SCD Tip: Go to Disneyland!

Recently I went on the first business trip I’ve been on in three years. I used to go on them fairly frequently, but after a few job changes, travel has been less. I’ve always enjoyed travelling for work, but the food situation can be tough. If you’re working and staying in a hotel you’re probably not cooking for yourself. You may also be faced with all of the social situations I’ve talked about in previous posts.

You may be wondering what all of this has to do with visiting Disneyland (or Disney World). Well, this particular work trip was at the D23 Disney Expo in Anaheim. I’m not going to lie, this was one of the coolest business trips I’ve ever been on, and some of them have been pretty cool. Most of my trips have been long hours at tradeshows, or in this case a convention, which means grabbing food wherever you can it. Typically I load up on LARA Bars and grab whatever fruit may be available during the day.

This is my fifth trip to an event at the Anaheim Convention Center (where you can get an awesome all-fruit Smoothie from Eco Grounds), but the first one where I visited an actual Disney restaurant. My team ate dinner at a restaurant at the Disneyland hotel and the service was awesome.

The staff was alerted that I was “gluten-free” (I don’t usually say much more than this unless necessary) and sent out the chef to talk with me. The restaurant was buffet style so he walked around the buffet with me and pointed out everything that was gluten-free. He even offered to make a gluten-free pizza and bring out a gluten-free brownie if I wanted (I didn’t, but it was still a nice offer).

I had heard Disney tries to accommodate special diets as best they can and it was cool to get a small sample of their service. I know some more advanced SCD followers will occasionally eat a non-SCD gluten-free item. I have done that on occasion, but here was plenty to eat at this buffet and I didn’t feel like I needed anything special. You can let Disney know what your dietary needs are before visiting the park and the chef’s of the various restaurants will prepare special items. For SCD this can be as simple as making sure everything is plain. Considering I one time had the waitress tell me the chef would be offended if I asked for the sauce to be left off my fish, I think this is great!

You can learn more about special diets at Disney here.

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Sherry Lipp

Founder at Happy Gut For Life

Sherry is a Certificed Holistic Gut Practioner, author, and recipe creator. Sherry started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet in 2000 and has been creating delicious, grain and gluten-free recipes ever since. She is the author of the Don't Skip Dessert SCD cookbooks.