Health and safety forum

Great post. I have recently been diagnosed as celiac and am leaving for Thailand in 10 days. Any further information anyone could provide would be absolutely priceless.

In the short amount of time I've had to look around the net I've found http://www.celiactravel.com/ to be fairly helpful (includes the restaurant cards as a free download if anyone is keen on using them).

I'm also heading to Laos then Vietnam, and possibly Cambodia.

I'm thinking soy and oyster sauce will be the main things to avoid in traditional Thai food. I've heard that traditional Vietnamese Pho is usually safe?

ibon,

my wife will be in Thailand from mid-December through early January, so it looks like she'll be more or less overlapping with you. we'll let you know if we discover any good GF tips on the trip or have noteworthy good or bad experiences. please do the same. thanks!

I travelled extensively in SEA from December to March of this year. I am allergic to gluten and didn't have many problems, but, I can usually tolerate a very small amount of gluten, so I didn't have to worry too much about trace amounts of soy and oyster sauce. If you are celiac or on a diet that allows absolutely no tolerance / no trace amounts of gluten, it could be problematic.

I would say that cards explaining that you are gluten free won't hurt, but I'm actually not optimistic about how successful they will be. Many other cultures don't actually "get" the concept of allergies or celiac disease. When I was in Egypt and Jordan (where it was extremely hard to travel GF), even when I explained to people, who spoke english fluently, that I could not have any wheat, gluten, etc., I would still be served a bowl of rice with little pieces of spaghetti in it. It was extremely frustrating.

In many ways, travelling in SEA is easier. You can always order rice. And if you need to, you can usually figure out something to eat with that rice that doesn't have soy. Things get a bit more complicated with noodles. Lots of dishes are served with rice noodles, which I love, and so I constantly tried to order noodles rather than rice. One piece of advice, learn how to describe "rice noodles", which are often called "white noodles", in the local language. Many many times I was frustrated by ordering something I thought would come with rice noodles only to be served a big plate of wheat noodles. Avoid "rara" noodles, "mama" noodles or anything that sounds similar -- they are essentially ramen wheat noodles and surprisingly popular in SEA. I had less problems with this in Vietnam and the most problems in Cambodia. In Cambodia I pretty much had to stick to rice.

Overall, I managed just fine in SEA and it's one of the easier places to travel GF, if you can get over the language barrier and/or you have some capacity to handle trace amounts.

Been following this thread with interest after I looked up gluten free etc.

I'd think, at least in Laos, that the more "local" you go the chances of running into anything wheat would approach zero. I can't off the top of my head think of any foods cooked with any wheat.

Those instant noodles mentiones above are sometimes served, especially in places with English menus. It's known that we often have a difficult time with local food so they make the effort to try to feed us things we like, and we are known to like the ramen mentioned by blonde.

But my first thought was what about the glutamate that is in everything.

Posted from within Vietnam.

I realize this message may be too late for those of you that are traveling GF, but hopefully it is useful for some others who stumble upon this thread.

My fiance (who has celiac, soy allergy, and reacts to trace amounts of gluten) came to visit me while I was spending a few months in Vietnam and I thought a lot about what he could eat. During his visit he ate very well and his digestive system was great. I would say Vietnam is an "easy" place to travel if you are gluten intolerant.

While I have heard that pho is gluten-free, I suggest that you avoid pho and other soup dishes because some cooks use bullion to season the broth. The bullion doesn't necessarily contain gluten, but I know often times in the States bullion contains additives that can be suspect.

Some dishes we stuck to while he was here that worked for him:

Fresh spring rolls: you usually get rice noodles, veggies, herbs, and some sort of meat (sometimes pork, fish, shrimp, or shrimp hash grilled on sugar cane, delicious!)

steamed rice with grilled pork/veggies: there is a variation where they marinate the pork with lemongrass, chili, and fish sauce. This was probably his favorite dish

rice noodles with grilled pork

steamed fish

sauteed fish

ginger chicken (generally this is cooked only using fish sauce)

Things to avoid (although you probably already know this):

Any type of meat that is deep fried because it is usually dredged with flour.

Anything with "minced pork" as this is actually often sausage (and highly suspect!)

Fried noodles (often these are wheat or "yellow" noodles)

Another note: sometimes they sprinkle "fried things" on top of the rice noodle bowls that can look suspect but I believe that it is fried garlic. He had no problem eating it.

But trust your instincts and do what you need to do to preserve your health. Happy eating!

a greatarticle contain many information like the person like me.
governmentjobs
..thanksfor publish this one....Nice article, i appreciate for putting this together!“This is obviously one great post.
ccnaexams
Thanks forthe valuable information and insights you have so provided here. Keep it up!”