college

[melissa1]

my daughter was dx with fm but is very sensitive we are wondering about hfi at any rate she is going to college this fall we are meeting with the college food people. How do you explain this. especially the brown rice/wheat flour. when we explain this to people they always ask why not brown rice or wheat flour I never know what to say.
any help would be great

[lisa]

I've had really good luck with giving my son's teacher a diet list and some guidelines that are specific to him.

I will send you a copy later. Hopefully it helps with the school cafeteria.

You could also give them a better idea of what she can eat by giving them a list of things that she likes/can eat and recipes to go along with it.

[kim55]

Teach your daughter to cook! I know that isn't helpful if it's a small college, or if they require all freshmen to be on a food plan, but if she has a microwave and fridge (which most dorms allow) and she knows a little about cooking, it provides a backup if she finds nothing suitable to eat in the cafeteria. Last year we thought my daughter would be in a dorm and the school ran out of dorm rooms and housed her in an apartment with a full kitchen. It turned out that none of her suite-mates knew how to cook, so she ended up cooking for all of them; she didn't mind, because she hates to wash dishes and they ended up doing those. College food is notoriously bad anyway, so this probably turned out for the best, but only because she knew how to cook.

If she must eat the college cafeteria food, ask if you and your daughter can see their recipes and ingredient lists so your daughter can make intelligent choices about what to eat in their cafeteria. If she's in college she's an adult, so she should take primary responsibility for her food selections. I wouldn't expect the cafeteria staff to modify anything for her, but they can give her the information she needs. Be sure to have them show you published sources if possible. Unfortunately, my experience with school cafeterias has not been positive. (The head cook at my daughter's high school once assured me that there was no wheat in the bread they served, until I pointed it out in the ingredients list!) But plenty of people with diet restrictions have managed to survive four years of dorm food. Good luck.

[kim55]

Oh, and to explain the brown rice/whole wheat restriction, just tell them that these things break down into what makes her sick. You will have to give them the same explanation for why she can't have table sugar, honey, fruit, etc.

[charlie]

Basically the more whole the wheat/ rice grain the higher the fructose content as it is stored around the husk of the grain.

I back Kim55, if she is able to cook for herself she will have a better chance. My daughters school do hot meals at lunch time for the children and I went through the menu. There is one meal a month that is safe when it is jacket potato. Basically most food is precooked and has gravies, sauces or tomatoes/onions or flavourings in somewhere.
download the list from the boston website, laminate it and take it everywhere she goes. Good luck with this, your daughter will have to be very mature about what she eats to remain healthy.

[ukbill]

Teach her to cook is my advice too.

An HFI person will need to cook for themselves, its the only way to really learn how much you can tolerate.

There's a real excitement in opening the fridge and wondering what I can knock up to eat next..

I cannot imagine having anyone cook for me more than the occasional meal.

MMM getting hungry..

I wonder if my daughter left any of the smoked salmon?? I just fancy a smoked Salmon omelet..

However I may have to settle for prawn instead (its too late for cheese).

Best wishes to her on her first real adventure in life

Get her to register here in her own right so we can help her if she needs advice on foods

[melissa1]

thanks so much for the replies we have met with the school and the argument is over the food plan. They say she has to have a food plan. which I get but then she should be able to eat. she can cook limited items in her dorm. She does know how to cook. I understand they shouldn't have to cater to her unusal condition but they don't understand I want my money worth. Time will tell what they do.

[ukbill]

By my experience you will find the only food that is safe is stuff she cooks for her self.

I have even been in hospital and had to have food brought into me as the hospital cooks just could not get their heads around our HFI Diet..

Its the complete opposite to what people are told is healthy hence the Cooks cannot reverse their idea of what a "balanced" meal is..

So I was getting correctly cooked food but covered is sweet sauce.. etc..

UK universities are better because for one thing our food is less adulterated with sugar as normal.

When I have visited my Daughter at her Uni I was able to eat in the canteen or Students union bar being careful about what I was ordering.. (and having a Daughter who will eat what I cannot and pass over to me what I can eat.. occasionally)

Do not panic she will be fine . she has a good head on her shoulders to have passed her exams to get there.. she will adapt. and be fine, its normal to worry as a parent.. I know!

[kim55]

I understand your frustration! My daughter's apartment was 3 blocks from the dorm cafeteria and had a full kitchen, so we didn't buy her the food plan, but one of her suite-mates bought it and then hardly used it because she said the dorm food made her sick. She ate at the apartment instead, but what a waste of her parents' money!

I have HFI and may not be as sensitive as your daughter. I did manage to survive four years of dorm food--my job was in the cafeteria, so I was required to eat there. Of course that was 30+ years ago, before the emphasis on "healthy" fruits and vegetables. Our food was greasy, but generally the meat did not have added sugar. I ate a lot of plain pasta with butter and cheese, and white rice.

What was the cafeteria like when you visited? Does the school offer several entree choices at each meal, or only one or two? Can your daughter eat lettuce or spinach as a salad without dressing? (Salting it or adding cheese helps the flavor.) Do you think they would be willing to sometimes set aside a plate for your daughter before they "contaminate" the food with sauces, etc? As an adult I have been to training programs where we had to eat in a cafeteria and I was lucky that the larger one usually put up with me giving them the "third degree" about what was on the food, plus they had salad bars, French bread, cheeses and milk. Perhaps your daughter will be able to find a similar solution. I hope so.

[hfimomof3]

I also ate mostly plain spaghetti and white rice when I was on the meal plan in college. I agree with you that if you have to pay for the meal plan then there should be something she can eat on there. Or, you might ask them if they have provisions for medical exemptions. Surely there must be other college students for whom the meal plan is unsuitable. Maybe they will allow you to get a pared down meal plan, just breakfasts or something. It IS nice to have a meal plan in the sense that most of th students will have one so if you dont' have one then where do you socialise with other students at mealtimes?