for everyone regarding cross contact, not only people in the food industry, but also family members and friends.  Simply removing the gluten or other food that someone can't eat from a dish is not enough, although a good amount of the public seems to think so.  

If you want more of an explanation for what cross contact is and how it is different from cross contamination, here is a helpful link that I hope you take the time to explore: (Click Here) . The article outlines what cross contact is, why it is harmful, and some ways to try and avoid cross contact. 

Thank you for reading! I hope you learned something about cross contact and will be more mindful of it in the future! 

Sources:

Personal experience and eatright.org (link included above)