¿Hasta qué punto es normal el dejar pasar que la gente no entienda nada sobre las alergias e intolerancias? ¿Consideras que es normal tener una casi media discusión cuando explicas tu situación y a veces parece que hasta se ríen de ti?
¿Te identificas con esta situación? Porque a día de hoy son muchas (muchísimas) las veces que me ha pasado. Casi una por día.
Aunque este blog siempre ha estado relacionado con la dermatitis, sí que ya he contado en un par de ocasiones que, derivado de esta, han surgido diferentes problemas de alergia. Pues bien, esta entrada vuelta a tocar ese tema. Porque llega un momento en el que hay que decir "BASTA".
He decidido, en parte, escribir esta entrada porque hace poco leí una noticia sobre un usuario de Starbucks que escribía en su muro de Facebook una carta a esta misma empresa. La curiosidad de esta noticia es que fue escrita desde el baño, concretamente desde el wáter dónde se retorcía de dolor tras haber bebido un café con leche.
[ Véase aquí la noticia ]
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I have decided to write this post because few days ago I read on the news about one user/fan of Starbucks who wrote in his Facebook wall an opened letter to this company. The curiosity of this "article" it that was written from the toilet while he was suffering so much pain after drinking coffee with normal milk.
[ Check here the news ]
This man wrote sentences like "I have been going to coffee shops for decades and it happened to me more times that I could remember". "Maybe they do some mix, or they just put directly normal milk". He says that he normally doesn't ask for soja milk just because he feel like trying something new or because it is more trendy/modern/hispter/cool whatever. He is just intolerant to lactose. So after he asked for the coffee, the waiter didn't care at all about it so he just put him a coffee with normal milk.
Bravo.
Honestly, I really can identify with this story. In my case, about intolerance to eggs. What this involves is to ask in every single place where I will eat if the "selected" dish contains eggs/mayonnaise/or fried in egg batter. Because it can appear in many different versions. For example, nobody thinks that mayonnaise is made with eggs. Or alioli sauce contains mayonnaise (WHICH CONTAINS EGGS). So, it always takes me more than 10 minutes to order a simple meal.
The funniest think is the face of the waiter when they almost laugh or stay paralyzed trying to figure out what is that. Like thinking "what the hell is this guy asking about eggs? How is possible that this will contain eggs? Who is allergic to eggs?".
Let's go to the main point. Couple of months ago I went with some friends for dinner in a restaurant in the center where they have really good and tasty hamburgers. We decided to try them so when the waiter came and ask for what we wanted I started to explain my situation. I explained him that I am allergic (not intolerance, so they take the situation a red alarm) so I would like to know if the meat contains eggs (it wouldn't be the first time I find something like that). He laughs and says no (he even took the time to doubt about it) so he thinks that not, it doesn't contain eggs. My reaction was that I don't want him to think if yes or not, just go and ask about it. So, of course I don't want any kind of sauce. We writes everything and goes with a smile in his face.
Obviously, the reaction of my friends is kind of uncomfortable because for them is also strange, but they not I cannot eat it. So the time with the waiter makes the atmosphere a bit strange.
The point of this is also to show the people how this problem affects you, because they just know about the problem but the theory. Not the reality and practical situation. So they realized how it affects me and its consequences. You believe when you see.
¿Te identificas con esta situación? Porque a día de hoy son muchas (muchísimas) las veces que me ha pasado. Casi una por día.
Aunque este blog siempre ha estado relacionado con la dermatitis, sí que ya he contado en un par de ocasiones que, derivado de esta, han surgido diferentes problemas de alergia. Pues bien, esta entrada vuelta a tocar ese tema. Porque llega un momento en el que hay que decir "BASTA".
He decidido, en parte, escribir esta entrada porque hace poco leí una noticia sobre un usuario de Starbucks que escribía en su muro de Facebook una carta a esta misma empresa. La curiosidad de esta noticia es que fue escrita desde el baño, concretamente desde el wáter dónde se retorcía de dolor tras haber bebido un café con leche.
[ Véase aquí la noticia ]
El hombre escribío frases como "Llevo una década yendo a cafeterías y me ha pasado más veces de las que puedo recordar". "O me ponen una mezcla o, directamente, me echan leche normal". Dice que no suele pedir leche de soja porque le apetezca cambiar de vez en cuando o porque mola más y más moderno/trendy/hipster/cool lo que sea. Simplemente es intolerante. Pues una vez pedido el café, el camarero hace caso omiso del detalle y pone leche normal en el café. Bravo.
Sinceramente, me identifico un montón con su caso. Por mi parte, la intolerancia es la del huevo. Lo que esto implica es preguntar a cada sitio que voy y a cada comida que se me antoja, si contiene huevo/rebozado/mayonesa/... porque puede aparecer en diferentes versiones. Y a nadie se le pasa por la cabeza que la mayonesa lleva huevo. O que la salsa alioli lleva mayonesa (QUE LLEVA HUEVO). Y claro, siempre me tiro más de 10 minutos para pedir un plato.
Y lo gracioso de todo esto es la cara de la persona del local (ya sea camarero, gerente o ayudante) todos se quedan perplejos y "quasi" riendo. Como preguntándose "qué narices tiene este en contra del huevo" o "cómo va a ser alguien alérgico al huevo". Pues ya ve usted señorito/a camarero/a.
Vayamos al grano. Hace un par de meses fui con un grupo de amigos a cenar al centro a un local que servían unas hamburguesas riquísimas. Decidimos ir a probarlas y, en el momento en el que el camarero tomó nota del pedido yo le expliqué que tengo esta alergia (ya no digo intolerancia para darle más énfasis al asunto) y que me gustaría saber si la hamburguesa contiene huevo (porque no es la primera vez que me encuentro algo así). Él se ríe y me dice que no (ni se molesta en pasarse la duda por la cabeza, simplemente se la pasa por otro lado) que no cree que lleve huevo. Mi reacción es que no le cuestiono si él piensa que lleva o no huevo, sino que se cerciore del tema. Y por supuesto, que no quiero ninguna salsa. Él toma nota y, riéndose, se va.
Obviamente la reacción de los amigos es incómoda porque ellos tampoco lo entienden muy bien, pero saben que no puedo comerlo. Y obviamente el rato con el camarero es un tanto incómodo.
Llega el camarero con las hamburguesas para cada uno. Todo muy bien puesto, muy buena decoración y buenas maneras del camarero (el sitio lo merecía), pero aún así haciendo la gracia de que no hay salsa alguna en mi hamburguesa. Una vez puestos a comer, todos nos cruzamos las miradas esperando que todo salga bien y nos decimos un "que aproveche". Corto un pequeño trozo de la hamburguesa y degusto el primer bocado. Yo, a menudo, dejo cierto tiempo después del primer bocado para asegurarme de que todo está bien. Pero a los 30 segundos de masticar y engullir... voilà! Me pica la garganta! Se lo digo a los míos, que se quedan perplejos y me preguntan repetidas veces: "¿Estás seguro?" Llamamos al camarero y le pregunto con un tono un poco más alarmante si está seguro de que esto no lleva huevo porque me pica la garganta. Y él dice que no, pero que espere por si acaso y pregunta.
Pasados unos cinco minutos el hombre vuelve con cara preocupante y resulta que acaba de preguntar en cocina y que, sintiéndolo mucho, sí que lleva huevo la carne. El momento de "eres gilipollas o entrenas para ello?" nubla mi mente y le digo: "Tú crees que yo hago tantas preguntas para saber si contiene o deja de contener huevo porque me apetece charlar contigo? Porque sí, puede ser gracioso y todos nos reímos, pero la gracia... ya ves tú cómo nos reímos todos ahora." Me dice y me redice que de verdad, lo siente mucho. Y me ofrece otra comida, si prefiero así. ¿Pero de verdad se cree que ahora estoy como para pedir otra cosa?
A los pocos minutos mi estómago empieza a dar las primeras patadas y corro rápido al servicio (pff... en el piso de arriba, qué bien). Una vez listo le pido a los míos que si pueden acercarme a casa en coche porque la cosa se va a poner fea. Cual circuito de F1 por el centro hasta llegar al destino. Del coche al baño en milisegundos. Pues bien, de ahí hasta pasadas 5 horas mi cuerpo se torció y retorció cuanto quiso. Hacía tiempo que no sentía tanto dolor.
La cuestión de todo esto es que incluso vale para enseñarle a los tuyos, a los que te rodean y aguantan tus "exquisiteces" culinarias en cada momento, que esto va en serio. Que esto no es un antojo. Que esto de verdad afecta y las consecuencias son muy duras. Hasta que uno no lo ve, no lo cree.
Pasados los días, y ya recuperado, decidí escribir un email al restaurante explicándoles lo sucedido y dejándoles bien claro que la situación del sábado por la noche podría pasarles una factura bastante cara. No solo por haber cometido semejante negligencia, sino porque aquí el menda es intolerante y lo pasa mal durante unas cuantas horas. Pero pobre al que le toque un alérgico de verdad y se arriesgue a decirle que la carne no lleva huevo. Porque esta vez no será una cagalera insufrible, sino que se morirá delante de sus ojos.
También les comenté, por si no estaban al tanto como empresa que son, que existen unas leyes (a nivel europeo) sobre etiquetado de alimentos que deben ser reflejados tanto en los envases como en los menús de los restaurantes. (Dicho sea de paso que esta ley se la pasan el 80% de los locales por donde ellos quieren. De ahí que me pase la vida preguntando). La continuación del email simplemente fue de advertencia, de que esto podría ser mucho más grave.
La contestación no se hizo esperar más de 24 horas y el responsable del restaurante no se cansó de pedir perdón por lo sucedido y que, después de aquel momento, justo al cierre se hizo una reunión para hablar sobre eso. Dejó a todos muy claro el problema que supone. En cuanto al camarero, explicó que será apercibido por ello, a pesar de que llevaba 2 años trabajando ahí y nunca habían tenido ningún problema. Pero algo así no se puede dejar pasar.
Obviamente mi intención no era que repercutiese en el empleado, pero debería saber a lo que se exponen porque normalmente son estudiantes o gente que trabaja temporalmente y solo se dedican a hacer pedidos y cobrarlos sin preocuparse por lo que el sector de la hostelería incumbe.
Espero que la historia no te haya aburrido, pero tras haber sabido lo de este hombre de Starbucks (yo no he escrito esta entrada desde el baño ni mucho menos ya que no estaba en condiciones de teclear), me vi en la necesidad de compartirlo porque seguro que hay muchos otros que pelean y discuten a diario con el camarero de turno.
Con estas líneas quiero también hacer un poco más visible el tema de las alergias/intolerancias porque parece que la gente solo se centra (o más bien sabe) sobre el GLUTEN FREE o SIN LACTOSA. Pero hay más que eso. Hay un sinfín de problemas como lo son el huevo, los frutos secos, el marisco, legumbres, fruta... etc. Y que si escribes en Google "alergias alimentarias más comunes" la primera entrada contienen una imagen de unos huevos. O sea, que no será tan raro.
Hasta aquí por hoy. Muchas gracias por tu lectura.
Nos vemos pronto.
Puedes echarle un vistazo a las leyes a los que hago mención arriba:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ES/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32011R1169------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until which moment do you think is normal not to be worried about misinformation of allergies in our society? Do you think is normal to have (almost) a discussion when you are explaining your situation and even feeling that people are laughing at you?
Do you similar situations? Because nowadays there are many many many times that this happened to me. Almost once per day.
Although this blog was created to talk about dermatitis, I wrote few times that this problem is connected with allergy problems. So, in this post we will discuss about this topic. Because there should be the moment when we must say: ENOUGH!
I have decided to write this post because few days ago I read on the news about one user/fan of Starbucks who wrote in his Facebook wall an opened letter to this company. The curiosity of this "article" it that was written from the toilet while he was suffering so much pain after drinking coffee with normal milk.
[ Check here the news ]
This man wrote sentences like "I have been going to coffee shops for decades and it happened to me more times that I could remember". "Maybe they do some mix, or they just put directly normal milk". He says that he normally doesn't ask for soja milk just because he feel like trying something new or because it is more trendy/modern/hispter/cool whatever. He is just intolerant to lactose. So after he asked for the coffee, the waiter didn't care at all about it so he just put him a coffee with normal milk.
Bravo.
Honestly, I really can identify with this story. In my case, about intolerance to eggs. What this involves is to ask in every single place where I will eat if the "selected" dish contains eggs/mayonnaise/or fried in egg batter. Because it can appear in many different versions. For example, nobody thinks that mayonnaise is made with eggs. Or alioli sauce contains mayonnaise (WHICH CONTAINS EGGS). So, it always takes me more than 10 minutes to order a simple meal.
The funniest think is the face of the waiter when they almost laugh or stay paralyzed trying to figure out what is that. Like thinking "what the hell is this guy asking about eggs? How is possible that this will contain eggs? Who is allergic to eggs?".
Let's go to the main point. Couple of months ago I went with some friends for dinner in a restaurant in the center where they have really good and tasty hamburgers. We decided to try them so when the waiter came and ask for what we wanted I started to explain my situation. I explained him that I am allergic (not intolerance, so they take the situation a red alarm) so I would like to know if the meat contains eggs (it wouldn't be the first time I find something like that). He laughs and says no (he even took the time to doubt about it) so he thinks that not, it doesn't contain eggs. My reaction was that I don't want him to think if yes or not, just go and ask about it. So, of course I don't want any kind of sauce. We writes everything and goes with a smile in his face.
Obviously, the reaction of my friends is kind of uncomfortable because for them is also strange, but they not I cannot eat it. So the time with the waiter makes the atmosphere a bit strange.
The waiter comes with all of our hamburgers. Everything is ok, good decoration, good manners from his side, but besides that he needed to make the joke about no sauce in my hamburger. Once we started to eat, everybody looked at everybody hoping everything is good and we start to eat. I cut a little peace and tasted it. Normally, I wait around 30 seconds after the first bite to be sure that everything is ok. But even before I felt that something was wrong. My throat started to itch! I told my friends what is going on and they were so shocked: Are you sure??? We called the waiter and I asked him in an alarmingly way if he is sure that there is no egg because I feel it. So he said that no, but still he told me to wait and he went to the kitchen to make sure about it.
After 5 minutes the man came back with a worried face because in the kitchen they told him that of course, the meet is mixed with eggs. That moment, the sentence of "Are you retarded or what?" comes to my mind and I said: "Do you think that I ask many times about it because I love to have a long conversation with you or what? Because it is maybe funny and we can all laugh about the topic, but this funny thing... you can see how much fun we are having now". So he told me that he is really really sorry and that I can order something else if I want. But... Do you really think that I am able now to eat something else?
After few minutes my stomach started to make noises so I ran to the toilet (pff... it was upstairs, so cool). Later, I asked my friends if they could take me home because the situation will turn into much more complicated stuff. We went into the car and like in F1 circuit around the city we arrived home so... I just jump into the toilet where I spent around 5 hours feeling such a pain in the stomach and getting rid of things. So long time that I didn't have such a painful situation.
Few days later, when everything passed and we calmed down, I decided to write an email to the restaurant explaining what happened and letting them know that the situation that night could be for them a really serious and expensive problem. Not only because of did such a negligence, because I am intolerant so after few hours of pain is ok. But a real allergic person would be there, maybe the situation would finish in the hospital or... in another place...
I also explained them about the legal situation as a company, because there are some laws (European one) about labels in food and explanation in menus of the restaurants. (I must say that this law nobody cares about it. That is why we must ask every where). The next part of the email was about warning them how serious the situation could be.
I also explained them about the legal situation as a company, because there are some laws (European one) about labels in food and explanation in menus of the restaurants. (I must say that this law nobody cares about it. That is why we must ask every where). The next part of the email was about warning them how serious the situation could be.
The reply from the restaurant was really fast and the manager was saying many times how sorry he is about what happened and, from that moment, after they closed that night they had a meeting to talk everybody about it. He made sure of how serious is this. The waiter, he said, was punished because of that but they were so shocked because he was working there more than two years and he always did his job perfectly. Not this time.
Obviously, my intention was not to affect the waiter's situation, but advice the danger of this problem because many people who work as a waiter are students or temporary workers who don't know anything about restaurants, food, problems, hygiene... whatever, which this sector involves.
I hope that this story didn't happen to you, but after reading about that man in Sturbuck (I didn't write this post from the toilet), I feel the need of sharing my situation as well and fight with this problem which happen to many people everyday.
After these lines I want to make more visible the situation of allergies/intolerances because it seems that our society is only focused (or just know) about GLUTEN FREE or WITHOUT LACTOSE. But there are more. There is an unlimited allergen list like eggs, fruits, seafood, nuts... And if you type in Google "food allergies" the first link is connected already with eggs allergy. So, I guess it is not so weird.
Thank you for time.
See you soon.
Here you can have a look at the European law that I was talking about before:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ES/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32011R1169
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