My New Chef Card & Medic Alert Bracelet

A few months before I left for Italy, I brought my old chef card from when I went to Italy with my family, to show my Italian tutor. I wanted to make sure it was as accurate as possible, and was updated with anything that may have changed since I made it a few years ago.

When I showed it to her, and explained all of my allergies, there were lots of changes that she wanted to make. We went through everything, adding what was on the Italian allergy website, and adding all of her suggestions of foods she knew contained an allergen. We also rewarded the message, then added a back to it that listed foods that a restaurant could prepare for me, if nothing was on the menu. I felt very confident and relieved about my new chef card!

This is the front of the card with a message to the chef and all of my allergies.

This is the back of the card with the foods that I can eat.

I made copies of my chef card and laminated it. It is bigger than my English card that I use in the U.S., but it can still fit in my purse easily, which is what's important! I also have one in French. I may try to make some more in Spanish, as well as in some of the other languages of places I may travel.

If you need help making a card in a language you don't know, you can also order them from selectwisely.com. I ordered one in Turkish from them. It is not detailed like the one I made, but if you really need one and have no idea of the language, it can be very helpful! They also put pictures on the card, which I think is definitely useful! There are also a few other ones I have not tried yet, dietarycard.com, which is a UK-based company and allergytranslation.com, which seems to have a more detailed approach.

My Italian Medic Alert bracelet is also working out well. Luckily it hasn't been put into use though! It has all of my anaphylactic allergies and asthma on the inside with the regular Medic Alert symbol on top.