Living with a Food Allergy in New Zealand

I am now (very sadly) about one month away from my departure out of New Zealand back to the United States. In my time here, I have amassed much more information about the country than I ever did in the previous twenty-one years. This blog will be devoted to offering practical information pertaining to what I’ve learned about how to navigate Aotearoa with a food allergy.

I was born with a severe dairy allergy. As a child, I developed anxiety around eating away from home, where I didn’t know exactly what was going to be in my food and where I wouldn’t have my parents to advocate for me. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become much more confident, picking up on, as I’m sure everyone else with food allergies must, the importance of advocating for yourself and the subtle art of balancing safety with adventure. By the time I reached adulthood, I knew I didn’t want to let my allergy hold me back from seeing the world. If you have a food allergy and are thinking about studying abroad in Christchurch, here are four points to consider:

1.  Ilam is self-catered.

   As a student living in the Ilam Apartments, you won’t be on a meal plan; you’re going to need to grocery shop and prepare the majority of your meals yourself. This eliminates, in large part, the worry about what’s going into your food, because you have total control. 

   This doesn’t mean that you’ll never have that worry, though, because everyone gets tired of cooking from to time, because you might be doing some travel that has you grabbing food from restaurants and shops on the way, and because some of the program events involve you eating together at a restaurant.

   I told my program director about my food allergy, and after that there were never any problems at program events. Which leads me to my second point:

2. People may have greater awareness of what's in food.

   A lot of the time in the United States, when I ask a server if dairy is in a certain dish, I see their face taken over with that same blank look. I find that in the U.S., dairy (and other allergens, I can imagine) is hidden in foods in ways that are not readily apparent or often thought about. It seems to me that, in New Zealand, the ingredient lists of food are somewhat more straightforward, and people may have greater awareness of what’s in food.

   I say may because I’ve still had incidents where I see that telltale blank look. Overall, though, I do think the servers, shopkeepers, etc. of New Zealand tend to answer my questions about dairy with slightly greater attention and confidence. (Slightly, and it varies, so take this as you will.)

3. I commonly see the following labels: V/VG, GF, DF.

   One thing I have really appreciated about eating out in New Zealand is that a lot of the menus have these abbreviations printed by the different items: V/VG, GF, and DF. In the US, I feel like I see a lot of labels denoting vegetarian and vegan, and sometimes gluten-free (which is what V/VG and GF stand for), but very rarely any label for dairy-free. It has actually been quite refreshing to pick up a menu and be able to tell immediately what I can order. Some menus might also have a symbol like DF*, meaning that the dish can be modified to be dairy-free. 

4. But overall, it's more or less the same.

   For better or worse, I don’t find huge differences between living with a food allergy in New Zealand versus in the United States. If anything, having a dairy allergy in New Zealand feels slightly easier thanks to the DF labels, but this doesn’t apply to other allergies. Also, you won’t find DF labels on every menu in New Zealand. Dairy still finds pervasive presence in a lot of the food, and I haven’t noticed that tons of people eat vegan here (which usually gives myself and anyone else allergic to animal products more options.)

    

Ultimately, though, if you have a food allergy, I wouldn’t let this hold you back from coming to Aotearoa. You can buy EpiPens here (though you should probably bring your own so that you’re covered), people have familiarity with food allergies, and restaurants, when you don’t want to cook for yourself, have been receptive and careful in making sure my food is safe.