Holiday Meals for Different Diets?

How do you plan a holiday meal when folks follow different diets or have serious allergies and intolerances? Here are some tips to make it easier on the cook and delicious for everyone at the table.

Here’s a question that I received during a Holiday workshop:

When I think about holiday meals, I struggle most with time and recipes. As our diets have changed with food allergies and intolerances, most holidays over the past few years have involved a lot of rethinking recipes we used to make.

Spending so much time changing old recipes / looking for new ones / replacing old dishes altogether and sourcing safe ingredients has made it challenging to have the time to cook everything, too! It’s been very stressful and time-consuming. — Jean

Dear Jean,

One of my most challenging seasons as a home cook was when one child was eating vegan, another gluten-free, and a third avoiding nuts due to a life-threatening allergy. I myself was fighting anemia and high cholesterol.

Finding a meal that all of us could eat as well as enjoy became an Olympic event.

Food shouldn’t be complicated, but it seems that as time goes on, it becomes more and more so, especially at the holidays. As you approach your holiday meal planning, I encourage you more than ever to revisit your priorities.

What’s most important at this holiday season?

Let that question and your personal answers drive your choices. Otherwise, you’ll run yourself ragged and into debt. Trying to do all the things is a surefire recipe for burnout.

Is the meal the most important part of the occasion to you or is it the decor, the atmosphere, the topic of conversation? There isn’t one “right” answer, just the right answer for you on this particular occasion. It can change from year to year.

Remember, there are lots of things you don’t have to do this holiday season.

For instance, if setting a pretty table and decorating the house feels extra special to you this year, then don’t spend so much time fretting about the food. A few grocery store short-cuts would be a good call. Or better yet, go potluck!

Narrow in on what’s most important to YOU and then go from there.

For me, as I was filling out my Holiday Success Kit this week, I realized that I don’t want “because it’s Christmas” to override my bigger priorities for this season, that of focusing on my fitness (mental as well as physical), family, and finances.

By planning meals and activities that are in line with those priorities I can be true to myself and what I value. That will make the season merrier for me.

Prioritize and EADS

Let’s figure out the priority and then eliminate, automate, delegate, and systemate.

If you know what’s most important to you as the holidays approach, then…

• Eliminate what’s not necessary
• Automate what can be handled by technology
• Delegate to others what you don’t actually have to do yourself
• Systemate what’s left on the list.

As regards planning a safe and tasty holiday meal, I’d meet in the middle as much as possible. Find where there is overlap of diets and constraints and make those dishes as delicious as possible.

Meet in the Middle

The Venn diagram above is an example of what the meal plan might look like for a traditional Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with both omnivores and vegetarians at the table. The menu items in the middle will work for everyone, generally speaking.

While the omnivores might enjoy Tofurky, they might not. And we already know that the vegetarians wouldn’t appreciate the turkey or ham — or the gravy and stuffing if they are made with animal products like turkey stock or sausage.

You could very well make vegetarian gravy and stuffing, but that will depend on how many people at your table desire a vegetarian meal and if they actually care about the gravy and stuffing.

In the instance of my daughter eating vegan, she doesn’t like gravy or stuffing, so I made those dishes like I always do. She wasn’t going to eat them anyway, so why worry about it?

If your table has other dietary restraints, then you’ll need to create a Venn diagram of your own, finding the middle ground or how to adapt traditional recipes to suit those limitations.

Helpful Strategies to Managing Different Diets and Preferences

Some strategies you can use to Systemate your holiday meal:

• Communicate. Make sure you understand everyone’s restrictions and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

• Make traditional recipes for the things that matter most to you; let the other things go.

• Make easy swaps wherever possible. Using gluten-free honey grams instead of graham crackers so that a dish is gluten-free or using a vegetable stock instead of a chicken one so that it’s vegetarian — these are easy swaps that don’t change the flavor very much.

• Prep things to suit everyone if you can. One year I made a vegan chocolate pie that everyone loved, including the meat eaters.

• Buy it premade. While homemade can be cheaper or better, it’s not always the best choice for the situation, especially if you’re managing many diets. Buying a gluten-free dessert or other items premade may just take off the stress.

• Save the packaging. My daughter has a life-threatening peanut and walnut allergy. When away from home, she knows not to eat anything that she can’t verify for herself is safe. Those not familiar with food allergies might make a mistake that could prove serious, so having the packaging ready is helpful to your guests.

• Allow others to contribute if appropriate. Many dishes may be ones you’re happy to delegate. Keep in mind that with food allergies, you may not want to do so. For some folks, it’s more important that the food be 100% safe, so they find ways to do it themselves without extra stress. For our family with a food allergy, I feel better bringing food I know is safe for my daughter to eat.

Hopefully, these are ideas to get you started in planning a holiday meal that everyone at the table can enjoy!

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