In our family, eating out is a treat and since we all have likes/dislikes/allergies, I always felt it was up to us to decide on the eating establishment taking our own needs into consideration. If I were diabetic, I wouldn't snack at a bakery. If someone in the family was celiac, we'd avoid restaurants that specialized in pasta dishes. In other words, we would take personal care and attention to our needs and not expect a restaurant to do this for us. In this day and age, you can look up a menu on the Internet and go from there.
Today a college was successfully sued by several students because the cafeteria didn't offer enough in the way of gluten-free meals. They won and I don't find this too exceptional. If college students are living away from home and have reasonable ways of avoiding foods they can't healthily eat, then colleges should have some provisions for them. I don't know if the settlement was reasonable but the matter is settled and other colleges will probably look into this situation before they, too, are cited.
http://www.blisstree.com/2013/01/18/food/food-allergy-disability/
I think the fear now is that ALL eating establishments and fast food restaurants will now be under scrutiny and I don't think that is right. When one is enrolled and living at college, they have few choices about where to eat and some accommodations should be made for them. When one goes out to eat, they are making the choices and should not demand every restaurant to change their menu on the off chance they will get an order for specialized foods.
I have friends with foods they can't eat. What do they do? If they opt to go out to eat, they don't order that kind of food and eat around the menu offerings. Another family is on a super strict diet because of health issues. They pack a lunch or plan ahead on possible places that could meet their needs.
We recently went gluten-free for health reasons other than celiac. We don't look for restaurants to serve us specially. We just don't order items that aren't in line with what we want to eat. Some places are more accommodating about menu changes, others are not. We deal with it. We don't sit back and make unreasonable demands.
I do have to wonder about the possibility of people demanding a celiac's diet as a person with a severe case can't even be around the dust of wheat flour. How would they expect a fast food place to keep foods separate to that degree? Even with a full-service restaurant, you couldn't provide the safety that or a peanut allergy would require.
I think the world is getting to be rather spoiled. It is, however, easier to blame someone on an allergic reaction than take personal precautions to prevent one from happening.
