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You guys are awesome!  This being my first question to the "board", I am
impressed with the wonderful help so many have offered.  I
will summarize with the best bits and pieces from your emails, along with
some links that have been sent from college students all the way through
grandparents.  :)contact the dietician for the schools cafeteria

   - request a 504 for them so that the school has to accommodate their
   diet. If they receive federal funding they have to provide gluten free food
   because celiac falls under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Maybe if you
   tell the schools that you want a 504 it will make them more cooperative so
   you don't get the 504. From my understanding, for the upcoming freshman, you
   can request the 504 from your local school district and then they will
   outline what is needed in college and the college has to honor it.
   - If they are imposing a meal plan on your daughter, then she has the
   right to insist that they provide a balanced diet, or she should be released
   from the meal plan without penalty.  In that case, you'd have to go to a
   Housing and Dining Dept. official to work it out, not the cafeteria manager.
   - The school released me from the food plan, and I cooked everything
   myself via toaster oven in my dorm, or the microwaves available in the
   basement.   It's frustrating to not go out to dinner with friends, but it's
   always safer to make my own food.  I even take gf bars and corn tortillas
   when I travel, so I have some bread option.
   -  It was actually the dorm food that made her realize she had a "wheat"
   allergy - well, that's what she thought and why she got tested and we
   learned it was a gluten intolerance and Celiac. She has discovered she
   actually has several food intolerances and eating on a dorm meal plan would
   have been impossible with cross contamination.
   - glutenfreeda has a column ( written by a college student) for how to
   survive in college --almost 2 years now..if you go to the archives you can
   read all the back issue..this month is exactly on the topic you describe
   below www.glutenfreeda.com
   - Our daughter enjoys salads . . . that is one meal a day in the
   cafeteria BUT we ship up T-Marzetti Buttermilk Ranch individual packets of
   dressing for her to use because all the school ones have modified food
   starch / wheat.  We buy them by the case a Restaurant Depot--Cafeteria for
   Yogurt, Cottage Cheese & Fruit, Ice Cream, Fruit (to take)-- "food dollars"
   that go used at the convenience store on campus for items she can eat and
   take to her dorm to use up additional monies.--recipes that could be made in
   a dorm microwave from rice dishes, GF Pasta dishes, meats, GF Brown Rice
   Tortillas (Food for Life Brand) to use for grilled sandwiches in a george
   foreman, mini Pizzas, wraps, etc--grocery store every week for food, deli
   meat, fruit, cheese, yogurt, GF Crackers, GF protein bars etc (all breads
   are TERRIBLE-quite trying them!--My wife and I over cook and freeze meals /
   leftovers.  When we visit we take her home cooked foods - usually she has
   one twice a week as a meal.
   -  I chose, regretably, not to pursue the issue and simply purchased the
   least expensive food plan and cooked my own meals in my dorm. Feeling safe
   is key here - if I could go back in time and change how I handled the
   situation I would have met with the President of the school and insisted I
   not be required to purchase the meal plan. Considering the (terrible) food
   many schools feed to non-celiacs I really can't imagine how it would be
   possible for a celiac to be guaranteed a safe meal. --Having lived through
   the issues of celiac college living, I have started a blog with a Celiac
   College Survival Gude -
   - http://glutenfreechops.blogspot.com/p/gluten-free-college-guide.html
  Maybe
   you will find some things there now and in the future that will be helpful?
   - I'm just getting started but I will be posting on a lot of these kinds
   of topics, I have a list of must have dorm cooking tools and simple ways to
   eat good food.
   -  I was lucky with Virginia Tech, which has one of the top cafeteria
   systems in the country - the ranking jumped around between #1 and #5 while I
   was there.  They had nutritionists on staff, well documented ingredients on
   the website, and by the time I graduated, their website included guides for
   eating vegan, vegetarian, non-dairy, GF, nut free, etc in the on campus
   cafeterias and restaurants.  Just tell them not to let it become a source of
   stress, it doesn't need to be stressful, and it doesn't need to impact their
   social life at all.  Their friends will only think they are weird or that
   its a big deal if they make a big deal out of it.  And make sure they know
   that with any big change like going to college, and when you are new with
   celiac, you will make mistakes, and you will accidentally get gluten once in
   a while - you can't be overly stressed out or fearful of that, you just have
   to do your best and ride out the symptoms when it happens.  lso, I don't
   want to read too much into your phrasing 'not sure how to have the girls
   navigate through' - but remember that it's not up to you, it's up to them.
   www.iHateWheat.com <http://www.ihatewheat.com/>
   - http://www.rochesterceliacs.org/
   - Roanoke College in Va. They "provided" a gluten free meal plan for her.
   It was ultimately very unsatisfactory. The pointed out the foods at
   breakfast and lunch that were
   naturally gf. At dinner they provided a gf meal. She does not eat red
   meat so they basically provided PLAIN chicken and PLAIN fish for her for
   almost every meal along with a PLAIN vegetable and PLAIN rice. I think you
   are getting the gist of her complaint! I think, with very little effort,
   that school cafeterias could provide simple, tasty food. I certainly am able
   to do it for my family on a daily basis.
   - So he sat down with the head chef and figured out what he could eat
   that had no gluten. He does not always get that much of a choice but does
   find some things. He also was allowed to have a microwave in his room and a
   fridge. Also uses his George Foreman grill alot. He is a guy so cheap steaks
   on the grill is a main stay for him!
   -  received permission from her school to allow her to have an extra
   freezer in her room.  I made her meals throughout the year to keep her
   freezer well stocked, to include pizza crusts and loaves of bread(not
   homemade).  She had a microwave in her room and each floor of her dorm has a
   "kitchen" containing a stove/oven.  This year she is in a suite with a
   kitchen but no stove.  The floor "kitchen" is right next door to her room
   and it has the oven.  Her kitchen in her suite has a full sized
   fridge/freezer.  Last year she was on the most basic meal plan and she would
   use it mostly for breakfasts.
   - Make an appointment with the counselors or dean.  They usually have the
   authority to override the required meal plan for health reasons.  If n
   - http://www.celiaccentral.org/News/Celiac-in-the-News/161/vobId__2464/
   - If your child is willing to live off campus, I would insist that she be
   allowed to do so on the grounds that the institution is unable to provide
   reasonable accommodations for your child's disability.
   -  I found that the bigger schools were the least user-friendly.  They
   gave me a "sink-or-swim" attitude, this was during their open houses.  My
   daughter finally settled on a very small college ( a thousand miles from
   home!).  We met with the Director of Dining during orientation over the
   summer.  She showed me their monthly menus, she took copious notes, she took
   me into their storeroom to read cans and boxes.  I had already scouted out
   the closest health food store to the school.  She introduced us to the
   manager of the kitchen, the guy who really knows what is going on, and he
   assigned my daughter her own space in their industrial refrigerator and
   freezer.  Furthermore, my daughter had 2 cooks who were trained to cook for
   her, a dedicated fryer for her french fries, and on Sunday, she would bring
   a box of brownie mix or cookie mix or whatever to the baker for him to fix
   for her.  I supplied her own pans to keep separate from the school's pans.
   -  keep food in her fridge. Eats a lot of rice cakes and cottage cheese.
   There is a grocery store across the street of her dorm with a gf aisle!
   Also, Jimmy Johns makes lettuce wraps. I think the main thing to remember is
   that you need to be creative and fend for yourself. Try to find the few
   things in the cafeteria that you feel are safe. Find the manager in the
   cafeteria and see if they can separate some items.
   - Have your Doctor write a letter for you to the College President.  Next
   write all of the Deans  Teachers, Staff of the school.  Be nice and
   informative.  If this does not work contact the school's local newspaper's
   Food Editor.
   - take it up the chain and at least get her out of the meal plan - you
   could put the money towards a fridge and micro so she could feed herself.
   - The college she is at does provide frozen meals for her in a special
   freezer that she can prepare as she wants in a microwave. They also have
   another smaller cafeteria that they say will prepare GF sandwiches, etc for
   her, but she is not comfortable (not trusting of cafe workers in general no
   matter how well meaning they are).
   - The college she is at does provide frozen meals for her in a special
   freezer that she can prepare as she wants in a microwave. They also have
   another smaller cafeteria that they say will prepare GF sandwiches, etc for
   her, but she is not comfortable (not trusting of cafe workers in general no
   matter how well meaning they are).
   - The college she is at does provide frozen meals for her in a special
   freezer that she can prepare as she wants in a microwave. They also have
   another smaller cafeteria that they say will prepare GF sandwiches, etc for
   her, but she is not comfortable (not trusting of cafe workers in general no
   matter how well meaning they are).  So, I contacted the college (not to
   complain, but to seek better solutions) and was connected to the Office of
   Specialized Services. Jessica will be moved into a apartment on campus (with
   her roommates) that has a full kitchen facility! This is something that
   normally is not available to sophmores (more upper classmen want these), but
   she will go first on the list. In addition, they modified her records to
   allow for absences and/or rescheduling of tests due to illnesses or special
   doctor appointments, letting all of her professors know.
   - lay it out to the college administration frontally, so to speak, and
   then educate them.
   I feel very protective to young people in this situation...and think,
   frankly, that if the kids are required to live on campus and take a meal
   plan, that the school has both a moral and frankly, business/contractual
   obligation to feed them nutritious, wholesome meals that will not make them
   sick.  Period.
   1. telling them of the condition
   2. laying out the parameters of what I COULD eat (that always
   helps...make the list as long as possible) and what would MAKE ME SICK.
   3.  reminding them that they would never, for example, put diabetics in a
   situation where there was not sufficient choice and variety to allow them to
   thrive and study;  ..
   4. I would cc this letter to the chair of the Board of Trustees of the
   College and the President (CEO)
   Be pleasant, helpful, encouraging and FIRM.  These are your children we
   are talking about.
   PS Get in touch with ROCK (raising our celiac kids )and ask them if they
   can give you the names of some schools that "do it right" --and be in touch
   with them, asking for how  they handle this..  specific menus, etc...and lay
   this out, too in your letter.

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