Memorial Day Weekend is generally a time that is associated with travel. The roads are filled, families and friends get together and we all celebrate the unofficial beginning of summer. If you’re following a gluten free lifestyle though, all of this on-the-go traveling time can be a horrific nightmare.

Finding meals on the road has always been one of the hardest parts about being gluten free for me. For instance, Sunday morning my husband and I had to get up and out early to attend a family event that was a few hours away. Tight on time, we decided to stop for breakfast on the road. However,  where we found something easily for him, this appeared to be impossible for me. A google search for gluten free fast food offerings for breakfast and a stop at our local bagel place only revealed an overpriced yogurt parfait. I settled for a Larabar, coffee and a grumbling stomach.

For some reason, fast food restaurants have not gotten the memo that gluten free people need things to eat on the road as well. We live in a society where we have grown accustomed and dependent on being able to pick up a quick meal on the go and eat in the car or on the Metro without needing a knife and fork. Think of all those times where you’re darting to a meeting or getting the kids to soccer practice and you only have those five minutes to grab a bite. However, there seems to be no options for gluten free meals that fit this criteria. You can’t eat a salad or the baked potato option at Wendy’s this way. There is yet to be a single fast food restaurant to offer a gluten free sandwich, burger, muffin or other type of portable option.

Starbucks, McDonald’s, Panera and all of the rest of you giants, wake up and smell the opportunity! Gluten free people need those portable options too. Why when there are English muffins and burger buns easily available in our local grocery stores have none of these chains chosen to make these options available on their menus?

Instead most of these chains make themselves as unaccommodating as possible to the gluten free population. Starbucks refuses to release the ingredients in their beverages and changes them regularly so its a continual game of Russian roulette when you order. Panera has a “secret” gluten free menu that most of the restaurants have no knowledge of when you ask. Instead you get handed the huge white book of ingredients and asked to find something for yourself that works.

If these chains are going to continue to hold their monopoly over providing for the on-the-go lifestyle, the least they can do is offer options for all of their customers. So please big fast food chains, please open your eyes to the needs of your gluten free customers. Please list your ingredients, and offer some gluten free portable options so that we too can get back to living the hectic, crazy on-the-go lives we, East Coast Americans, so love to live.

–JPM (Joyana)