Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

I contacted a number of chain-type restaurants via their Websites to ask what I could eat on their menus and almost all of them said pretty much what LongHorn said to you. Chili's and Macaroni Grill were the only ones that were really helpful and I've posted about them on this Board elsewhere.

I agree with Atomic Rose that it's probably a form letter. The most generous explanation for it is that the restaurants actually use some local suppliers for stuff and therefore can't reliably say exactly what's in the food they are selling (a disconcerting thought in and of itself). Add to that people with deadly food allergies and easy access to lawyers and you can understand why restaurants might not want to risk making a mistake about what's in their food.

On the other hand, as I said in one of my other posts, I recently saw "Supersize Me" and it made me pretty paranoid about what's actually in restaurant food.

Here's one thing you might try to get more info out of them:

Olive Garden's corporate response suggested I contact my local Olive Garden to discuss this issue. I called the nearest one and asked whether there was egg or whole wheat in their pasta. The guy I talked with said he couldn't tell, the boxes weren't marked. I asked him if the boxes came from some central corporate location. He said yes, so I emailed Olive Garden back and asked my questions, explaining that I now knew the pastas came from a central location. At that point, they were willing to answer my questions about that specific food item. You might try a variation on that, picking out one or two things on the LongHorn menu you think might be okay, asking at a local LongHorn about them, and - if you learn they come from a corporate supply location - contacting LongHorn corporate again. (Although I'm not really sure we can trust someone who uses "source" as a verb - that's just so corporate speak.)

Also, after I posted the items Macaroni Grill said were safe, Spicey813 posted saying she'd worked at a Macaroni Grill and adding a couple more items she'd eaten safely. Maybe someone who knows the inner working of LongHorn will reply to you here.

My whole experience of trying to get info out of the big chain restaurants is close to making an activist out of me on this issue. If I can go into a grocery store and read labels on all the food there, why don't restaurants have to provide the same information?

I'm glad someone else is trying what I'm trying. It just seems like it would be easier on the restaurant as well as on us, if we knew for sure whether there was something we could eat before we walk in, rather than having to grill the poor waitstaff mercilessly once we get there - sometimes only to discover there is absolutely nothing we can eat in the whole place.

Sorry this got so long - venting a little.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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