Nut free schools

To pick up the poster above, milk allergies can be fatal. A quick Google finds that of children under 16 dying from food anaphylaxis, 26% died from a reaction to milk. Peanuts is 14%, and the tree nuts/unknown nuts is 21%.

The paper is here https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n251#:~:text=At%20least%2086%20(46%25),in%20older%20children%20and%20adults.

DC3 luckily has a non anaphylactic allergy to dairy and soya. But when DC1 started at school, there was a child in his class with an anaphylactic dairy allergy. The school didn't ban milk products though, I guess because they knew it would be unworkable. Instead there were careful arrangements about supervising lunch and who sat next to him.

DS goes to a nut free high school - and he carries his epi pens around with him. We've trained him to be wary in restaurants and when eating at others' houses.

I bake regularly and avoid the nuts he is allergic to. When I bring them into work, those with allergies will always ask before helping themselves (one colleague is allergic to all nuts, another just to hazelnuts) - fortunately they are not allergic to them being present in the environment, otherwise I would avoid bringing nuts in entirely.

For bake sales our rules are no nuts but for other stuff the cake just has to be labeled with allergens. The bake sale mentioned above sounds joyless in the extreme!

Schools do this to cover their arses but its actually not recommended - allergy UK don't recommend nut bans because actually it makes people complacent/let their guard down. As you say - there's no way to eliminate the risk. Lots of children can have residues on clothing or skin from breakfast, home made food is very prone to cross contamination.

Its better to assume reactions are going to happen and have very good processes in place to handle these with epi pens etc.

Its also better to be teaching the children good practises from an early age - good hand washing etc.

I work in a secondary school and we are nut free. As PP said above though they don't ban may contain and there's stuff I'm sure the kids bring in lunch boxes which they don't have in the canteen (eg jar pesto - canteen make their own with no pine nuts and so it's veggie). Kids so need to learn to manage their own allergies, but id you ended up with one of the ones with a very severe allergy sat next to someone eating a peanut butter sandwich my understanding is that that would be pretty bad. I have sat at a desk at work before near someone with a severe nut allergy and it was important we didn't eat nuts in the office. Technically we weren't allowed them anyway as "nut free school". So people mentioning the workplace, sometimes you might not exactly need rules as an adult, but it can be really important to respect the health of your colleagues!

Our school doesn't have the same rules with seeds, sesame and stuff. For example some of the packaged sandwiches they make do have hummus in them. And often they add seeds to stuff in lieu of nuts I think. There is a big sheet with all the other allergens that the kids need to check available in the canteen. Presumably in primary that level of self regulation is a bit beyond them.

A friend working in another school had a situation where sixth formers were selling homemade cookies with nuts in them for charity and a boy grabbed one without checking and nearly died. Incidents like this means schools have to be really really careful. They are liable for these incidents. The occurrence of nut allergies in the population has risen a lot I believe, which I think makes it hard to grasp for lots of people who are a bit older (I,can't remember anyone when I grew up with a nut allergy). But I can tell you from all the trip paperwork etc I've done as a teacher that is is now very very common!

just DS has an epi-pen and he simply never eats anything from a bake sale and avoids homemade food if he isn't sure about the household.

Our secondary schools are also nut free. But it’s much easier for teenagers to manage themselves than small primary age children swapping food, not washing hands etc.

My kids secondary school has a 'no nuts' policy. I don't think it is policed as such they just hope people stick to it.

The kids had a bake sale as a fundraiser last year at the school and a text was sent out inviting parents to bake. The requirements were no nuts, no dairy, no eggs, no chocolate even dairy free. I was going to bake before I saw that but it felt like too much hassle trying to find a nice recipe that didn't include any of the above.

My work is nut free for this reason.

It’s different in primary because they are so young. My child is fairly good at managing his allergy, but other children are unpredictable. Some of that risk will be reduced by secondary.

My school (secondary) won’t advertise itself as nut free because it can’t be guaranteed, they’re leaving themselves open to being sued if a child has an allergic reaction. However, there are regular reminders about not bringing products containing nuts into school, so it’s not like they’re just ignoring the issue.

In my recent pediatric first aid training, we were told that there are now more under 10s with an anaphylactic allergy to dairy than nuts in the UK.

I found this really interesting as I have never heard of a dairy free school! As dairy is often also frequently a contact allergy, it's nothing to do with that. The school I work in is nut free as is the one my children attend. DCs school bans them everywhere though, where as mine only bans in child areas; several teachers eat nuts most lunch time in the staff room and they are tollerated at cake sales etc. I see little point in my own schools nut ban tbh, nuts are still in the buildings and on unwashed hands either way.

Thank you very much for responding. Do you mind me asking where the students eat packed lunches during wet lunch breaks? That has always been our problem as our canteen is too small and they have to eat in classrooms if it is raining. We are careful to wipe down surfaces etc.

I suspect the arrangements you describe are common across secondary schools who claim to be ‘nut free’ but if no-one is actually policing whether a child has brought in a Snickers then it’s a meaningless claim. Schools can say that they ban nuts but not that they are nut-free, in the same way that they ban vapes but can’t claim to be vape-free.

@ThanksItHasPockets

None of the products the school kitchen makes contains nuts. Staff and students are not meant to bring nuts into school. The 'may contain nuts' items aren't policed but if we see a student with a bag if cashews or peanuts or whatever we can confiscate them. Plus they aren't allowed to ear in classrooms

@BoringConstance I don’t think it is my attitude that is creating anything. I’m just saying what my workplace has done and that I am happy to follow it, especially since the request came from the person with the nut allergy.

If thinking has changed then they’ll probably change it at some point. At which point sales of Pret’s nut packs will soar again.

Another challenge about nut bans is that it's hard to check what it covers without sounding deliberately provocative. And it gets more confusing the more you know about allergies.

I would view a nut ban as different to a nuts and seeds ban and different again to a nuts, seeds and peanut ban. I know not everyone would make that distinction and that makes me sceptical of how effective blanket allergen bans are.

I feel there has to be a better way. These are humans that are going to go out into the world where people eat.

It's ridiculous if the other children can't eat healthily with nuts, seeds, hummus. It drove mad when we had it in a previous office I worked in as that was a large portion of my daily diet out the window.

@CallieTR

It's not something I as a parent would like to have to rely on to be honest.
Hopefully he can just use his own epic pen

or that may contain them

Do you mean you also aren't allowed products where the packet says "may contain traces of nuts"? Because if so, I think that's too restrictive. DH carries epipens for severe allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and sesame so I do understand how serious it can be. But I also know just how many things that covers! It's also pointless because if someone has nuts at home and brings in a sandwich that has totally nut free ingredients, if that sandwich required an allergy label, it would be "may contain traces of nuts" because it was made somewhere with nuts. So you're never going to eliminate that "may contain" element completely, unless everything students bring in is made in nut free kitchens.

Please could you tell me how you enforce this? A pp has asked someone else on the thread and no-one has answered. As a teacher and the parent of a child with allergies I genuinely think it’s impossible to enforce a nut-free secondary school without very draconian policies inc searches and I would love to know how schools manage it.

To give an example - every secondary school in the country is theoretically vape-free and expressly bans all vapes and e-cigarettes. It doesn’t mean that the school site is in fact free of vapes, often quite the opposite!

Well none of those things release airbone allergens/onto surfaces.
Even for peanuts, while the dust can be a factor there is little scientific evidence for severe reactions from 'airborne' peanut proteins. As these studies are done on specific people there may very well be those who are actually that sensitive~:

https://acaai.org/allergies/allergic-conditions/food/
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/148/Supplement%203/S32/183485/Peanuts-in-the-Air-Clinical-and-Experimental?autologincheck=redirected
https://foodallergycanada.ca/ask-the-allergist-your-questions-answered-june-2021/

Maybe something else that release crumbs/fine particles, like biscuits, would be more of an issue. Not that general biscuit allergies exist.

It goes further than that. Any item of food prepared in a kitchen where nuts are present is technically a ‘may contains’ item and this is why a ban on ‘may contains’ is completely unenforceable.

I am going to pick you up on the peanut packaging however. Peanuts are not nuts, they are legumes. It is fairly common to be allergic to peanuts but not tree nuts, and vice versa. People who fall into these categories are often advised to maintain their consumption of the non-allergenic foods to maintain tolerance, and they therefore need to know if it is safe to consume a packet of peanuts without the risk of cross-contamination from other nuts.

It could also be a problem when other children have different allergies.

I remember talking to a mum (with a nut allergy) whose daughter had a milk allergy. She said it was really problematic, because lots of the substitutes for milk then contain nuts. Typical mum, she tended to risk her allergy to make sure her child got what she needed.

'May Contain' is tricky, because lots of people wouldn't even think to check when shopping - and it is often products you wouldn't expect. My nephew has a nut allergy and some places (M&S for example) either have mixed production lines or take the very cautious approach - it reminds me of shops that are over zealous with 'dry clean only' labels. IIRC he could have Cadbury Creme Egg Easter Eggs, but not Dairy Milk - again, because of the 'may contain' aspect.

I suppose the key is that parents do their best to avoid bringing anything nut related into school - but if the odd 'may contain' item slips through, especially from children with no actual contact with the child with the allergy, the risk is probably low.

The secondary school I work at is nut free.

Some secondary schools aren't, but by the time they start secondary school, kids should be better at managing their allergies and if they are going to share food, they will be able to check it themselves for allergens.