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Olive Garden is many things — affordable, just about everywhere, nostalgic, and certainly a bang for your buck, with those bottomless salad and soup bowls and hearty bowls of pasta. It’s also, as far as fast casual chain restaurants go, pretty accommodating to many dietary styles, with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options.
Perfect it’s not, though, and even though the restaurant makes efforts to cater to all pasta lovers — even those who avoid gluten — there’s a big caveat to this, which means you might want to tread cautiously if you’re a gluten-sensitive lover of Italian food. Olive Garden seems to be accommodating — it has a special “gluten sensitive” menu available in person or for home delivery, including soup, salad (minus the croutons), gluten-free rotini pasta, and more.
However, the fine print at the bottom of the Olive Garden menu states that its kitchens are not free from gluten, meaning that cross-contact with gluten-containing food items is possible. “While we aim to accommodate the dietary needs of guests,” the fine print says, “we cannot ensure that these items meet the definition of gluten-free.”
If you know you know, but there’s a world of difference between gluten-sensitive and full-on gluten-intolerant, such as those with celiac disease — and therein lies the problem. If you fall into the latter camp, sadly, you be far better off driving past Olive Garden and going out to dinner instead at one of the dozen plus other chains that are far more accommodating to the gluten-free crowd, or cooking up one of these gluten-free pasta options instead.
Your level of gluten intolerance may make Olive Garden off-limits
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Olive Garden claims it has choices for everyone, but certain diners would beg to differ. Some Reddit comments from gluten-free diners deem Olive Garden’s options as suspicious at best, and downright off-limits at worst. Gripes include one Redditor stating the chain restaurant uses the same water for both gluten and gluten-free pasta — obviously concerning — which makes them “question everything on their GF protocol.” (That said, Olive Garden itself states that its gluten-free pasta does not come into contact with regular pasta water.) Others on Reddit say they have “no complaints,” but do note they’re only gluten-sensitive, not celiac, and advise those who are to skip OG in favor of local pasta places. Another commenter says they’ve heard of gluten-free eaters spotting regular pasta mixed in with their gluten-free pasta order.
Even outside of these occasional slip-ups, many might take issue with the fact that Olive Garden admits that while its pasta meets the formal FDA standard to be deemed gluten-free, the chain can’t guarantee other ingredients and menu items aren’t cross-contaminated with gluten despite its cooks’ best efforts. Additionally, Olive Garden mentions that it does not label other non-gluten-containing food items as being “gluten-free,” as they have not been chemically analyzed to ascertain how many parts per million of gluten they contain. (The FDA allows the definition for foods with 20 parts per million of gluten.) So, even if a dish seems gluten-free based on its ingredients, hold off on ordering it unless you’re only mildly sensitive or just prefer to avoid gluten.
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