Eating Gluten-Free in Thailand, Part 1

I was intimidated to try travelling to SE Asia for the first time on my own, so I signed up with GAP Adventures because they promise to cater to special culinary needs. I had travelled with them to Peru and hiked the Inca trail and been blown away when they made me quinoa pancakes from scratch on the trail.

I was similarly accomodated in Thailand, even on a 3-day hike into the hill tribe region when our guides packed in all of our food. Although at first, my tour leader tried to talk me out of it.

"Are you sure you can't have soy sauce? Maybe just a little?"

I was pretty firm that I was not willing to try that. Frowning, she asked me, "What do you eat at home?"

Flabbergasted I answered, "Thai food!"

I ended up eating copious amounts of green curry on the trip because that and sweet and sour chicken wer often the only things we knew for sure were gluten free.

Here are some tips I learned about eating safely in Thailand while still getting to experience the local flavor.

• At restaurants you can almost always have green curry, yellow curry, masaman curry or sweet and sour. Also, coconut lemon grass soup with chicken (Thom khao gai.)
• Fruit shakes with or without yogurt are a delight and are offered on many street corners and also at restaurants.
• Fresh fruit is readily available almost everywhere and quite tasty.
• Rice porridge is a traditional SE Asian breakfast dish that is normally gluten free. You can get this with or without chicken.
• You can make a good breakfast out of two fried eggs over white rice with butter and jam. It's better than it sounds.
• If it's hard to tell at a street market what you can eat, look for fried eggs, white rice and fruit.
• Mango sticky rice is often available on the street or at a restaurant and is a wondeful GF dessert.
• Grilled bananas on their own or swimming in sweetened coconut milk make a great snack and are sold on the street.
• If you are going to take an overnight train, your best bet is to get food ahead of time to take with you. The only thing I could find that was gluten free was the green curry and it was lackluster and expensive.
• Convenience stores routinely carry a variety of gluten-free snacks including pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, nuts, the Original Lays Potato Chips, Fritos, dried fruit, etc.
• 7-11s in Thailand are a treasure trove of gluten-free eating. They almost all carry ready to eat boiled eggs in two or four packs. Just don't eat the soy sauce included in a small packet. Also, there is the most wonderful yogurt in the world. It has small cubes of young coconut in it and is incredibly rich. When you get to the checkout, they'll give you a small plastic spoon to eat it with.

• I had cards from Select Wisely printed in Thai and they worked fairly well, but lots of people aren't familiar with hidden sources of gluten. For instance, one cook didn't know soy sauce was an ingredient in plum sauce.
• Bring any protein bars you want to have, I never found any the whole time I was travelling.
• I always poke my head into any food store just to see what they have and one day in Ao Nang - in the southern tip of Thailand - I found a tourist specialty store that sold gluten-free cereal and peanut butter. What luxuries! So, keep your eyes open.

Top 10 gluten-free eating at restaurant mistakes

I've made most of these, it's how I know about them. Remember, you are the one who is responsible for not getting sick, not the restaurant.

1. Assuming sushi is safe - ask about malt vinegar in the rice and any and all soy sauce involved.
2. Assuming a normally-safe food like french fries never shared oil with fried chicken or other breaded items.
3. Not asking if there restaurant uses margarine - which could be on anything (like grilled chicken) and may not be gluten free.
4. Eating any salad dressing or marinade or spice rub and not asking for an ingredient list. Soy sauce and modified food starch like to sneak in to the darndest places.
5. If you send a salad back because it had croutons on it, look through the lettuce when it comes back and make sure they didn't just take off the croutons and send it back - this totally happened to me.
6. Not being nice to your waiter - they hold your fate (or your fate for the next few hours) in their hands.
7. Not asking about everything - I even found a place that put flour in their mashed potatoes.
8. Not thanking a manager and your waiter for going out of their way for you. You always want a wait staff to have a good impression of you. You never know when you or another Celiac will eat there in the future.
9. Not having a back-up plan. Whenever I go out to eat, I pick two or three things on the menu I would be happy enough to eat and then ask the waiter to ask the chef to recommend the safest item. I don't always get my first choice, but I don't get sick, either.
10. Eating at restaurants too frequently. I was still feeling somewhat ill and cut back to eating out to about once a week. Unless they only serve gluten free food, even the most well-meaning restaurant staff can't avoid cross-contamination 100% of the time.

Tips for dining out in the Dallas Fort Worth area

1. Be nice to your server, he or she is the only one standing between you and gluten!
2. No matter what happens, leave a nice tip and thank the server for his or her patience.
3. If the server does something above or beyond the call of duty for you, thank his or her manager.
4. When you sit down, tell your server that you have a serious allergy to wheat and gluten.  If you get a blank look, let them know, that means flour, soy sauce and modified food starch.  Some restaurants have an allergy protocol, so as soon as you say "food allergy" they know what to do.  Some don't.
5. Have a couple of ideas in mind for dishes you think are likely to be gluten free.  Some usually safe bets are: grilled chicken salad with no croutons, curries, mexican food made with corn tortillas, steaks, pork chops, baked potatoes, etc.
6. Make sure the server checks with the chef on every sauce and dressing on your food.  Most creamy looking dressings have modified food starch or wheat.  Clear dressings and vinaigrettes are a good bet, but always check.  Also, ask if anything has been marinaded and if the marinade contains soy sauce.
7. Don't be disappointed if your first choice is a bust.  If you get upset, they'll get anxious and might not tell you if there's gluten in your second choice so they don't upset you further.  Also, it's not fun for the other people at the table if you have a melt down.
8. Ethnic restaurants often offer a greater variety of GF food than traditional american bar and grills.  Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Sushi (dipped in tamari) and Mexican restaurants often have more options.
9. If you order french fries, make sure they are cooked in a dedicated fryer.  If they are cooked in the same oil with breaded items like fish sticks or chicken nuggets, there is a huge danger for cross contamination.
10. You don't have to give up dessert.  Blue Bell vanilla ice cream is safe as well as most jello, creme brulee and flan.  The Cheesecake factory even has a GF cheesecake - their all-chocolate Godiva.
11. Be patient and try not to be too hungry when you go out to eat.  Remember, the first thing they usually bring out is bread!