Food Allergens on Menus

I want to mention a great restaurant located across Colorado - Beau Jo's Colorado Style Pizza.

Beau Jo's not only has delicious deep dish pizza, but their menu includes a food allergen chart. They have every item they serve broken down by ingredients and food allergens. This is priceless for someone who has a soy intolerance. I'm always stuck getting the salad at restaurants, because most processed / industrialized food is saturated with soybean oil. Salads are always my safest bet.

Even if I ask if there is soy in something, the restaurant employee might say no because they think 'we don't use soy in our food preparation.' For example, I was a cookie shop in Estes Park, CO with my family. We asked if there was soy in cookies, and the lady said no we don't use soy. I proceeded to ask what they did use as ingredients because it's hard for me to trust them. When the employee listed margarine, I knew right away I couldn't enjoy their delightful cookies. I have yet to find  margarine that doesn't have soybean oil as one of the main ingredients. I have to use the real stuff, butter. I am happy for this though because the ingredient list for margarine compared to the butter is disturbing. Ingredients on a box of stick butter = cream. That's it!

I feel that all restaurants should have to list ingredients and food allergens on their menus. Not only for people with food allergies, but for those concerned about their health. I'm sure if people knew what was actually in restaurant  food, they would consider not eating it. The U.S. is getting somewhere by requiring calorie counts on menus, but don't you think we should take it one step further? We have a right to know what is in our food and the origin of what we consume.

Here's a link to Beau Jo's in case you're ever visiting Colorado and need a good hearty pizza...

http://www.beaujos.com/