@tatinG, have your group try some of the gluten free pastas! Gluten free food has come a long way.
FWIW I am allergic to poultry. No kidding. Many people don’t even notice. But try going to a church picnic in the south and not starve. 
I have tried the gluten free. To me they taste terrible.
Keep trying, @TatinG. There are some very good ones out there. I made a baked ziti dish recently with gf pasta that was delicious. I wouldn’t hesitate to bring that to a party.
If I was allergic to a common food, I’d let the hostess/host know. It kind of sucks hosting a meal and going to the trouble of cooking a nice dinner, and having a guest not eat it because they are allergic. If I had known ahead of time, I could have worked around it.
For potlucks, I think its less of an issue. The benefit of potlucks is having a variety of items to choose from, so, if you don’t heat poultry for example, there are likely to be many other items one can eat.
@TatinG, as a low-carb eater, I usually make sure that I bring something that I can eat as my contribution to a potluck. I assume that others will do the same. And I go to a lot of potlucks.
It really isn’t that hard. The people with actual celiac probably find it a lot easier to trust their own cooking, since many people do not realize how gluten can sneak into things such as bouillon or malt vinegar. The people who are merely sensitive to gluten–or imagine they are B-) – won’t be harmed by a tiny bit of contamination.
I have a few friends who have actual celiac disease, and they know that they can trust me when I say something is gluten-free, but we have been cooking and eating together for years, and one in particular has educated me on the subject.
I think the food issue is resolved best when the person who has the food allergy/intolerance/preference brings a main dish that he or she can eat. My daughter does not eat red meat so when she attends a BBQ we or she brings some veggie burgers - there are always others at the BBQ that prefer the veggie burger and very few if any are ever left over. Wegmans prepared foods section makes an unbelievable veggie burger. I never thought my H would eat a veggie burger but he eats these.
Of course when you are hosting and are not expecting guests to bring anything, you do need to be mindful. I always have plenty of salads, grains like quinoa or brown rice mixed with vegetables and a cold pasta salad to address potential problems. H and I are at a point where we know the people in our gatherings really well, so usually there are no surprises or unexpected preferences.
I don’t eat fish or anything else that lives in the water (shellfish, seaweed). I’m not allergic to it; I just don’t eat it. Don’t care for it. My good friends know this and don’t serve it to me. If we’re going somewhere and the host asks about any dietary restrictions, I will mention it. However, I have occasionally been served it and I just muck it around on my plate and pretend to eat it. Not much fun at all as I really can’t even stand the smell.
I’m just going to mention that I really don’t think that the food preparation/asking about issues thing is a good parallel to the whole microagressions issue, because (as I said upthread in passing) planning a gathering with food involves preplanning, whereas most (at least in my observation) times that the issue of microaggressions comes up involves utterances made with no (or maybe minimal, at most) planning.
Kind of half agree with you @dfbdfb. But both do involve some degree of thoughtlessness.
And thoughtlessness is not aggression.
Is it a microaggression or just rude to show up to a party, look at the food on the buffet and say (so that everyone can hear you) “There’s nothing here I can eat!”?
Yep, that happened at a recent party I attended.
But some perceive what one may classify as thoughtlessness as an “aggression.”
Re #451 I would simply classify that behavior as “self absorbed.”
This table of microaggressions gives a lot of examples of statements that come across as thoughtless. http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/seminars/Tool_Recognizing_Microaggressions.pdf Seems ti me that many of them af=re mak=de by people whose mouths are engaged before their brain is in gear, as they say.
That’s a very interesting list of examples in that table.
Good list. There have been a number of examples in the news in the last few years of black people living in affluent neighborhoods being assumed to be domestic workers when answering the door, or of being chauffeurs when getting in an expensive car, or being followed as suspicious when walking around.
IMO, that list has mane examples of comments that were just blockheaded and insensitive, not meant , either overtly or covertly, to be aggressive/hostile. .
It’s a microaggression to work out, to wear nice clothes and to comb your hair because it makes people feel more out of shape, less stylish and uglier.
I think the definition of microaggression includes thoughtless or insensitive things on purpose—it’s a claim that they may be small, but they add up to something just as powerful (perhaps more so) than any "macro"aggressive act might be.