The Easiest Way to Report Your Food Allergies While Traveling
If you have a food allergy or illness that you may need to tell others about, traveling abroad will bring new challenges. You need to figure out how to communicate in a language you may not speak well (or not at all) to make sure you don’t eat things you shouldn’t. This is where translated medical records come in handy, and you can buy them from several online sources if you don’t feel confident enough to make your own.
Food allergies are one of the most common reasons why people take a transfer card with them on a trip. As we have explained before , it is also very useful to know some basic terms in the local language so that you can ask if there are nuts in the food, for example. Better yet, research before you go to find out what popular foods contain nuts and the names of the different types of nuts so you can browse the menu without asking the waiter about every item on it. (Some cards contain a list of common ingredients containing the indicated allergen, which can help you and your server communicate.)
Some places where you can order pre-made cards for food allergies and special diets (including religious and medical restrictions) include:
- Choose Wisely , which offers a wide variety of cards.
- Equal Eats , which allows you to create a custom card.
- Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia, which offers a downloadable PDF that you can customize to include the foods you are allergic to.
- FoodAllergy.org also has free downloadable cards.
In addition to food allergies, you may also need a card for other conditions. Select Wisely has cards for diabetes, asthma and more. For example, the diabetes card has wording that asks the person to give you sugar, so you can point to that message if you have hypoglycemia. There is also a message asking for help getting to the hospital.
Before committing your health to a piece of paper that has words on it that you don’t quite understand, it would be wise for a bilingual person to make sure that the card says exactly what you mean, and also that you can understand how to respond waiter or chef. Select Wisely cards usually end with a question like “Does this food contain nuts?” which should have a clear yes/no answer.
And of course, you can always go the DIY route: translate your message and then make your own postcard or screenshot of what you want to say and save it to your phone. Just make sure you’re still browsing someone who’s fluent in the target language so you don’t end up unknowingly relying on Google’s poor translation.