Ep. 273: Food Allergy Travel - Unexpected Situations

Traveling with food allergies happens every day for thousands of families. But as many of us know, travel takes planning—and even the best plans don’t always go the way we expect. Flights get delayed, restaurants change menus, and sometimes we’re asked to make quick decisions in unfamiliar places. So how do we prepare not just our travel plans, but also our mindset? How do we build the confidence and coping skills to stay calm and pivot when the unexpected happens? Joining us to talk about navigating travel and those unplanned moments is psychologist and Founder of The Food Allergy Hive, Elizabeth Hawkins, PhD, MPH. She’ll help us explore how to develop a healthier, more flexible travel mindset. 

Resources to keep you in the know:

• The Food Allergy Hive
• Food Allergy Hive Membership
• FAACT Behavioral Health Resource Center

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Transcript

Caroline: Welcome to FAACT's Roundtable, a podcast dedicated to navigating life with food allergies across the lifespan. Presented in a welcoming format with interviews and open discussions,

each episode will explore a specific topic, leaving you with the facts to know or use.

Information presented via this podcast is educational and not intended to provide individual medical advice.

Please consult with your personal board certified allergist or healthcare providers for advice specific to your situation.

Hi everyone. I'm Caroline Moassessi and I am your host for the FAACT Roundtable podcast. I am a food allergy parent and advocate and the founder of the Grateful Foodie Blog.

And I am FAACT's Vice President of community relations.

Before we start today, we just want to pause for just a moment to say thank you to the National Peanut Board for being a kind sponsor of FAACT's roundtable podcast.

And please note, today's guest was not paid by or sponsored by the National Peanut Board to participate in this specific podcast.

Traveling with food allergies happens every day for thousands of families. But as many of us know, travel takes planning, and even the best plans don't always go the way we expect.

Flights get delayed, restaurants change menus, and sometimes we're asked to make quick decisions in unfamiliar places.

So how do we prepare not just for our travel plans, but for our mindset. How do we build the confidence and coping skills to stay calm and pivot when the unexpected happens?

Joining us today to talk about navigating travel and those unplanned moments is psychologist and founder of the Food Allergy Hive, Elizabeth Hawkins, who holds a PhD and an MPH.

She'll help us explore how to deliver a healthier, more flexible travel mindset.

Welcome back, Elizabeth, to FAACT's Roundtable Podcast. I'm absolutely delighted to have you here.

You bring us such expertise and wisdom and insight about that intersection between mental wellness and food allergies that we just need to talk about.

Elizabeth: Thank you for having me back. I'm so excited to be here and I always enjoy our conversations.

Caroline: That's fantastic. Well, we're going to just dive right in for listeners who may be meeting you for the first time. Can you share a little about your background and tell us what the food allergy hive is all about?

Elizabeth: Sure.

So I'm a licensed psychologist. I have a PhD in child and adolescent psychology,

and I myself have celiac disease. My older daughter has celiac disease and. And then my younger daughter has had over 25 severe food allergies in her life, but not celiac disease.

She did have a wheat allergy, which she outgrew when she was younger. So it's a pretty complicated Venn diagram in my household for what we can and can't eat.

But I think probably like a lot of us listening to this episode, I crashed into the world of food allergies 17 years ago when she was a baby. And it was a viciously fast and steep and really quite frightening learning curve.

And over the years, my professional practice, my clinical practice has shifted to more and more focus on supporting individuals and families who live with allergic diseases.

Some of my areas of specialization are anxiety, OCD perfectionism,

parenting support.

Then a couple of years ago, I started Food Allergy High to be able to reach more people with the kinds of evidence based emotional support that I offer in my private practice.

So since I'm only able to work with a very small number of people who are able to find me, afford me and access healthcare, which we know, there's a lot more people out there who need it, who are not able to reach it.

So I created Food Allergy Hive. And it's an on demand online program that includes full length workshops and then shorter videos, downloadable worksheets and resources that help in managing the social and the emotional side of living with food allergies.

It's currently set up as a searchable library so people can go right to any topic or question that they have and they can learn something about that, either some education or a skill to help them navigate it.

And then I'm in the process of developing more structured options that will guide people through the content in a more structured way.

And I would say overall, just my role with the hive and also my private practice is to help people build coping skills, psychological flexibility and emotional resilience. So food allergies don't take over their entire lives and they're able to focus instead on what really matters to them.

Caroline: All these types of resources are so critical and especially ones that you're talking about that you've developed that are available 24 7, because not everyone has that daytime option to, you know, find a mental health professional and work with them or you're managing multiple jobs.

So I just think that's really a cool solution to our world today, right? We're so busy.

Elizabeth: I think so. And you know, one thing that I've heard about a lot over the years is that people will reach out to me. You know, it's often like in middle of the night, an email will come through, I'll read it the next day and they'll be in kind of crisis,

something has happened and then by the time I'm able to schedule them, or they're able to get in to see someone, the crisis might pass and they're no longer in that state where they really need care.

And so maybe they take the appointment, maybe they don't take the appointment. But I think having that thing that's available right when you need it in the moment is so valuable.

Caroline: Exactly. And it's just a click away.

Elizabeth: That's the goal.

Caroline: I love it. So now let's start off by examining what a food allergy travel mindset is and why is it even important to have one?

Elizabeth: That's a great question.

I think I would start, first of all, what's a mindset? And that is it's a set of beliefs or attitudes that shape how a person perceives themselves as well as the world around them.

And in the world of mindsets, we often hear about a fixed mindset, which assumes that things are locked in and unchangeable.

And then on the other side, we have a flexible or a growth mindset, which assumes that abilities are developed through effort and learning and that mistakes are part of that process of learning.

And so I think when it comes to food allergies, an adaptive travel mindset, a healthy, helpful mindset, would really lean on good awareness and acceptance of your needs. You really have to understand what your individual issues are, what your boundaries are, and be clear about that.

There's planning and preparation before the trip about how to accommodate those needs.

And then during the trip, there's going to be a lot of flexibility and kind of a willingness to pivot and problem solve on the go, because reality is rarely the way we think it's going to be.

And so I think all of that with travel. Travel is a stressful time anyways. Even if you're not dealing with food allergies or another kind of medical condition, it's really stressful.

There's a lot going on. If you're doing international travel, you might be in a place where they speak another language, they have different medical systems, there's different foods and customs.

So there's a lot of different things you're navigating. So I think the more that your mindset can be flexible and adaptive,

the better you're going to be able to figure out what's going to work in any particular situation.

Caroline: I think it's so critical we're talking about this because I can tell you just numerous times over my whole lifespan with traveling with my family, you know, my two adult children now who have food allergies and friends,

something will happen and someone will be like, oh, why didn't I pack that? I meant to, and you know what I mean? And then there's a little bit of a panic.

And so I think just having that mindset of, okay, I'm getting ready for this trip now, I'm going to take some actions, but, you know, I'm going to get my head around that things just might not go right and I might miss my flight and there just might be things and how am I going to cope?

So I am thrilled we are discussing this. I think it's so important.

And so just along those lines, let's start with pre planning. Like, what do you suggest with we contemplate or explore before a trip? Like, we've just decided we're going to take a trip.

We've booked it now.

Elizabeth: What?

Yeah, well, I think I start, you know, with what you just said, which is decision making about are we going to even travel or not,

and then, you know, where or how. You know, I think that's kind of a first step. And travel is not for everyone at every stage in their life. I think that's really important to kind of emphasize that it's okay if you decide you're not in a place where you're wanting to or really wanting to take on the stresses of travel.

And I start there with everyone, which is, if you are going to travel, why, what are your values in traveling and your goals in traveling? And I think it's really important to have that set your individual why.

Because maybe it's in the relaxing vacation, maybe you want to see some historical sites, maybe you're going to see family or there's a special event like a wedding.

But when you really understand your why, what's this trip about, what's important to us,

then you can focus on the things that will allow that to happen as well as it can.

And you can really then go into the planning process, the pre planning process, with kind of a mindset around what can we do, not what can't we do.

So I think it's important to start with your why. I think that would be the number one, what's your why for this trip?

And then if I'm really thinking through pre planning and preparation, I. I probably put things in two buckets. One is an allergy preparation and one is emotional preparation, and they overlap.

And I don't know how much you want to get into the allergy preparation part,

but no, I think once you've chosen a destination and you know you're going to get to know where you're going, what they have available in terms of specific foods, and thinking through what do you need to bring from home and what can you source locally?

And I like to think through all meals and snacks in advance and kind of walk through my day mentally and with my kids. And.

And it's a little bit over the years, it's become a game to me. I think some people when they travel, they think about how can I plan my wardrobe so I can have the most number of outfits from a select number of, you know, pants and shirts combinations.

I think of food that way. I think, what foods can I bring that actually I can then leverage whatever I can get locally, which generally fruits and vegetables, you know, you can get whole foods very easily.

So I think, okay, what could I bring? Like a bottle of salad dressing? I bring a bottle of salad dressing with me everywhere I go because I can get most places I can give salads, I can give vegetables, raw vegetables, I can chop up whatever.

But then I have the salad dressing to make it more exciting.

Or I carry a bottle of gluten free teriyaki sauce that's sesame free as well.

So I think, you know, thinking through that way, what can I do with the fewest number of ingredients I can bring from home?

And then, of course, I know you've covered this before on the show, but having an allergy card in all the necessary languages, where you're going to be traveling and you want to research emergency medical services,

you want to review your allergy plan and talk with your allergist about any additional recommendations they might have for you.

And bringing well stocked medical kit beyond allergy needs, especially with kids, I have found having other things is really helpful.

It might be overkill, but I carry a stethoscope. I carry a stethoscope with me, a pulse oximeter,

something to look in the ears for ear infections, you know, because if something happens, I want to be able to assess the situation as well as I possibly can to figure out what's going on.

So that's all these things I would put in the kind of the allergy management preparation bucket.

And then if we switch to emotional preparation,

I think probably the biggest thing is what we just talked about in that mindset that you really want to ground in your why as much as you can, because that helps guide your choices and responses.

I like to cultivate a mentality of abundance and not scarcity. So we're really as a family focusing on what we can do and not what we can't. Do.

I think sometimes people get caught in the losses of what they used to be able to do that's no longer possible, or what other people are doing that they're not doing.

And I just try to focus away from that and focus on what is, not what isn't.

Another tip I would say from an emotional preparation is to set realistic expectations for yourself and for the whole family ahead of time. Before you leave,

I will sit down with my whole family and we'll talk about. They know this now because it's been rehearsed so many times. But you know, we'll say we're not traveling for food.

You know, we're not going on vacation because we want to necessarily eat the food wherever we're going. Food is food fuel for whatever else we are doing. It's not the main event.

And so because that's our value system,

food might be really boring, it might be repetitive. You know, my daughter, especially when she was younger and her allergies were so restrictive, she might eat the same thing for dinner night after night because we knew that she could eat it, it was going to be safe and we didn't have to then stress about it to allow us time to do the other things we wanted to be able to do.

You know, we'll talk about as soon as we land somewhere. One of the first things we're going to do is we're going to go find a market and we're going to source some of that food that I've already planned out in advance and see what we can find there.

And then I will say this to maybe the other moms out there because it's pep talk I give myself,

which is I let go of my normal concerns around nutrition.

You know, my goal is not to have the healthiest and the most well balanced and beautiful meals. It's really like we need to get enough calories in, we need to be able to eat, we need to be not hungry, we need to be able to do the activities we want to do.

And as part of that,

candy is one of my best friends. When we travel. I don't have a lot of candy when I'm at home. But when we travel, I always have candy hidden in my bags because it comes in handy.

And then I guess the last thing from an emotional preparation standpoint I will say is that I think we can take steps to manage our tolerance for risk and uncertainty in small ways every single day.

And a lot of that goes from stepping outside of our comfort zone a little bit and then practicing those Skills that we can control, like reviewing menus, communicating with staff about what allergens might be in different foods, watching for red flags or green flags,

getting okay with the idea being a pain, or walking away from a restaurant if needed because you don't feel good about the way things are.

When we can strengthen our skills in advance, then we are more able to trust ourselves in the moment to deal with a situation.

Caroline: These are amazing, like, powerhouse. And I have to confess, I feel very vindicated.

So on my last trip, I pull out of my suitcase a little tiny bottle of olive oil, Greek seasoning spice, and a lemon pepper, and one of my travel mates kind of chuckled.

And then two days later, when we were making eggs in the microwave, she was like, you know, what a good thing you have this.

Elizabeth: It comes in handy, doesn't it?

Caroline: It really does. And I really do pack with that, because when you go somewhere, you can get a chicken and maybe cook it in a microwave. Like you said, not a culinary moment, but close enough.

Or eggs. I carry a little egg boiling kind of machine that I plug in, so I. So you can do scrambled eggs and you can do a couple of poached eggs, and that way I always know that there is something there.

So you are making me feel very vindicated, which I love selfishly. And then also, I really like that you brought up that, you know, your daughter can eat the same dinner every night.

And last fall, when we held the fact food allergy summit, we did have a few people that were on very, you know, restricted special diets, and they were asking for the same food for every meal.

And the chef kept. Kept going to the person and saying, I feel terrible. And she was like, no, I am here for this moment,

and it makes me feel better and safer if we just establish the meal I'm going to eat and you just cook it every single time while I'm here.

And then he was like, okay. He goes, I just feel bad that I'm not serving you appropriately. But that's what worked for her,

right?

Elizabeth: And I think having that. That mindset and when you just realize it's not worth the stress of trying to navigate different food every meal, like, what's safe? You know, it's safe.

You can count on it. And then you can focus on the other parts, which are the important things,

right?

Caroline: And that leads back to the why that you were talking about.

I love that. So now let's look at the pivot. Let's look at that moment when things go wrong, when a flight's delayed and you were supposed to leave and now the flight is delayed and you have to be there longer, you know, or weather happens or things just didn't turn out the way that they were supposed to.

And now it's a big situation that you have to figure out.

Elizabeth: Yeah,

it's so, I mean, I think in that moment of pivot, one thing I want to emphasize is that it's really hard to plan for the unexpected.

We as humans, we think we're good prediction machines and we're really not nearly as good as we think we are. But we like to try to figure out in advance what's going to happen and problem solve and have solutions.

And there is something that is helpful about that to some extent in terms of planning and preparation.

But I think in the moment when something happens,

there's going to be really on the ground information that you're going to be getting and that you're going to have to use to inform your choices and what even the options are for you.

So every situation is going to be really different.

And so the most important thing is you have to trust your ability. I think before you go, you have to trust your abilities to be able to handle that pivot because you can't plan in advance for every single situation.

I learned this as you, I think know and other people. I posted about this a couple weeks ago. I was in a lockdown situation for two days. And that's something I can honestly say I've never considered.

I have never thought through in my what if ing what would happen or what I would do.

And so I had to trust myself. And I think that is for food allergy families. That's what you have to do. It's. It's the confidence that something might not go the way you expect it to, but that you'll be able to figure it out.

And I guess what does that look like in the moment when something happens is. I think a lot of times, I guess I should have the caveat. What we're talking about is are not medical emergencies.

We're not talking about the kinds of pivots where there's actually an allergic reaction happening. This is like you're saying restaurant has changed their menu, a flight is canceled, you're not able to find a certain kind of food, something like that.

And you have to figure out what to do.

I think taking a deep breath and centering yourself is always where I start.

And maybe even naming if it's really kind of a panic inducing situation, naming what is happening, you might say this is really Stressful, I'm feeling overwhelmed or my heart is racing, my thoughts are all over the place.

Can feel my nervous system shifting into fight or flight, we can name it to kind of then help our brain understand, oh, okay. That's why I'm feeling this way.

I think before we go into the more cognitive aspect of problem solving, we have to calm our nervous system. And so that could be that deep breathing, it could be tensing and relaxing your muscles really quickly,

running cold water over your face or your wrists, moving your body to discharge some of that energy, that adrenaline that's going through you.

I go back to the why.

You'll hear me say that a lot today, but I go back to my why. So I think as part of the pivot is what is really important, what is the reason for being here, what are the things I want to prioritize and what can I let go of in this moment?

And simplifying your choices to what's the next thing I need to do? Like what is the next right thing to try to help this situation instead of having every single part of your experience in the rest of your trip figured out in that moment in time.

So sometimes we just need to give ourselves the grace to figure out what's the next thing and then trust. I'll figure out from there what the next thing is after that, if that makes sense.

I think throughout this situation when whatever you're dealing with, you want to practice self soothing emotion regulation.

And it's also really important, I think, to have a matter of fact attitude, especially if you're having, if you have kids with you and you're modeling for your family about what that might be and what that might look like.

I've had the experience of traveling with my two kids when they were much younger and my sister and her three kids and we were somewhere internationally and it was a hot day and all the kids wanted to stop and have ice cream.

And that's something her family was used to doing. My family's not because we have a dairy allergy.

And you know, so it's like I think thinking through in that moment, four kids are getting ice cream, my daughter's not getting ice cream. So how do I do that and how do I do in a way where I'm able to empathize and have a lot of validation for.

That's a hard experience for her. But I'm not sinking into pity, oh, you poor thing. Or I'm making a, you know, I'm making too big of a deal of it.

I'm able to kind of say, hey, that's really hard.

How about we go on a walk? Do you want to go on a walk with me? And we'll go find something else to do while they have their ice cream?

You know, as just one example,

I

Caroline: really like that you brought up that example because our children are looking at us and if we're in panic or we're getting frustrated or we're getting mad, then that's exactly what they're going do.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. I believe.

Caroline: Right. So I think that's really good to like you said, think ahead a little bit and then have your plan or your system, what to do.

Elizabeth: I always want my kids, when they're watching me to think even if something is really challenging and maybe it's really stressful, I'm not going to hide that necessarily. But I also want them to believe it is manageable and that they have the abilities to do that.

And, and so that's such an important message. I think we communicate in how we talk about limitations and accommodations with our kids.

Caroline: That is so key. And then that just brings you right into the next question is after we've, we've traveled and let's say we have had a situation that was very unexpected and really took a lot of pivoting and strategizing.

When you get back home, do you suggest like a post reflection, like just a look back, like, okay, so that happened.

Now what?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. I always do a post game review where I think about,

you know, our brains are, our brains are really sticky for negative events. They want to hold on to the one thing that went poorly instead of the 20 things that went well.

So I think when we are going through that kind of post game analysis kind of process,

we want to also really think about what went well, like deliberately remind ourselves of all the meals that went off as planned or all the, you know, all the accommodations that worked out as they were supposed to instead of the one that didn't.

And so it's not to avoid thinking about the times where things weren't as optimal, but I think really reminding ourselves, okay, what worked well and what did I do that helped to that.

So I am a list maker. I write everything down. I think it helps just encode it in the brain. And so during that post game review, I might be thinking about and writing down, okay, these are the things that I did that really seemed to pay off and helped.

Then I will look at the situations that didn't go as well as I had hoped. And I would think,

how did I handle that what did I do that helped the situation? Maybe what did I do that wasn't as great for that situation? And how could I change that and do that differently in the future?

With the idea that every mishap that's been handled is a data point for future resilience, it is an opportunity to just think, okay, if this were to happen next time.

I think we alluded to this earlier, but when I'm on a trip, I am always keeping a running list of the things I wish I had brought because inevitably it's not always food related.

You know, there might be something else where I'll be like, I wish I, I wish I had that I hadn't thought about this in advance. And I always just write it down so it's there.

And so when I home again, I look at that list and then I go through and I update notes. I have a running notes list, my computer that is. What are the things when we travel that are good to bring?

Like I mentioned before, you know, we have the salad dressing I pull out of my purse and people look at me like I'm crazy, but I don't really care because it enables us to really be able to eat more freely.

Or containers like that was something I didn't think about is you can buy food, but then how do you actually transport it around if you're going to be busy and moving around all day?

So, you know, taking the cooler bags and taking lunch containers that then we can pack up food in or something like that. So I do absolutely think that post analysis is important and part of that might be talking to other people in the food allergy community and finding out what they have done in similar situations.

I think there's so much we can learn from each other about what works and what they have done and how they've handled that situation.

Caroline: Oh,

I can't agree with you anymore. I learned so much from talking to people and honestly just asking, especially if we have a big trip coming on or a trip somewhere that I'm very unfamiliar with the area.

Call people that I know that maybe have been there or live in in the area. Like just even finding out, like do you know what grocery stores are close by?

You know, things, things like that. It makes a difference. And I love the list concept. I do that too.

And I'll just have the list and I'll scratch it out if it doesn't apply. But it really helps me remember things. Like we bring Ziploc bags and containers as well and I've forgotten those on trips.

So now I have the list which really helps because like you were saying, it's already stressful planning and it just takes a layer off.

Elizabeth: It does. And you know, at least for me, I don't know if this is your experience. When I am on a trip or immediately after a trip, I think that I am going to remember every moment of that forever because it was so stressful.

And a year or two later I kind of have forgotten a lot about the finer details. And if I didn't have that list to remind me,

I would probably forget some of the same items again because they're just poof. You know, my brain is onto other things once I'm back home and in

Caroline: life,

I fully understand.

So our time went really fast. This has been amazing, chocked full of great actionable information.

So as we come to a close, what final thoughts would you like to share with our listeners?

Elizabeth: I think I would go back to a point I made earlier and just maybe end on that to speaking to the parents out there to really re emphasize that kids are learning from us constantly and they absorb so much more from what we do and how we do it than what we're actually saying.

And so I think travel is a really amazing opportunity for so many different reasons.

But when we show them a willingness to step out of our comfort zone and try hard things,

they will then feel more capable in doing that in their life. And when we show them that things don't always go perfectly, we're able to model adaptive coping skills and flexibility in their responses and that allows them to then come to us with mistakes that they may make or hard challenges as they grow older.

It frees them to be able to come and see us as thought partners and be able to handle that with them. When we're problem solving in real time, we're helping them think through a challenge and consider different solutions and what to do.

And then that post game analysis we're talking about when we reflect after the fact on what went well and what didn't.

Didn't. We're teaching them introspection and a process for learning from our experiences.

And that's so important and that I I didn't say this earlier, but if the child is old enough I include them in all of that, the pre planning and the post review process.

I think that's important for them to experience all of it because at the end of the day we don't really want our kids to just learn a strict rules of do and don't do that they memorize and just kind of implement.

We really want them to learn a process for thinking through and managing challenges in unpredictable situations. And the only way for them to do that is to experience them.

And so I think when we take those opportunities like travel can present for us to challenge ourselves and do hard things and deal with the unexpected,

we're really helping them cultivate resilience that can be lifelong.

Caroline: These are such incredible words to end by. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. You're so busy and and we just appreciate that you took the time to spend with us to share your wisdom and your knowledge.

So thank you very much.

Elizabeth: Thank you for having me. It's been delightful. As always.

Caroline: You're very welcome.

Before we say goodbye today,

we just want to thank the National Peanut Board one more time for being a kind sponsor of FAACT's roundtable podcast. And please note that today's guest was not paid by or sponsored by the National Peanut Board.

Elizabeth: Foreign.

Caroline: Thank you for listening to FAACT's Roundtable Podcast.

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Have a great day and always be kind to one another.