Best Fast Food Choices to Minimize Gluten in the Diet

Gluten Free Fast Food Near Me?

There are many fast food places in your area. You may want to check if they offer gluten-free foods or not. If you do, then it would be best to avoid them as well as other restaurants which have such items available. There are some things you need to consider before making any decision.

The first thing you must decide is whether you want to eat at a restaurant with gluten-free options or not. If so, then go ahead and order from the menu. However, if you don’t wish to eat there, then there will be no point in doing so since all the ingredients used in these restaurants are likely to contain gluten.

So how much risk does eating out pose?

It depends on the type of food you choose. Some types of food are safer than others. For example, if you’re ordering from McDonald’s, then chances are that their burgers and fries are safe to eat without any concern. On the other hand, if you’re choosing from Wendy’s or Arby’s, then you’ll probably want to make sure that none of those foods contain gluten in them.

If you’re ordering from a fast food restaurant and aren’t sure about whether or not it’s safe to eat, then you can always ask if their foods contain gluten in them. Most of the time, the cashiers and cooks won’t know and will have to look at the ingredients to see if there’s any gluten in it. Of course, you shouldn’t expect the person taking your order to be a nutrition expert or a dietitian. If you want to make sure that the food you’re ordering doesn’t contain any gluten, then it would be best if you did the research by yourself first before going to the restaurant.

Is It Safe To Eat Gluten-Free Fast Food?

After a long day of work, you decide to stop by Wendy’s for a quick dinner. You have to make sure to catch the bus in the next five minutes so you don’t want to make anything at home and you definitely don’t have time to go to a sit down restaurant. Gluten-free fast food seems like the perfect solution.

So is it safe to eat gluten-free fast food?

As a general rule, the answer is yes, but there are some exceptions. For instance, many fast food restaurants have a gluten-free menu, but the issue is that these items are often individually packaged so cross-contamination with a gluten-containing food item is possible.

Also, you should make sure to always ask questions. For instance, Wendy’s has a gluten-free bun, but their deli meat contains gluten. So if you order a gluten-free hamburger, be sure to ask for it to be wrapped in a lettuce wrap instead of a gluten-containing bun.

There are some other fast food restaurants that you can eat at and not have to worry about being glutened. These include Dairy Queen, Subway, McDonald’s, Arby’s, Chick-fil-A, and Burger King. This is not an all-inclusive list; you just need to do your own research when it comes to the gluten-free options at certain fast food restaurants near you.

While eating out and about isn’t ideal for most, it’s a good idea to have an idea of where you can go in a pinch if needed. Luckily, there are more and more fast food restaurants that have gluten-free options nowadays.

What Else Should I Know About Eating Out?

When you’re at a restaurant that you’ve never tried before, you never know if you’ll have an allergic reaction to something on the menu. If this sounds familiar, then call ahead of time and ask if they can accommodate your special dietary needs. For instance, if you have a severe peanut allergy, it would be best to dine at a Thai restaurant since they usually make dishes without peanuts. If you have a shellfish allergy, then it would be best to avoid restaurants that specialize in seafood.

Sometimes it isn’t always possible to call ahead of time (or perhaps you forget to), so if you have a mild to moderate reaction when you’re at the restaurant, you can take some anti-histamines before your meal. The medicine usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour to kick in, so it’s best to take them when you first sit down and order your food.

Sources & references used in this article:

Thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin contents of the gluten-free diet: is there cause for concern? by T Thompson – Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and …, 1999 – search.proquest.com

Detection of gluten in gluten-free labeled restaurant food: Analysis of crowd-sourced data by BA Lerner, LP Vo, S Yates, AG Rundle… – The American journal …, 2019 – ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Living with coeliac disease and a gluten‐free diet: a C anadian perspective by M Zarkadas, S Dubois, K MacIsaac… – Journal of Human …, 2013 – Wiley Online Library

Gluten-free food database: the nutritional quality and cost of packaged gluten-free foods by B Missbach, L Schwingshackl, A Billmann, A Mystek… – PeerJ, 2015 – peerj.com

Are gluten-free foods healthier than non-gluten-free foods? An evaluation of supermarket products in Australia by JHY Wu, B Neal, H Trevena, M Crino… – British Journal of …, 2015 – cambridge.org

Hypervigilance to a gluten-free diet and decreased quality of life in teenagers and adults with celiac disease by S Lieberman – 2007 – Pan Macmillan

Food Allergy and Gluten-free Weight Loss: Control Your Body Chemistry, Reduce Inflammation, and Improve Your Health by RL Wolf, B Lebwohl, AR Lee, P Zybert… – Digestive diseases and …, 2018 – Springer

Problems and challenges to adaptation of gluten free diet by Indian patients with celiac disease by NM Dumke – 2011 – books.google.com