I am a celiac (can't tolerate gluten) which was discovered when I was in hospital in the RAF a bunch of years ago and since then I have been pretty diligent about keeping to the gluten free diet - no wheat/oats/rye/barley or their by-products. Subsequent to the diagnosis, I had the good fortune to fly a lot on business and found that BA is particularly poor in catering for "special meals" (makes me sound like an oddity - 1:450 in the UK is celiac whether they know it or not!!). I have ended up, even in transatlantic Business Class with a sad rice cake, margarine and not butter (excuse me! did I ask for non-lactose?) and something equally sad and undressed for food. When I was travelling in Biz cabin crew were always wonderful and let me snoop at what was left over from the regular meal service and usually there was something there for me! In Economy, however, it is "take the rice cake or nothing". Other airlines, Lauda, SAS, Air France, American, Virgin to name a few, historically have never had such a problem and I just wonder why BA catering is so poor - the fares are not the cheapest!!!
K....sorry for the "w(h)ine" but it amazes me that in 2001 folks don't know how easy it could be to cater for medical meal requirements!!
