Here is the rest of the photos and information I couldn’t put in on Thursday.

These were (I use the past tense as I finished them up!) gluten free, fructose friendly and just like regular pretzels. They were bought for me from a place called The Commissary, when I do my research I find it’s only for American miliary personnel and their families. I still had plenty when I got home as they’re fairly small so if you eat two handfuls it feels like a lot. I made my DDs try them to hear ‘they’re just like regular pretzels’!

Here’s the yoghurt I found in Duane Read in New York. In my travels I actually found three yoghurts I could eat but I only bought this one, Chobani was one of the others.

This pasta was the greatest. Really loved it! It was as good as the Melissa spaghetti I buy from the deli in Oakleigh Centro. This quinoa pasta was bought for me I think she found it at Costco.

These Peanut Butter bars were bought for someone else and it just happened to be fine for me. Our host did try to make us take some with us but it was almost the end of our trip and things had been fairly good to I refused, I still had some snacks I’d brought with me from Australia.

Just a few more words before I move onto other subjects tomorrow.

I expected to have so many problems ordering food in America but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I started off by having a good look at the menu and picking out something that I thought might work then I began every conversation with ‘I am allergic to the onion and garlic family as well as buckwheat and avocado, is this dish possible?’ and then continue with negotiations. Some of the dishes were fine while others needed modifications, others still couldn’t be made and in every case the waiter came back to me with the problem and a solution. I had three problems in the whole month: one where the waitress didn’t know what was in the spaghetti (it had been dowsed with garlic infused oil, I took an antihistamine and survived); one where I was reading ingredients and missed the key word of ‘garlic’, in my defence I had a migraine and; one where most of the dishes on the menu were pre-marinated so they had to suggest something from their breakfast menu. We ate at restaurants or cafes twice a day for most of that month, we did manage a few homecooked meals which were all wonderful and we had scratch meals on occasion but the bulk of our lunches and dinners were eaten out so it’s amazing I had so few problems. We were proactive in finding cereals, bowls and spoons for breakfast, which is fine if you don’t mind dry cereal but I was very glad to get home and get back to normal. Coffee and tea were another matter, some of the rooms had no way to make coffee or tea while others only had a coffee maker; I found the coffee in America gave me heartburn to I switched to tea within a couple of days. Some of the rooms had no fridge so we had to make do with non-dairy creamer in our tea or coffee or go without. New York had only a fridge in the room and a diner downstairs with very cheap coffee and tea.

Summary of supermarkets

• Ralph’s
• Shaw’s
• Wholefoods
• Duane Read (also a pharmacy)
• CVS Pharmacy (also had a wide range of groceries, some of them have a doctor on hand)

Edited to add drinks!

I completely forgot to add some stuff about drinks. The hotel rooms sometimes had coffee machines which used pods and these gave me heartburn so I went coffee free for most of the trip. I did manage to cope with an iced coffee from Tea Leaf and Coffee Bean (maybe it was Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf but I can’t be bothered googling, anyway it was the combined store), no sweetener of any kind and no milk, the lady at the cash register knew about fructose and knew I couldn’t have any of their sweet drinks immediately without checking although she did check anyway without prompting.

The soft drinks made in America are mostly sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, I did have a San Pellegrino made in Italy which was fine and I was told the drinks made in Mexico are made with cane sugar but never tested them out. We had several Snapples which are tea and juice (I had lemon with no problems) combined, there are also diet options, it gave me a break from water.

In restaurants or cafes I mostly had black or green (in Chinese restaurants) tea or water, occasionally a Snapple. In the first week or so I stuffed up by not checking the ingredients of Canada Dry, when I finally got a chance to read the can I was horrified by the High Fructose Corn Syrup and immediately knew why I’d had trouble a few days earlier. Thank goodness for the Buscopan I’d packed at home.