Gluten-Free: Find Me Gluten Free Mobile App

You don't know that I usually write my blog posts late at night after Liberty has finally gone to bed and thus by the end of editing them I'm half-asleep, but it's true.

I'm having a crappy week.  I don't want to think much about food.  I really don't want to think about cooking.  When this happens, I like to go out to eat when I can afford it. It can be difficult to find gluten-free food even in one's own area, much less out and about -- but there's an app for that!  Find Me Gluten Free has saved my gluten-free bacon several times.

Indeed.

Available for iPhone, Android and Kindle Fire you can put in a location or use your smartphone's creepy tracking capabilities to good use by finding one near wherever you are (with distance, maps and allowing users to specify a radius).  Chains can be excluded as well as restaurants without dedicated gf menus.  However, in areas with low gluten-free coverage, knowing that an establishment you walk into will be able to accommodate regardless of a specific menu can certainly be useful.  It's great for road trips as well -- this app covers the whole of the US and Canada.  If you don't have a smartphone, they have a regular and a mobile website.

Each listing gives a link to the restaurant's website and often directly to their gluten-free menu plus the ability to call the location with one click.  Additional features include being like a little mini Yelp with ratings, reviews, tips, photos and comments from patrons -- except these reviews give details on the businesses' ability to avoid cross-contamination and the quality of only their gluten-free offerings.   On the website, you can search by cuisine (which is coming soon to the app).  Users of Find Me Gluten Free can also suggest somewhere not yet listed via their own user profile or on the website, although they do have quite a selection of listings for everywhere I've tried in Massachusetts.

Sometimes there are even loyalty programs and promotional codes listed for an establishment and their blog offers more savings as well as some really awesome-sounding recipes.  Their partnership with the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) GREAT Kitchens means that any business which has been trained by them in gluten-free protocols has a symbol next to their listing for greater assurance of a safe meal; as of earlier this month, there is also a symbol for any location which has completed the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America's Chef to Plate program.

A portion of all the app's proceeds go to gluten-free awareness and education organizations such as the American Celiac Disease Alliance.  With the announcement yesterday of Mark Cuban acquiring a stake in Find Me Gluten Free, this app will continue to go from strength to strength.

Find Me Gluten Free has a (very responsive) presence on Facebook and Twitter.

So true.