How to collect everyone's dietary needs before an event

Ask each guest privately, ask the same three questions every time — what you avoid, what happens if you don't, and what you need me to control — and keep the answers somewhere you can reread the morning of the event rather than in a chat thread you will have to scroll.

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Ask the right three questions

  • What do you need to avoid? Get the specific ingredient, not the category — 'cashew and pistachio' rather than 'nuts'.
  • What happens if you have it? This is the question that separates a preference from an emergency, and it is the one hosts most often skip.
  • What do you need me to control? Some guests need an ingredient excluded; others need a separate pan, a sealed package, or to see the label themselves.
  • Add one open question — 'anything else I should know?' — because dietary needs that are religious, medical or personal often do not fit the first three.

Do not use a group chat

  • People minimise their needs in front of other guests. The answer you get in a group is systematically less accurate than the one you get privately.
  • Answers scroll away. On the day you will be cooking, not searching a thread from three weeks ago.
  • Allergy and dietary information is health information. Broadcasting it to a group is a privacy problem as well as a practical one — in the EU it is special-category data.
  • A short form or a one-to-one message per guest takes less of your time overall, because you stop chasing partial answers.

Handle plus-ones and late changes

  • Ask the inviter to forward the same three questions to their plus-one rather than answering on their behalf. Second-hand allergy information is unreliable.
  • Set a cut-off a few days ahead and say what it is, so you can shop and plan around it rather than adapting in the kitchen.
  • Confirm back to each guest what you have written down. A guest correcting your note before the event is worth far more than a polite silence.
  • Re-check on the day if the menu changed. A substituted ingredient at the shop is a common way a carefully planned meal stops being safe.

Store the answers responsibly

  • Keep only what you need to cook the meal, and delete it afterwards. There is no reason to keep a list of your friends' medical details indefinitely.
  • Do not forward a guest's allergy to people who do not need it. The caterer needs it; the rest of the guest list does not.
  • If you use a tool to collect it, choose one that lets the guest enter their own details and lets them delete them afterwards.
  • Print or write down the final summary for the day itself. Phones die, and kitchens are bad places to read a screen.

Common questions

Why not just ask 'any allergies?' in the invitation?

Because it invites a yes or no rather than the detail you need, and most people answer it in the least alarming way available. Asking what happens if they eat it changes the quality of the answer more than any other single adjustment.

What if someone gives me a very long list?

Ask which items are safety issues and which are preferences, and plan the menu around the first group only. Most long lists shorten considerably once that distinction is made, and the guest will usually make it happily.

Is it rude to ask how serious an allergy is?

No — people with serious allergies generally welcome it, because it signals you intend to act on the answer. The rudeness people actually experience is being asked and then ignored.

Do I need consent to collect this?

In a private, personal context you are not running a business, but the principle still holds: ask, use it for the meal, do not share it further, and delete it afterwards. If you are organising something on behalf of an employer or an association, treat it as special-category health data and follow your organisation's rules.

Advisory, not medical advice

MealSafe is a planning aid, not medical advice. AI-generated assessments can be incomplete or wrong, and ingredients and kitchen routines change without notice. Always confirm with the kitchen, the producer or the label before you eat, and follow the advice of your own clinician.