My particular “dietary demons” lead me to avoid dairy foods, but I love to indulge in tea and biscuits. I want to be able to buy quality biscuits and yet as an awkward eater it can be tricky. Biscuits generally contain wheat and gluten, many contain Soya or eggs, and really nice biscuits almost always contain butter. In fact, the presence of butter or indeed that they are made using ‘all butter’ is often a major selling point.

Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was my venue recently for a coffee as I met a friend for a quick catch up before waving her goodbye on her way back to New Zealand. As is often the case, I struggled to find a dairy free cake to go with my coffee. If you are there to say ‘Bon Voyage’ chances are neither of you will want to hang around for long, especially with the cost of short term parking fees. Wondering what would be available for visitors to Heathrow I took the opportunity to do a bit of further research on behalf of awkward eaters.

I’m sure there’ll be many an awkward eater who will recognise that moment when the dessert menu arrives...and your heart sinks. You just know that the chances of it including anything you can safely eat and really fancy are...well remote. You ask the waiter (hopeful voice) “Is there anything that doesn’t contain dairy/gluten/animal products etc?” already hearing the reply in your head... “You could have the sorbet or chef says (s)he can make you up a fruit platter...”