Eating Out

So.  Eating out on my diet plan probably isn't recommended, just because it's hard and you don't know how they prepare food.  Well Lyle promised Ella they could go get "Mickey mouse pancakes" at a local restaurant after dance, so off we went.  While we were waiting for our food, it made me think about how on this diet it's a little easier, but not much, than trying to find something Eli can eat.   I ended up with a side salad and small cup of vegetable beef soup.  Some of the vegetables in the soup I wasn't "supposed" to eat- corn, and the beef in it probably wasn't lean, but I can get away with cheating.  Poor Eli can't. 
So what do we do for Eli?  Well it depends. 
We absolutely LOVE Disney, for many reasons, but one is because whenever you make reservations and mark that you have allergies the chef will come to your table and prepare a special meal for the person with allergies.  Last year Eli wouldn't eat much but got several types of food for the first time ever.   This year we're very excited to go because he wants to eat stuff, we just can't let him.  So this will be a great experience for him!
Now that Eli can eat lettuce and likes it, we can go to places with salad bars and not have to bring much food.  Veggies and fruits on salad bars save us from having to bring those to restaurants and we've started frequenting places with that option a little more.  Just having a salad on the menu doesn't always guarantee it's safe- Fazoli's has cheese on theirs if  you don't specially order it and make sure they make a fresh one, not just try to take off the cheese (that happened to me once and there was still cheese in it).  These places we still take meat options for Eli, because you never know about marinades or some lunch meats have beef even if it doesn't sound like it should (pork hot dogs usually have beef).
 For unknown restaurants or places like we went last night, we just pack a meal.  Last night Lyle opened a can of tuna (which I thought was weird), and took a cup of peas and mandarin oranges.  We buy both fruit and veggie cups from the store for occasions.  Meat we more frequently take is turkey pepperoni, ham or turkey slices, or turkey hot dogs. 
Many restaurants have awesome menus to help you decide about allergies, so make sure you ask.  TGI-Fridays and O-Charlie's comes to mind right away.  Italian restaurants are also making special gluten free menus, but that doesn't help us a lot because of the soy allergy.  If they marinade their meat, I assume it has soy even if they don't know for sure.
Packing is easiest for us, but my biggest concern is once he gets bigger if someone will complain.  Of course we just won't eat there if they can't accommodate my son.  End of story!