In the last Gluten Free Self Advocacy Tools post we discussed the meaning of self advocacy, and talked about advocating in your personal life, specifically with friends and family, at school, and in medical environments. Another big area for advocacy concerns advocating for food you can eat outside of your household, specifically with grocery stores and restaurants.

Self Advocacy at the grocery store or a restaurant might make you feel ‘needy’, but you are incredibly entitled to requesting products from the stores and restaurants that supply your food! Just think about it, if the  ‘normal’ non-restricted individual can find what they need anywhere then why aren’t you entitled to trying your best to make that the case for you as well?

Grocery Store and Product Advocacy

 Many companies, such as Trade Joe’s or Whole Foods encourage input from their shoppers regarding the products they would like to see stocked. Specific Product companies offer tools with which you can encourage stores to carry items. They can be as simple as a business card that you can get from the company, to a complex form or letter you can download. It is best to speak to the manager for best results. Depicted above, and listed below, are just a few examples or product request forms from food producers.

• Schar Product Request Form
• Kinnikinnick provides a Product Referral card. I wasn’t able to find them online, but if you email them I am sure they can send you a few.
• Udi’s Product Request Letter **
• Rudi’s has a similar Product Request Letter, and a newer one for their soft pretzels.

Self Advocacy with Restaurants 

From Triumph Dining.com

Restaurants are one of the situations in which individuals with restrictive diets can feel least in control, which can lead to a lot of anxiety or avoidance. However, with a little bit of advocacy on your part you can improve your dining experience, and that of other gluten free folks. In these cases, it is again best to work with the manager or chef. You can do so in many ways, and here are just a few ways to do so:

• Use Triumph Dining’s Cards (available in ten languages) to educate servers, chefs, and kitchen staff. 
• Suggest that your favorite restaurant seek out Gluten-free Resource Education & Awareness Training from the NFCA in order to boost their knowledge about, and ability to serve, those with Celiac Disease.
• For restaurants that do offer gluten free items, and have gluten free serving experience remind them that they can get Gluten Free Certified by companies such as the Gluten Intolerance Group or  Celiebo. 
• Advocate for the restaurants you do enjoy, or point out the ones that have been less than helpful by offer up a review of that restaurant on restaurant review sites. You can use typical review sites such as  UrbanSpoon to indicate if a restaurant is gluten free friendly or use one of many gluten free Apps or websites. A few of these are listed below:
• Gluten Free Registry
• Gluten Free Travel Site (also includes college, resort, and cruise reviews)
• Find me Gluten Free

Lastly, although not a tool, it is important to remind restaurants that transparency is key. If a restaurant you do frequent already provides gluten free options and is a safe environment  suggest that they create a gluten free menu or indicate gluten free items in a clear way on their menu. Stress that they should provide this information for review on their websites, as it will boost the awareness that they are gluten free friendly to customers, and may even boost business! 

As you can see, advocacy is all about letting your voice be heard and there are so many ways to do it!

In my final post about Gluten Free Self Advocacy Tools I will talk about what many people think of when they hear the word Advocacy: Legislative and Political Action. I feel this warrants it’s own post given the hold that policy has over most aspects of our everyday lives. Of course all of these areas overlap, but I wanted to keep it separate to remind individuals that advocacy can be more than just political advocacy. I hope the previous two posts show just how far self advocacy can go in changing the way our systems (friends, family, schools, doctors, restaurants, stores etc.) view Celiac Disease and treat not only us, but others with CD.