Is it rude not to cater for allergies/special diets?

If you know someone has an allergy, then it would be nice if you provided food they could eat. If you find out really late, it would still be nice to try to throw something together for them, if you can.

However, when it comes down to it, you are responsible for your own dietary requirements and planning accordingly. Whether it's allergies, requiring kosher or halal food, or veg*n food.

It seems to me that its become the fashion to have allergies!

I didn't know one person with a allergy when I was a kid!!

Ps. I know some of you won't like this comment but its my opinion!

Yes!!! Thank you I'm glad someone finally came out and said it. Having (fake) wheat / gluten / peanut allergies is all the rage these days.

Very many people who have allergies did not choose them.
One would not ever choose to have a severe anaphalactic allergy to nuts or shell fish.
Some will be so sensitive that even a small particle will cause a medical emergency.
If you are catering for people and they indicate that they have an allergy or special dietary need - then you do need to cater for those needs.
kind regards,

Ben

YES absolutely, they are served perfectly edible food as well containing "ingredients they don't like".

How interesting. Would you serve non-kosher food to a Jewish person, or non-Halal meat to a practicing Muslim? Or is it just non-religious beliefs/decisions that are ignored?

I don't dine with kosher jews or muslims on a regular basis these days. If they were invited to my house for dinner and accepted, they would be responsible to sort their issues out. Not me. If someone invites me for dinner, I don't give them the run down of my dietary requirements. How ridiculous!

I con honestly say I've never invited someone for a meal and haven't asked if they have dietary requirements. I'd rather check, and cater accordingly and have a nice meal with my guests than churlishly sit there and say "tough cookies" to a guest I'd invited to dine with me. That's the most basic of hospitality!!

I'm a vege and have always ben catered for at various functions with no extra cost. At my wedding we had Chicken with a tarragon sauce but the vege/vegans etc could have a dish of there choice. My friends all except my food choices and I except theres each to the own! I would never dream of inviting someone to a fuction and then not catering for them...... I find this extremely rude. Don't get me wrong I would only cater for allergies and vege/vegan etc no someone who is doing atkins etc as I'm sure it can get a bit ott but most venues would ask for the special dietry needs of guests and sort it for you at no extra cost....... thats what your paying per head for!

At my wedding we catered for people with allergies but not lifestyle choices - it was our opinion the menu was varied enough that any vegetarians could still have a good meal without the meat part.

If I go to a wedding, I eat what I like from the meal and leave what I don't (I hate meat if its still even pink never mind bloody, really turns my stomach) but I wouldn't ask for an option on it, I'd just leave it to the side .... probably hidden under the greens I accept the invite to see friends get married, if I want a wider choice of food I'll take my husband out for dinner.

I now have gluten intolerance and am insulin resistant, and allergic to several different foods. I don't ever expect anyone to cater to my weirdness, and don't even mention it when I'm invited somewhere. I see it as my own responsibility to figure out what I can eat in any given situation, not someone else's problem.

I agree with this. Planning weddings can be super hectic / stressful. Not many people are going to have the time to go through all of their guests (especially for a medium-large wedding) dietary needs and make adjustments for every single one. Usually there is more food than just a main dish so even if you were vegetarian for example you’d still be able to get food in form of side dishes/ fruits/ other apps. You’d have to be extremely limited in what you can eat if you find yourself with few options at most weddings. And it is up to you at that point to figure out what you can eat, the bride nor her family/people involved with planning the wedding should have to worry about what you’re eating.

Now having said this, I would probably make exceptions for people with allergies (like, will die if they even get a hint of peanut level allergy) if I know about them or they let me know at an appropriate time before the wedding when there is still time for me to do something about it.

Don’t show up on the wedding day and expect something special for you if you haven’t made your needs clear.

It seems to me that its become the fashion to have allergies!

I didn't know one person with a allergy when I was a kid!!

Ps. I know some of you won't like this comment but its my opinion!

Yes!!! Thank you I'm glad someone finally came out and said it. Having (fake) wheat / gluten / peanut allergies is all the rage these days.

Most people who have these are not fake. i would love to go out and eat but its never an option for me due to all my allergies and coeliac .(I've just been told I'll have to be on medication all my life due to allergies). I've a two year old who does not understand that eating chocolate makes her sick and its hard as a parent seeing her upset. As not having seeing people growing up with allergies I'm 36 and was diagnosed as a Coeliac 34 years ago. It is just that there is more awareness than there was 30 years ago.

I have to have eyes in the back of my head at weddings/parties as my 6 yo is allergic to milk protein. Well meaning friends and even relatives often try to give her a cake with pretty frosting or a piece of chocolate, because they can't see the milk, they think its going to be ok for her. She is learning tho, and getting quite good at making her needs known to adults. Good practice for when she gets an invite of her own!

My nephew has a severe nut allergy. At 7, he asks EVERYONE who offers him ANYTHING if it has nuts! It's quite cute and great that he is so aware. He even asked me when he was in the room while we discussed wedding food "Auntie, will you have no nuts for me?"

I think it's rude - I would cater for anyone that let me know in advance.

When I got married, our hotel were more than happy to prepare certain foods for certain guests if needed at no extra charge.
In the end no one had any 'special' requirements apart from being vegetarian.
So there was a vegetarian option listed on the menu for them.

I would be very offended if someone didn't cater for me, especially if I had an actual allergy to something.

The whole 'vegan's are used to fending for themselves' thing p!sses me off.
It's not like they're asking for the chef to fly to outer space for a very rare type of plant that only grows on Mars, takes 10 hours to prepare and has to be served on a gold plate.
They just want a meal with no animal products in it - it's not hard.

And no I'm not Vegan or Vegetarian, so I'm not even biased. I just respect that other people eat differently to me.

Agree. This isn't an issue about catering for someone this is an issue about how much notice one gets in my opinion.

Sorry, but whenever I've been over to a vegan/vegetarian's house to eat dinner, I wasn't offered a steak (or any other meat, for that matter). I lived as a veggie/vegan for 20 years and never, ever cooked meat for a meat eating guest, and they didn't expect me to.

I now have gluten intolerance and am insulin resistant, and allergic to several different foods. I don't ever expect anyone to cater to my weirdness, and don't even mention it when I'm invited somewhere. I see it as my own responsibility to figure out what I can eat in any given situation, not someone else's problem.

I would be offended if I were the hostess and someone I had invited didn't tell me about allergies in particular. I do not want people dropping dead or having anaphylatctic shocks in my home. Such guests may think they're sorting it out themselves but they lack the courtesy to inform their host/ hostess of something which could have a direct impact on the whole experience for all involved. Imagine sitting at the table when there's nothing you can eat!

I always ask people I invite over and I don't invite them over unless I'm willing to cater for their religious/ food allergy needs.

The last thing I want is an ambulance driving up my driveway because someone who didn't tell me about their food allergy karks it on the lino.

The neighbours, not to mention the horses, would be scandalized.

100% agree. If I invite you over for food, I want you to enjoy it. Not talking weddings, but dinner parties here, I even ask about likes/dislikes. I still tease my almost-husband about saying he'd eat "anything" the first time I had him over for dinner and then left a lot of my well thought out meal on his plate because, in truth, he had fairly simple tastes. Why on earth would anyone want to invite a friend for dinner and then have them sit there unable or unwilling to eat it, or sick because they did?

I think, in the UK, that any venue would expect to cater for meat-eaters, vegetarians, vegans, coeliacs and anyone with allergies at the same price-per-head cost. It is a normal part of life. When we ate as a family around Christmas time we used to make sure to cater for low fat (due to MS), gluten intolerance and vegetarianism, and it was never a big deal. On my son's birthday I made an extra egg-free dessert just for one little boy, but of course we could all eat his leftovers

In the UK I would see it as rude, unkind and, frankly, aggressive to refuse to cater to others dietary requirements, whether ethical or medical. If I were in Japan, France or Spain I would expect a little less understanding and would be prepared to do more by myself, although I do believe I was well catered for as a non meat eater at a French wedding. I have no experience of the States. Is it perhaps a regional thing in the States as it would be in Europe?

If you have a special diet, then that is something that you ought to be prepared to deal with. It is your responsibility, not theirs, to deal with your specific needs.

I personally wouldn't be catering to all my friends allergies/diets on my wedding day. I do when they visit my house but I have too many friends with too many restrictions to keep track of. Plus, I'm cheap.... I'll probably only have cake and fruit at my reception.

For the most part, I would say no, unless you specifically asked the host to set aside something different for you. In this case though, the friend let the OP that she probably couldn't cater to your diet so that OP would be prepared, so I would take that into consideration before considering her rude or not.

As for weddings, some people reserve the catering for quite a while in advance, put down the security deposit, whatever. If they find out 4 months before the wedding that one person needs a diet change and their caterer couldn't "cater" to it, it would be really difficult to change the reservations getting so close to the wedding especially if there are a lot of people.

For my wedding, we did a pot luck style dinner, so everyone brought a dish to pass and we provided the meat. We had a hollowed out watermelon made to look like a basket filled with fruit salad, bread rolls and several veggie trays. Those are the only 'vegan" things I can think of that we had. For our wedding, I guess that the vegans/special diet folks would've just brought their own dish that pertained to their diet choice and added whatever choices were available.