This week’s Gluten Free School Podcast chats with author and world traveler expert Kim Koeller who will dish on how to travel gluten free (especially to international locations).
She’s racked up an incredible amount of frequent flier miles zooming all across the globe and now share her experience eating an allergy-friendly diet anywhere in the world.
How to Travel Gluten Free with Kim Koeller
The following points were discussed:
00:19 — Introducing Kim Koeller, founder and president of Gluten-free Passport, international speaker, global consultant and award-winning author of Let’s Eat Out Around the World Gluten-free and Allergy-free books.
01:31 — How Kim racked up over 2 million miles of world-wide travel, all of it gluten-free.
03:24 — The top concerns facing gluten-free travelers.
04:52 — Why it’s so important to plan when traveling gluten-free and why planning does not take away spontaneity.
10:08 — Tons of strategies and tips for gluten-free international travel.
16:39 — How to eat gluten-free at restaurants when traveling abroad, especially when you don’t speak the language.
22:29 — How food label laws differ in other countries and what it means for you.
25:02 — The best—and worse—countries for gluten-free travel.
28:48 — The many products, books, mobile apps and resources available to help navigate gluten-free worldwide travel.
32:35 — How to connect with Kim Koeller and sign off.
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Transcription
Jennifer: Welcome back to the Gluten Free School Podcast. I’m your host, Jennifer Fugo. Today, we’re going to talk about how to travel gluten-free.
I know a lot of people ask questions about this of me especially as I’ve been out on my book promotion tour and traveling all over the Eastern half of the U.S. How do I do it?
Well, I have a really wonderful guest. Her name is Kim Koeller. She’s here to talk to us about her experience traveling gluten-free. Kim is the founder and president of Gluten-free Passport. She’s a frequent industry speaker, global consultant and award-winning author of Let’s Eat Out Around the World Gluten-free and Allergy-free books and apps with 18 quality innovation awards and purchased in over 60 countries.
Kim leverages her worldwide travel experience of 2+ million miles coupled with a 100% gluten- and allergen-free lifestyle for over 12 years due to Celiac Disease and food allergies to educate consumers and businesses about safe eating.
She’s often quoted in news media across the globe such as National Geographic Traveler, Food & Drink and USA Today.
So Kim, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Kim: Jennifer, thanks so much for the opportunity. I’m glad I can be here.
Jennifer: So why don’t you tell us the background of the 2+ million miles. That’s quite a number there for travel!
Kim: Well, actually, as far as for the two million miles, I was an international business consultant with Accenture. And so I lived in nine countries around the world and I was working with clients on five different continents. And so, obviously, I did a lot of traveling.
So in the midst of all this, I was getting sicker and sicker. It took me a long time to figure out that I had Celiac and I had food allergies. It was an interesting journey to say the least. Once I was diagnosed properly, I decided that I never wanted anybody to have to go through what I went through.
A lot of it was trial-and-error because when I was diagnosed 12 years ago, there wasn’t anything out there to tell you how to eat out and travel in the U.S., much less overseas. So I was kind of creating things and the pioneer. Just having a lot of information that could help a lot of people around the world, I thought if you can help people feel safe and be able to eat healthy wherever they are, I’m more than happy to share that information.
Jennifer: Wow! That must’ve been pretty awesome though, living and traveling abroad and going to see all these different countries. I mean, granted, you were working. But still a lot of us are afraid.
We’re afraid to go travel to a foreign country because you’re so far away from home, there’s so many instances where gluten can end up sneaking in or some of the food allergen or people don’t fully understand what you’re talking about.
So what would be some of the top concerns that gluten-free travelers have expressed to you that they want to learn more about?
Kim: Well, it’s interesting. I was a guest speaker all around the world at different conferences and one of the questions that kept coming up both from the consumers as well as from the businesses is what are those top concerns.
We have done global research and we actually surveyed about 2500 consumers in 35 countries. The research itself was really fascinating. We asked that actual question about what are your top concerns about traveling. The two top were eating outside from restaurants and then availability of gluten-free snacks and different foods. So those were the top two.
And then about 50% of the people that we surveyed, they had said that they were also concerned about (which makes total sense from a travel perspective) airlines, hotels and communicating in foreign languages.
Jennifer: I always worry about the foreign language piece of it. I’m sure you’ll get into that, about some of the ways to make it easier. There are certainly some countries that are much more gluten-free than others. I’ve found in my own experience that I really do have to plan ahead because otherwise, you’re sort of like up a river without a paddle.
Why have you found this to be so important to plan ahead? I think a lot of times people feel they want to be spontaneous, they want to go on a trip, but we’re sort of saddled to this responsibility to ourselves to take care of ourselves. So what’s your take on that of why it’s important?
Kim: Well, I think a couple of things. It goes back to what you had said as far as for feeling safe and making sure that you have what you need when you’re traveling.
I remember, it was in the early days when I first got diagnosed and I didn’t have any food with me at the time (I’ve never carried food. Of course now, I always have at least a protein bar or a piece of fruit or something and I’m sure you do the same thing), I remember that was in O’Hare. O’Hare was closed down due to weather. I was sitting there and I was like, “Hmmm… the only thing I could find was a bag of carrots and a bottle of water.” I thought, “You know what? I am never going to be in this position again.” That’s just one example.
And so one of the things as far as for planning ahead, obviously, if you’re going to be flying around the world, making sure that you have food with you, that you know that – if your friends are stopping and you’re on a road trip or if you’re on a plane and even if you order a GFML, which is a gluten-free meal, they’re actually serving meals and it’s a longer haul flight, that sometimes that the meal may not have made it on the plane, sometimes they might have put a roll on it.
So you have to be prepared to make sure that you’re able to eat regardless of where you’re at and/or if there’s delays on the plane, for example, if you’re stuck on the runway for a couple of hours, which has happened to all of us.
So I think that it’s not only planning about from snacks and from airline meals, but it’s also planning there’s a lot more planning that is involved if you’re going to an all-inclusive or on a cruise because you don’t have options as far as going to different restaurants.
I mean, you can, but if you’ve already paid for all your meals at an all-inclusive or if you’re in a cruise, you want to make sure that you’re maximizing the money that you’ve already paid. At the same time, you want to make sure that all your meals are safe.
So there’s a lot of planning that has to go into that and contacting the cruise or the hotel or the all-inclusive to make sure that they’re going to be able to meet your needs.
But also doing the research on it. If you’re going to an English-speaking country, at least having an idea of where some of the places are that you might be able to go as well as bringing tools with you (which is one of the reasons why we wrote our Let’s Eat Out book and we have the apps as well) is that to have information.
There’s a lot of countries that don’t have gluten-free menus. And so to make sure that you feel safe if you’re going into an Indian restaurant or into an Italian restaurant and what questions you can ask to make sure that your meal’s going to be safe based upon the ingredients and food preparations.
So there are a lot of different planning elements. I think that people can be, from a spontaneity perspective when you’re on the trip like going to different places, but again, you need to make sure that you feel prepared. And I always have something with me in my purse or in my backpack in order to eat.
Jennifer: I totally understand that. And I will say too, I think the one thing that’s mistaken with this idea of spontaneity, if you have already done your homework and you’ve planned ahead and you have a list of, say, three restaurant options, it doesn’t make it any less spontaneous that you have three options and you pick one. You know what I mean?
I get that people will just walk by a restaurant and they want to walk in and eat, but this is just the reality we all have to face in getting a diagnosis of some sort. You can’t do that. But if you do a little planning ahead, I always have options in front of me. I have a list of five or ten restaurants. I just pick a restaurant. It’s still spontaneous to me.
So I think we have to look at things from a larger picture and planning absolutely does help. I do want to stress to people too that one of the biggest problems that I have when I have layovers because when there is a layover (and I try to avoid them as much as possible), obviously, your flying time is exponentially lengthened, but you don’t know if the airport you’re going to get to –
Say you get up in the morning and you don’t make time for breakfast, so you don’t eat and you arrive at your first stop or layover at 12 or 11 o’clock in the morning, you don’t know what’s at that airport. I’ve gotten stuck several times where I was traveling and I didn’t have as much control (because you don’t always) and then you’re stuck getting on another flight with like a bag of potato chips.
So it is really important to be aware of exactly how much time you’re going to have and then assume there’s a couple of extra hours tacked onto that.
And make sure you’ve got not just one bar. I always bring three bars on board and a stick of salami or anything that – unfortunately, it is processed to some degree, some packaged foods. But hey! It carries easy and that’s great.
So as far as international flights – because this is where I am not – I haven’t done much international flying since I went gluten-free. Can you enlighten us all? What are some recommendations about flying internationally?
Kim: Well, a couple of things. One, as far as for an airline meal, the thing I always do is that even though I have Celiac Disease and I have multiple food allergies, I always order a gluten-free meal. The code is GFML.
Airlines have about 25-30 different codes. The thing that people have to be aware of is I’m also allergic to dairy, fish and shellfish. Well, the code only can handle one food concern. So I go with gluten.
There’s times that I get a gluten-free meal and it’s totally gluten-free and it’s beautiful except that I’m totally allergic to it because it has shrimp on it or it has salmon on it or whatever.
And so the thing I will say about the international is the first thing is to make sure that you call the airline and make sure you order a GFML meal. I don’t even have them look up the code. I just tell them what the code is.
The other thing that I’d do (and it goes back with what you were just talking about with snacks) is that if you have – let’s say I’m flying from Chicago to London and it’s a 7-hour flight. Well, typically, if it’s seven hours, you may have two meals possibly. You might have a meal and you might have a light meal. What I always say is that if you’re going for that amount of time and you’re going to be flying, assume a third meal.
So when I say a meal that’s not only like a protein bar – for short flights, you had said that you bring a protein bar. I’ll have a protein bar, I might have a piece of fruit or I might have my protein mix and then I can add water to it or if it’s dried soup and then I can add hot water or gluten-free oatmeal and you can add hot water.
Also, for international, the thing that I always do is that I make sure that I actually have actual meals. I usually do sandwiches so then that way I would toast the bread and I’d have that in one Ziploc®. And then I like Applegate Turkey and so I have that in the freezer and I pull that out, so then it defrosts when I have it.
I don’t get a big cooler, I just have a little baby cooler with Ziploc® bags filled with ice. And then before I go through security, I throw all my ice out, but I keep the bags. I always have tons and tons of Ziploc® bags. And then when I go past security, then I go and ask them to fill up the Ziploc® bag with ice again.
And then when I’m on a flight and it starts melting, I’ll just go ask the flight attendants for more. And flight attendants, they’re super sweet. I just say, “You know what? I have food allergies and I just need to make sure that I have some food with me.”
Probably the toughest one was when I flew from Chicago to New Zealand. I had like multiple delays. I was whining for 28 hours. I was so happy that I had my multiple meals because – I mean, as long as you have food that adheres to what the security is so that –
One time, I didn’t even think about the liquid in the little containers of fruit. I didn’t even think about it. They said, “Oh, you can’t bring that on board.” I’m like, “It’s fruit.” They said, “But there’s liquid.” “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”
So I even had TSA security go, “Was that a hard-boiled egg that I just saw go through your bag?” I’m like, “Yes” and they said, “Can I ask you why?” I said, “Well, yeah, because I have food allergies and I know I can eat a hard-boiled egg and so I had a couple of hard-boiled eggs for good protein.”
But the biggest thing is really to make sure that you don’t have just two meals if you’re going to Europe in an 8-hour flight. You have three meals. So then that way, you make sure that you have your protein, you have some carbohydrates, you have something if you have a little bit of a sweet tooth, that you have that. Just look at it that way, then you’d feel very comfortable.
I have to say, I just got back about a month ago from Paris. I was so excited because I went to this one store and I picked up a couple of gluten-free baguettes, just little ones. And then I went to this other store and also, I have had some ham and I had the green bean with the little skinny haricots verts, French green beans, and they gave me a little bit of vinaigrette that met standards to get through. And then I had these carrots. And then I had these little baby muffins. I am just sitting there on the plane thinking, “This is the most beautiful meal I’ve ever had and it’s all gluten-free and dairy-free.”
But the thing is a lot of times, people will forget as far as about coming back. And so the thing that I always recommend is that depending on the hotel or a restaurant that you felt comfortable and you’ve eaten at before, and that you know that they know how to prepare the food is that I might just go and ask them to have – I wouldn’t even have any bread. As long as I have something that would be protein, I’ll have like an egg salad or something that I know that I could still keep so that it’s still safe and fresh, but you need to make sure that you have food coming back.
And so a lot of times, what I’ll do is when I go international, I will hold a few of my protein bars to the side and a couple of my little packets of protein mixes so that I know coming back, worst case that I’d have those if I can’t find anything else to come back on a flight.
Jennifer: And actually, I think, another good thing, you mentioned hotels. One thing that happened to me recently was I was actually in Grand Rapids and I stayed at an Hampton Inn. They don’t typically have refrigerators in the room.
Kim: Right.
Jennifer: But when I expressed that I had food allergies, “Oh, no problem. We have them down in the basement.” At first, it was, “Well, we don’t offer them. They’re not in the room,” but when I said, “Well, I have a food allergy and it would really make my life so much easier because I can’t eat anything at your breakfast,” “Oh, no problem. We’ll put it in your room complimentary on us.”
So a lot of times, you just need to express that to the hotel staff and they will try to make your stay as nice as possible. They do go out of their way. It is really great for people to express that to management or even to corporate so that they know that someone at the hotel made your life a little bit easier while you were traveling.
Kim: Right. Absolutely.
Jennifer: And so now we’re at the hotel. We’re in a foreign country. We’ll pick Paris since you were just there. What are some of the tips that you give people for eating out in a restaurant when traveling?
For Europe, I’ve heard that in Italy, it’s fairly easy to eat out gluten-free, but I would be a little nervous to go to Paris because my last experience in Paris was all about donuts and baguettes and all sorts of wheat-filled things.
So what would be some tips for us being in a country that might not be super gluten-free friendly (or at least we might not think they are from the get-go)?
Kim: Well, first thing, if it’s a country that’s gluten-free friendly or not, if it’s a foreign-speaking language to you, then I always recommend that people bring translation cards with them.
And so on our site, we offer free translation cards since the beginning. And the reason that I offer free translation cards and I didn’t want to charge any money is because we wanted to encourage people to travel. And going back to my background, global travel and being international was always really, really important to me. So that’s the first thing.
We also have mobile apps and there’s other apps that are out there. I always recommend people have the paper cards with them because if you’re going into a restaurant, then a lot of times, the restaurant is like, “Oh, this is great! Can I hold onto it?”
Now, the other thing that we did with our cards—instead of having a whole bunch of things that you can’t eat or a whole bunch of things that you can eat, but people’s eyes are glaze over—is that we also have food preparation questions in there, like “Is this flour dusted… dedicated fryers…” and that type of thing.
So I always, always, always tell people to get the translation cards. That’s the first thing.
The second thing (and this goes back to the research that we were talking about), as far as Paris, for example, (because I go to Paris quite a bit) there’s a couple of restaurants that I love. A lot of places don’t have gluten-free menus.
And so the thing is that it really goes back to understanding about ingredients and food preparation, which I do even here in the States to understand if you’re getting a couple of go-to dishes, if you’re going to be eating in a French restaurant or Italian restaurant in Paris or Indian or Thai or whatever and understanding what questions to ask.
The thing that I like to do when I’m in Paris (or as well as in other countries), for example, what I did was I went and I did the research because I wanted to find out some of the health food stores that were there. I really liked because here’s my friends that are all eating bread (well not that I have to have bread at every meal, but I’m in Paris, I might really like to eat a little bit) and so what I did was I went to a couple of health food stores and it was amazing, the difference between just a year or two years ago.
As I’ve said, just last month is that they actually had signs in the window (of course, some French thing) that “we have lots of gluten-free products and they’re downstairs in the basement.” I’m like, “They have a sign about gluten?” I’m like, “Ah, I’m amazed.”
And so I went downstairs and they had baguettes, they had croissants, they had little muffins. They were individually packaged. And so what I did was then I had – of course, my trusty Ziploc®. I took one of the little baguettes and I cut it in half and then I had a little bit of bread when my friends were eating bread when I was in a restaurant.
And so I wasn’t concerned about having the bread. I just wanted to make sure when I was in a restaurant what the ingredients were and how it was actually prepared.
Jennifer: So I’m hearing a trend. The baggies are key to traveling.
Kim: They really are actually. And I went into high-end, lower end. If it’s crackers – I’ll bring crackers with me too. Obviously, that’s much easier than bread. But when I’m in a place (like when I was in Paris), as I said, I was just so excited that I had some of the packaged baguettes.
And then I did find one location that actually made crushed gluten-free baguette. I felt like I was on the top of the world walking down the street with fresh gluten-free baguette in my hand. It was wonderful.
Jennifer: Wow! I’m so jealous. When I go back to Paris, I will get the name from you of that place.
Kim: Actually, you know what? I wrote a couple of blog posts on my blog. It was truly amazing as far as for the quality and stuff.
The other thing too that I also recommend (and this goes back to research too) is to take a look and see what information is out there on the Internet. Obviously, blogs like yours and mine definitely helps a lot of people. But I also recommend that you go to the associations’, so going into the Italian Association if you’re going to Italy.
I didn’t go to a lot of place that had a lot of gluten-free pasta, but there were certain ones that was like, “I’m going to eat gluten-free pizza. I’m eating gluten-free pasta when I’m in Italy” and that they have a lot of restaurants on their local sites and they also recommend various products. It’ll give people an idea of what some of the top brands are and some restaurant ideas. So I always recommend that as well for international.
Jennifer: And when you say association, do you mean like the Italian Association…
Kim: Celiac Association, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: So look up that country, ‘celiac association’ and see what pops up.
Kim: And it’s fascinating. I was on a couple of them the other day. On our website, we have listings, but we have global groups and blogs. And so what you do is there’s a lot of them obviously that are Italian, but there’s a number of them that do have the capability in order to do the translation into English. Some of those are built in, but at least it would definitely help people.
Jennifer: Now I’m curious because this is something that I get a lot of questions about, the food labeling thing is just mind-boggling. It amazes me and it’s a shame. Unfortunately, a lot of folks in the U.S. are not knowledgeable on gluten-free food labeling. I do recognize that there may be some differences between how things are labeled here as opposed to a foreign country.
So if I go and I travel and the listeners go and travel to Europe, let’s pretend or maybe Asia (I don’t know if it differs, you probably could tell us this), are there some things we need to watch out for that might be red flags there, but not here or vice versa?
Kim: Well, the whole food labeling, it fascinated me when I was first diagnosed, so I followed it quite closely. The thing is as far as food allergies is that Australia and New Zealand had food labeling laws since 2002. The EU had it as of 2005. And then we had ours in 2006 with gluten-free labeling as you know in August of 2013.
What was interesting is that initially when the food labeling came out in the EU, in the European Union is that it was saying that a product could be labeled gluten-free if it was 100 parts/million. What the researchers and medical professionals determined (and this was changed back in 2009) is that it was changed from 100 parts/million down to 20 parts/million.
So the good thing is that since Australia and New Zealand and the European Union have had gluten-free labeling for a long time and it’s 20 parts/million, it is what we have here in the States.
The part of the thing I think is that because of the gluten-free labeling just coming out in 2013, there are still some manufacturers that are still getting the labeling all in order.
So what’s interesting from a labeling perspective is that other countries outside of the U.S., they also label more allergens than we do. For Europe, they also have celery and they have mustard and they have sesame for example.
Jennifer: Really?
Kim: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: And where on a package would you look for that? Is it near the ingredients?
Kim: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: Okay, that’s really interesting.
Kim: Mm-hmmm… that’s really interesting.
Jennifer: I’m curious, do you have two or three countries that are the best that you’ve been to for gluten-free eating, or the easiest we’ll say, and then maybe a couple that are the worst?
Kim: Yeah, I do. I would say as far as for the easiest ones are Australia, New Zealand and Italy.
Jennifer: Italy always surprises me, but they feel like they’re much further along with a lot of the gluten-free stuff than we are.
Kim: Well, the thing is that that I know that one of the pastas that I eat, it’s from Italy. And so because Italians love food, because there’s been a lot of research that’s been done in Italy, the level of awareness is high.
Now the other thing which I should say too is that as far as for the Scandinavian countries, it’s amazing. As far as with Finland and with Sweden – this was really tough. I was the North American representative for the first gluten-free beer festival in the UK a few years ago.
Jennifer: Wow!
Kim: It was very fun. What was fascinating was at the time, we only had a total of like 16 gluten-free beers around the world. Four of those came from Finland at the time. And so the diagnosis rate of these Celiacs up in the Scandinavian countries is very high.
It’s interesting that you can get gluten-free buns at McDonald’s (not that I’m advocating going to eat fast food), but it’s like, Wow! Just the thought of being able to walk up and say, ‘I’ll have a gluten-free bun’ at a fast food place – but there are. There’s a number of chains over in Australia and New Zealand too.
So even though you said three, I didn’t want to ignore the Scandinavian countries.
Jennifer: Cool! That’s great to know. So what are the worst?
Kim: Well, the ones that have the lower awareness obviously. When I went to Russia, that was really, really difficult. I did not get sick, however what I did was I stayed in an American hotel so that I had my breakfast there. Everything was plain, plain, plain, plain, plain. There’s no discussion.
And what I did was I went with friends and I went and ate at Russian Italian restaurants and Russian French restaurants. And so I ate Italian dinners and I ate French dinners because I knew what questions to ask. Obviously, I had the translation cards, but that was really tough.
The other one as far as for low level of awareness was when I went to Egypt. Even though the food itself from a Mediterranean perspective, there’s not a lot of gluten, it’s really the communication and the level of awareness. So that was tough.
Another one is definitely China. China is very difficult as well. And again, it’s a combination of if you think about even here in the States, it’s the combination of the level of awareness, the labeling laws, what products you can have and just the communication.
And so in the early days even in the U.S. when the awareness was lower, less people were aware of where gluten could be hidden in meals. And so that’s what I always say. People, if they think about it, those are the ones that are a lot tougher, the countries that have lower awareness and therefore, less education.
Jennifer: So you’ve got a whole slew of products, Kim, that you havedeveloped which are phenomenal. You’ve got books, mobile apps, you’ve got your website and your blog, which you’re obviously sharing a lot of this information there as well. This helps all of us travel around the world. So do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with us about this whole little travel empire that you’ve built that we all appreciate so, so much.
Kim: Well, I appreciate that. I mean, the biggest things really are what we touched upon as far as for doing the research, planning ahead. And really, I think it really is making sure that people have the confidence by feeling comfortable because of having the knowledge.
So it’s really educating themselves depending upon where they’re going to travel and how they feel comfortable in traveling, making sure that they feel comfortable that they’re going to be safe that they have the snacks with them, that they have the meals on the plane to get to their destination and understanding really how food is prepared and what cuisine do they feel most comfortable with.
So I think it’s really confidence and safety and feeling empowered that they can do it.
Jennifer:Now I just want to ask you one final question actually. So you’ve got a 4th edition of your book, the Let’s Eat Out Around the World Gluten-free and Allergen-free that is for 2014. Can you just tell us briefly what’s that about and why people would want to buy that?
Kim: Well, about 70% of the book is about ethnic restaurant cuisines. And so what we did was we have almost 200 menu items that you’ll find in ethnic restaurants like French, Italian, Indian, Thai, Mexican. And instead of having to rely on having a gluten-free menu or what the chef is going to be saying that you know how a dish is prepared and what questions to ask to make sure that it’s safe from a gluten perspective as well as from the eight other allergens and corn.
Jennifer: That’s really nice. That’s a great resource to have if you’re planning an international trip.
Kim: Yeah, if it’s international or as you were mentioning, even here in the States. For example, even though I have written the book with my co-author, I don’t eat Indian cuisine a lot. So even when I go to an Indian restaurant, I pull out my app and I’m like, “Okay. Now what questions do I need to make sure that this dish is going to be safe?” and I order the dishes based upon what I’m in the mood for.
It’s kind of like a cheat sheet for you so it’s not only overseas. It’s also if you’re eating Italian down the block from you.
Jennifer: Nice! And the other nice thing, you just mentioned the app. You’ve got apps for both Apple and Android. It’s I Can Eat Out, I Eat Out, I Can Eat Fastfood, Gluten-free Menu Helper, Gluten-free Travel and Trip Planner and the Gluten and Allergen Free Travel Translation Cards. You’ve got everything. You’ve got this covered…
Kim: Well, we tried.
Jennifer: …as far as eating and dining out especially overseas. I really appreciate that because I know that for me, I definitely want to get back to traveling internationally. I know China was one someone suggested to me and I was like, “I don’t know. I think they have a lot of soy sauce and such.” That made me nervous. But I’m glad to hear that you’ve had good experiences throughout the world and that we can finally get back out there and enjoy – not just the world itself, but also food as well from other cultures and their heritage. That’s a really great thing.
Kim: Exactly, exactly.
Jennifer: Well, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Kim: Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate our conversation. I enjoyed it.
Jennifer: So thank you, Kim for being with us today. Please stay in touch with Kim by visiting her at glutenfreepassport.com. Her blog is glutenfreeblog.com. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, SlideShare. I will give you guys all the links to those social media sites. Please go follow her. Kim is a really interesting woman and she’s doing great work to help us live a better life. Getting out and being social is an important part of life. I think what Kim is doing is really great because it helps empower us to be “normal” again.
So remember everybody to subscribe, rate and review this podcast and then head on over to Gluten Free School and leave your questions and comments about traveling internationally or maybe even just nationally, within the country, the U.S. or if you live in another country, it may be about your own country on this podcast and Kim and I will get back to you. I really appreciate you guys so much being a part of the Gluten Free School Podcast family. Thank you for joining me and I look forward to seeing you guys the next time. Bye bye.
The links referred to in this episode are:
Let’s Eat Out Around the World Gluten Free and Allergy Free — Get it HERE
Multi-Lingual Phrase Passport (Let’s Eat Out Around The World Gluten Free & Allergy Free — Get it HERE
Kim Koeller – www.glutenfreeblog.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/glutenfreepassport
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gfpassport
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GlutenFreePassport
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/KimKoeller
Such an enlightening episode! I’ve been on Autoimmune Paleo for 2 months and saw a little improvement until teriyaki sauce snuck into my belly when eating a party food and I nearly collapse. I am going on a cruise in November and am extremely nervous about how to work with them on my many food intolerances. Any tips for how to travel safely on cruises with food issues?
Thanks!!
Lea, You definitely need to speak with the cruise line sooner rather than later. Some cruise lines are better than others with doing gluten-free. Know now what to expect. From there, you could ask if you’ll have access to a small fridge… bring non-perishables that you can eat as snacks that comply with your diet, if possible. And have a plan for the flight to the port and then coming back home again.
wow!! You have some great ideas that were very helpfull!! Thank you and i just bought 2 boxes of ziplock lolll