If you have food allergies, intolerances or sensitivities, you’ll know full well the battle that can come with eating out in restaurants and cafes. It can cause a whole lot of worry and anxiety—which often means that people with allergies end up staying at home, opting to make their own food that they know for sure has been prepared free from allergens.
As more and more people discover intolerances and allergies to mainstream diet ingredients like gluten and dairy, the call for allergen-friendly dishes in restaurants continues to grow.
You might already have heard of Nima—the brand that shot to fame thanks to their gluten and peanut sensors, giving thousands of people peace of mind when it comes to the dishes they order when eating out. And, they’ve just come out with another tool to make dining out even easier.
Enter, the Nima map tool
I mean sure, you can spend hours trawling through online reviews and Google searches of where to get the best gluten-free pizza close by, or you can simply log onto Nima’s new map tool. The map allows diners to search for restaurants in their area with allergen-free menu items and can be used to search for both gluten-free and peanut-free dishes. The map includes over 250,000 restaurant locations and 3 million “Nima-tested” dishes around the world, which have stood up to the brand’s sensors and passed the gluten-free and peanut-free test!
How it works
Once you start a search through the map, a list of restaurants with allergen-safe menu items will populate—and from there you can check out reviews and ratings, find directions, prices and more. If you click on a specific restaurant, you’ll see on the left what percentage gluten-free and peanut-free the menu is, along with any reviews left by users certifying that a menu item is indeed free from gluten or peanuts. Handy, eh?
Shireen Yates, CEO and co-founder of Nima said in a statement about the tool, “one of our key values at Nima is data for decisions. Our ultimate goal is the democratisation and transparency of data as it relates to food allergens and this new platform brings us one step closer to our mission.” Happy to have ya, Nima!
The future
While it might still feel as though there’s a really long way to go before everyone feels confident eating out regardless of allergies, intolerances or dietary choices, the truth is that we’re a hell of a lot further along than we were even a year ago. So many of the biggest chain restaurants have introduced gluten-free options to their menus, in a bid to ensure wider consumer reach—and if it gets us more allergen-friendly dishes around, we’re here for it!
