Blogging for a cause: food allergies and celiacs

I was just contacted by the nice folks at Triumph Dining, publishers of the Essential Gluten-Free guide (which I reviewed a few months ago). They asked me to share this news with my readers, in order (1) give away those spiffy food allergy restaurant dining cards that I thought were so great and at the same time (2) raise awareness about celiacs disease. While I am fortunate not to have my gluten allergy be elevated to this level, it's important that regular non-allergic people understand just how serious food allergies can be! Every day people with celiacs are misdiagnosed and treated with all kinds of unnecessary medications and procedures because their physicians don't recognize celiacs. Some people actually get horribly sick over the course of years because their bodies are on the brink of starvation -- they literally can't absorb nutrients due to a gluten allergy.

No need to re-write how this idea was submitted to me, so here 'tis.

"Triumph Dining is giving away FREE American Dining Cards until the end of August. There’s absolutely no purchase necessary. Your readers can simply visit http://www.triumphdining.com/freediningcard.aspx to participate and get a free dining card.

The purpose of this give-away is to raise money for Celiac Disease Awareness. If we get 15,000 people to sign up for free dining cards, Triumph Dining will make a $10,000 donation in support of a national celiac disease awareness campaign. When we hit our goal, we'll ask you and the gluten free community to help us decide which non-profit(s) receives the donation.

We’re trying to build awareness on two fronts: With 15,000 more dining cards on the street, we’ll be educating more restaurants about the gluten free diet faster. And, with $10,000 funding behind a national campaign, we can diagnose and educate more Celiacs.

The FREE dining card offer is available at http://www.triumphdining.com/freediningcard.aspx and we’ll be posting regular progress reports on our blog at http://blog.triumphdining.com."

Share the word, people! Help yourself and others too, thanks. The FAQ.