To wonder what is dangerous about my child’s lunch

That's mad @ButteryBiscuitVase but I like your passive defiance strategies.

Given me nostalgic memories for the stunt apple I used to put in DS1's lunchbox every day. That apple was for teacher-inspection purposes only. Would travel back and forth until I would eat it myself on friday with some cheese.

What about if you get a plane and there's a child on the plane with an allergy? Are all other passengers banned from eating things they like eating?

Yes, that’s exactly what should happen. People are asked not to consume their little packet of peanuts for a few hours in order to prevent another person dying. Mind blowing isn’t it. Yet there’s often someone like you who thinks their “right to eat whatever I like” outweighs someone else’s right to stay alive. Shame on you.

Yes it's definitely hard to enforce fully but their criteria seems to be "anything in brightly coloured packaging", particularly convenience, snack-food style products. So definitely no crisps, salty snacks, cereal bars, biscuits, Peperami, snack packs etc. DD once took a pre-packaged set of cream cheese with mini breadsticks (which imo isn't a true UPF) and it was taken away from her.

Exceptions are made for deli meat inside sandwiches and (obviously) bread, crackers or crispbread since nobody is going to be making their own crackers at home. Babybels are ok since it's basically a chunk of cheese but they don't approve of brightly coloured kids yoghurts or pouches. Chocolate and sweets are definitely no-gos, including homemade cakes or desserts.

It's not that hard to get around the rules though...I sometimes just remove the packaging at home and cut things up so it looks more homemade 😂. Put cream cheese, apple sauce or yoghurt in my own containers. I also pack the box with a lot of fruit or veg so it looks healthy at first glance and they're less likely to care if there're a few pretzels or tortilla chips on the side. Luckily there aren't any allergy restrictions so nuts, soy and dairy are fine.

Off topic but it clearly hasn’t, as the levels of obesity in this country indicate. Not that I am agreeing with those picking apart OP’s lunchbox!

Sorry to derail, but on the UPF bread discussion, I asked for a bread maker for Christmas because I wanted to try and reduce how much processed food my kids ate. We haven’t bought any bread since (Granted we’ve bought a lot of flour and yeast 😆)! It’s crazily easy to just chuck in the ingredients the night before, set a timer and wake to fresh bread and that delicious smell wafting through the house. If anyone is looking to reduce UPFs I honestly couldn’t recommend a bread maker enough. It means we eat less of it now too as it’s more quality than quantity.

Ps promise I don’t work for a breadmaker company 😂

This. If the risk is so high they need to be more forthcoming in what the problem was, or at least keep their website updated.

No parent wants to put a child at risk, but you've got to tell us what to fix, not just fanny about with "prohibited item" and generic letters.
It's one thing to say "your child did not have the right PE kit", quite another to be told your actions could potentially have resulted in a child becoming seriously ill.

YOU'D FEED YOUR CHILD CHEDDAR?! SHAME ON YOU.

Ours too. DD is delighted with her allergy because she gets to go to the front of the queue for school dinners.

And the wee boy in her class who struggles with his behaviour insisted that his mum buy safe sweets for the DC with allergies when he was bringing in birthday cake for everyone else. What a sweetheart!

Our after school club deserve a shout out too - DD can be wary about trusting adults other than us to read ingredients on unfamiliar products, even though we tell her that the staff at ASC are to be trusted. So they text me every time she asks, and also let her bring treats home to eat here if she prefers - and often send an extra one for DC2 to save us the rows.

Most people are great,

Off topic but I am pissing myself at "cubes of gruyère". Couldn't just be cheddar, could it!

I think all this healthy eating as gone too far.
If schools and some parents dont stop and look at what they are doing to children some kids are going to have eating disorders in the future.
Food will become a fear for some.

Likewise... our school always has a stash of chocolate buttons for DS1 (peanut allergy) for when children used to bring in cakes for their birthday. He quite liked the special treatment I think! Also they have always explained to the kids even from very young (he's been there since aged 3) about allergies and the kids look out for each other.

Our school is really good actually. I've had more than a few phone calls where a teacher has read out the list of ingredients of something brought in or given on residentials etc. We have been super lucky with our school, bless them all.

Good job it wasnt your lunch then isnt it?

I agree that UPF are not that great, but I spent many years worrying about whether the odd KitKat broke the "no chocolate rule" and giving toddlers only water or milk for them to get to secondary school where they bring in sniffer dogs to check the lockers for drugs and the toilets are no go unless you want to smoke or vape! School dinners are so awful (soggy pizza) that most won't touch them. Not sure what my point is but the pearl clutching over a wholemeal sandwich and a babybel seems OTT.

Oh and this is not a sink school, this is the most over subscribed in the county.

It's not a ban on yoghurt, it's a ban on frubes which are more likely to be squirted around (accidentally or on purpose!) and so more likely to cause a contact reaction (which can be anaphylaxis for some) than a yoghurt eaten with a spoon from a pot.

It's actually a really sensible step to allow dairy but ban specific products that are higher risk but easily substituted. But terrible communication from the school not to have done a whole school announcement on the matter.

This is the most Mumsnet response I've ever seen. It also isn't helpful or true as the school did not disapprove, it was an allergy. Saying 'in the kindest possible way' before your advice does not change the fact that this is unsolicited advice.

Op. It wouldn't have occurred to me not to send a frube and school should have told you in advance. Poor communication. Yanbu

I think this is all getting a bit nuts. I had some kid in my DDs preschool who was allergic to bread. They decided that might be a step too far, but in that case the whole thing is actually completely arbitrary. Why should no child eat a yoghurt because one child has an allergy?

That's ridiculous.

We had our first bake sale recently, 6yo carries epipens for a peanut allergy but eats may contains etc and it's generally very manageable.

I spoke to her teacher about the school's policy, she said the staff had been asked to make some allergy friendly goods so she could steer DD to that table if we liked. Great, and very very good of the staff. The vast majority of bake sale stuff would be fine for DD but with home made stuff there's always the risk that someone had peanut butter for lunch and didn't wipe down the counter properly.

Otherwise, her teacher has a bag of safe treats we have provided that she doles out any time there's a question mark over what the other DC are eating.

All easily and safely sorted without drama or draconian bans.

(DD came home with two top hats, delighted with herself.)

Don’t worry
nothing at all wrong with what you have put in there, we all have different views on what we eat

I bet she spends the weekend fishing for tuna, anything less would be negligent wouldn't it?

It's possible that people died of anaphylaxis due to food allergies and never made it to school in the past. They might not have known why they died. My childhood neighbour, now in his 60s, had a peanut allergy

I would have asked the school if they could suggest any recipes 😂.

It will be the pepperami, could have someone's eye out

My kids school tried to have a bake sale to raise money and wanted parents to bake. I was all set to contribute when we got a text saying bakes must contain no nuts, no dairy, no eggs, no citrus fruits and nothing that says 'may contain traces of nuts', I decided against it and I think lots of other parents did too because they didn't do another bake sale in the next 3 years my kids were there.

I'm all for making allowances but that just felt like a ridiculous ask.

I'm sorry you needed to justify your child's lunch. There are so many people who think they are perfect, at 70 I've come to realise that love is the most important ingredient in a child's life so you quickly and lovingly solved the problem for your child. I think that's great.

I'm intrigued by it, too. I'm 68, and it was never a thing when I was at school. (I had a severe allergy to shellfish, but I didn't find out till I was in my late teens, and I seem to have become desensitised because I can eat prawns etc without any problem now.)

While we may not have eaten so many UPFs as people tend to now, there was plenty of corned beef, spam, fish fingers, tinned foods, bought pies, cake and biscuits etc being eaten, and sliced white bread was the norm in most households. I can't think of anyone I know under 40 with a significant food allergy. I know someone who claims to be allergic to garlic, but it's bollocks, because they've eaten stuff with garlic in at my house with no ill-effects whatsoever.

I wonder if there are environmental factors at play.

Yes, they used to sell the larger version in about the 80s in England