Food Allergy Survival Guide for College Parents

Preparing for college with food allergies for the first time can be challenging. Especially if your child is planning on an out of state college. What if you have multiple food allergies? How do you navigate this part of the college experience? Who do you notify? What steps do you take to make sure your child is safe while learning to live away from you for the first time. I hope this post serves as a food allergy survival guide for college parents. It explains exactly how I navigated this for the very first time. It discusses my interactions with disability services, residential life on campus, dorm accommodations and the dining hall.

Living with food allergies can feel isolating. Not being able to participate in certain experiences like birthday parties, pizza parties, not being able to sit with your friends in the elementary school cafeteria. Always bringing your food everywhere when others can just stop at McDonalds or eat whatever is being served. I talk about this more in depth here Navigating School with Food Allergies

As a parent this can be hard but you can help your child transition smoothly into the college setting. Moving away from you for the first time, learning to advocate for themselves in a new environment, learning to have that trust and faith they will know the signs before it’s too late.

Hopefully the details of our experience will help you and your child along your exciting college journey.

Double The Effort

As parents we are so proud of them and want them so desperately to succeed. What others don’t understand is that with food allergies everything we do takes double or triple the effort.

My son is into Film and Screenwriting. He worked so hard in high school, created a film club and made a movie. All of this got him so much in merit scholarships, we were so excited for him! Through all of his trials a tribulations we kept reassuring him this will get him where he wants to go and to just keep going. He applied to eight colleges and got into five with one waitlist.

His goal was finding schools that catered to what he wanted to do and ultimately he chose an out of state liberal arts school. It happened to be the one that gave him the most merit aid, grants and scholarships. Now, we are a modest household like most, we live paycheck to paycheck so, this was important to us. Bringing that price tag down as low as we could get it would help make his dreams a reality.

What About Food?

This school is small with about two thousand students and a student to teacher ratio of 12:1. This school meets everything off of his checklist, even his desired learning style, but what about food? As a mom this was the one of the most important concerns. In the overall process it seems to be the last thing thought about and wouldn’t even be thought about if we didn’t bring it up as an issue. So we started the research…

Food Allergy Research & Investigations

As another food allergy mom you know we are fantastic at this. I started with the dining options available on campus (dining halls, fast food, cafes etc…) I then looked at the meal plans that were provided. Were there going to be any options for him? In the dining halls there would be choices if he was only allergic to one or two things, but he is allergic to nine different foods. They are Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Corn, Tree Nuts, Shell Fish, Rosemary, Sesame, and Sunflower seeds.

So Now What?

Who do we contact about food?
Will he have access to a kitchen?
Is there a super market nearby?
Will he have the time to cook his own meals?
Will he be exempt from the meal plan most colleges make mandatory for freshman?
What about housing?
Will his room mate be considerate of his needs and keep some of those foods out of the room at all times?

Who knows?!

Before you panic like I did, take a breath. We found that all of our questions were answered with reassurance he will be okay! He was going to go to college with food allergies. So, we needed to figure it all out.

Taking it one step at a time

First – We filled out some forms. These were on his new student task list of things he needed to complete before he goes to the college.

Medical History
Family Medical History
Doctor’s physical
Immunizations
Emergency contact
Food allergis were included in these

Second – Included in his task list was a form for Students with disabilities. Students must first submit a form to register with the Disability office. Check with your college to see how they go about this. We then had a meeting with his representative to discuss the severity of his food allergies. She put us in touch with

The food management team and manager
Nutrition supervisor
She gave us a phone number my son could text with his meal requests and times he would be coming to eat
She told us that he would be considered for a special housing request with access to a kitchen
In his special housing request she suggested he request a single room to keep him safe from some of the food powders being on another students clothing
She also thought it was a good idea to write up something to inform professors so there is no food used in classroom experiments
She also told us to inform the medical director at the university of his allergies so they are aware.

This put us fast at ease.

After this meeting, we met with the food management team, nutrition supervisor, sent emails to professors and filled out the residential housing request. Thankfully he has been approved for a single in the dorms with access to a shared kitchen. He has also been approved for the medical meal plan.

The Medical Meal Plan

The medical meal plan is significantly less food and cost. He will get one meal a day or seven meals a week that he can use in the dining hall and the rest he will need to make for himself in his shared kitchen. I am glad the dining hall will be able to accommodate his food needs and will be getting one good meal each day.

It is so exciting to be heading off to college and doing all of this on his own. Now my main concern is making sure he can cook everything he needs, can get to the grocery store and has time to make new friends on top of a full college workload and federal work study.

My next steps in the planning process were:

Writing down recipes I know he will cook
Contacting housing to see about the allowance of a larger fridge in his room and also if he will be allowed to keep his toaster, slow cooker, and other small appliances for use in the shared kitchen. A tiny cube fridge isn’t going to cut it for him and there is a list of things not allowed in the dorm rooms. He needs them to be able to cook all of his meals.

List of items I have started to buy and miscellaneous tasks for his food allergy accommodations are as follows.

(update since writing this post. items in red were not approved by housing for his accommodation so check with your college campus housing)

7.7 Cu.Ft refrigerator with a freezer
Toaster oven – (I got a 3 in one Toaster oven, with a griddle on top and a coffee pot)
mini slow cooker
mini air fryer
skillet, pot, pans
spatula, scoops, bowls, cutting board
can opener
cutlery
knives for chopping
tiny chopper
storage containers for food
parchment paper
plastic wrap
food, spices, condiments on move in day
paper plates and bowls
signing him up for food delivery Apps
finding a food allergy shopping app that works for all of his allergies
finding any restaurants that can accommodate him nearby – so he can enjoy going out with friends (usually for him a steak house is the best bet)
A thermal backpack for longer days out and about town
smaller lunch bag for days on campus
Icepacks for cooler backpack
recipes
measuring cup/spoons
soda stream (they have the zero sugar soda mixers so he wont need to carry bottles or cans from supermarket) – thought this was a great idea
finding a parmacy nearby
epi pens
benydryl
inhaler
food allergy cards with contact information
epi pen carrying case for different occasions pocket, hanging off of backpack etc.
medical alert something (bracelet, keychain, necklace, watch whatever)
hospital and urgent care places near him

Plus on top of all of this I am planning on making some foods freezing them, and shipping them over night to ease some of the cooking duties. Burrito’s, breakfast sandwiches, meatballs and I will think of a few more just to make sure he is eating well and not just hamburgers everyday lol!!

The Lists

As the list grows we have to manage this and all of the traditional college dorm essentials as well. So it could have been quite overwhelming but we handled it all in stride. We knew the first time doing it is always the toughest with the most effort. After the first year we now know the system, he will know what works and what doesn’t for him and how to navigate the school in all aspects.

This is also his first time ever being away from home, he never really went away without us and hardly ever stayed at anyone’s house growing up. This is a whole new world and hopefully we are preparing him enough and taught him about minimizing risk and exposure enough that he knows he is going to be ok. And he is going to be ok!

For him I feel like this is going to be so fun, and so scary all at the same time. For the first time he is in control of everything food allergy related for himself. I remember having panic attacks in the grocery store just trying to figure out what I could feed him when this all started when he was a baby.

It’s absolutely terrifying but I take solace in knowing I did all the hard work and taught him everything I know and have learned. Plus I am just a call away for any and all questions. That is something I didn’t have when this all began.

Move In Day

On move in day, we arrived at the dining hall for lunch and every single chef came out to introduce themselves. They said they will do anything and everything they can to make him comfortable and eat great food. They absolutely raved about his allergy card and said to contact them with any issues.

Here is an example of the allergy card we made

Way back in my 20’s I was a waitress. I had a customer who had food allergies and he had a business card with all the information on it. It made it so much easier for the chefs in the kitchen as well as me taking the order. This is where I got the idea from…..

After the first week of a fixed hamburger and potato order for lunch the chefs were asking my son for ideas of other foods he would be interested in eating. He told the chefs that he and I were working on a list of safe foods to share with them. They seemed excited and open to this idea. Then, they got the list. I may have gone a bit over board. They are chefs and know how to read the labels on food. This was just my breakdown of items I keep in my kitchen that I have used over the years to make everything from nacho’s, burrito’s, tacos, meatballs, beef stew etc. We eat well even with food allergies in my house.

CHILL! They Got This!

After they got the list they told him to tell mom to CHILL. They got this! Well you know what?! I don’t care. I do feel very safe with them and whether or not they need or use the list doesn’t matter. They got one and I know they will be able to make good meals for my son regardless.

Needless to say, if this will make you feel better about sending your child to the dining hall with multiple food allergies here is the list I created for my sons dining hall team. You can use this as a guide to do the same.

I will say, the only other place that has ever made me feel safe like this is at Disney.

These chefs in the college dining halls take their jobs seriously and really do care for these students. They know this is the first time many kids are away from their parents and are going to make them warm, hearty delicious meals on those hard cold testing days when they are not feeling well. Trust your student will advocate for themselves and trust that these chefs are not only chefs but parents as well. They are going to do their best to make your student comfortable, full and feel warm.