{"id":17677,"date":"2017-06-28T17:38:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T21:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17677"},"modified":"2017-06-28T17:38:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T21:38:24","slug":"politics-as-usual-ill-have-what-shes-having","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-ill-have-what-shes-having\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: I’ll have what she’s having"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read recently about an appalling, yet not altogether unexpected trend in dining behaviour where patrons are \u201cfaking\u201d, for lack of a better word, their food allergies to get special treatment in restaurants.
\nDiners asking for all sorts of substitutions or alterations to the dishes on the menu to get what they want regardless of how ridiculous or difficult it will be for the kitchen to accommodate them.
\nAnd should the server balk at such requests? Well, the request is framed as a life and death matter, due to a supposed food allergy.
\nSo, to recap, apparently people are pretending to have a deadly medical condition so that they can get tomato sauce instead of cream sauce on their pasta? Really? Good god, why not just wheel oneself around in a wheelchair as well so you can get the \u201cgood\u201d parking space? You\u2019re already faking one medical issue, might as well go whole hog.
\nHonestly, that is just beyond appalling, but as I said, not unexpected.
\nUnfortunately, we now live in the era of me first, where everyone thinks they are entitled to special treatment regardless of their circumstances or even the context. And to make matters worse, their bad behaviour is rewarded.
\nYou can\u2019t blame this on millennials; that age group that has been branded as the special snowflakes with outrageous expectations in terms of job prospects, etc. It isn\u2019t the 25 year olds that are demanding freshly squeezed pineapple juice in their mimosas instead of oranges; it\u2019s us \u201colder\u201d folks.
\nWhy the accommodation in the first place? Why do restaurants bend over backwards to accommodate every crazy request for substitutions and alterations? Because people have realized that they have recourse if they don\u2019t get what they are asking for.
\nIf they don\u2019t get what they want, they raise holy hell. In person or online \u2013 both of which can hit a restaurant\u2019s bottom line. Negative social media campaigns that target particular outlets after a \u201cbad\u201d dining experience have had tremendous impacts on the continued viability of those establishments.
\nAnd if holy hell doesn\u2019t work, then they threaten to sue.
\nAnd the threat of a lawsuit is not an idle threat.
\nFailing to address a diner\u2019s expressed food allergy \u2013 assuming it is in fact legitimate \u2013 is grounds for action at least civilly (where one can sue for damages) and in one recent case, criminally. A diner in Quebec has had a server charged for serving him salmon, something that he informed the server he is deathly allergic to. He took just one bite of the meal and ended up in a coma. So clearly he was not faking it.
\nBut put yourself in the place of the restaurants. They are now put in the position of treating every diner\u2019s request as life and death or risk being sued. That\u2019s ridiculous. How in heaven\u2019s name are they supposed to deal with the myriad requests for changes? And how are they supposed to make any money? The profit margins on restaurants are already pretty slim; this just adds another barrier to keeping them afloat.
\nLet\u2019s just call this new trend what it is \u2013 selfishness. It diminishes the very real medical conditions of other people just so that you can get your own way.
\nI have a moderate food intolerance myself. If I accidentally ingest it, I can have a reaction that ranges from annoying to very unpleasant, but not lethal. I generally handle it by inquiring what is in the meal I would like to order. If it has something that can be easily removed (say pickles on a burger) then I ask if that can be done. If it has something that I know will cause a reaction I simply don\u2019t order it. I don\u2019t expect the restaurant to accommodate what can clearly be handled through common sense on my part.
\nI am not clear when we moved from viewing our preferences as rights but I hope it moves back to some semblance of normalcy, soon.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas I read recently about an appalling, yet not altogether unexpected trend in dining behaviour where patrons are \u201cfaking\u201d, for lack of a better word, their food allergies to get special treatment in restaurants. Diners asking for all sorts of substitutions or alterations to the dishes on the menu to get what they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4B7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 09:10:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}