Why can’t kids take nuts??

[Kungfupanda67]

Genuine question, just had a booking form for a school trip and had the usual reminder to not put anything containing nuts in lunch boxes because some children are allergic to them. I was just wondering why this is such a blanket rule when some children are also allergic to eggs, cheese, wheat etc? Anyone know?

You’re implying that keeping people being alive is a bad thing (because it interferes with evolution, apparently), Sherlock that’s what people are objecting to!

Evolution hasn’t changed though. It just means that modern medicine is giving names to the illnesses that kids under 5 used to drop dead of in the past.

My two oldest are severely allergic. I once almost killed the younger one by kissing him on the cheek after eating something 4 hours previous which didn't have nuts listed. Because he also has copd he is lucky to be here.

Peanut allergy is far more lethal than most other allergies. And unlike other allergenic foods, it doesn't need to be eaten to be fatal

That's not actually true. Did you not read about that boy that died at school because he had a cheese allergy and somebody threw some at him and it went on his neck/down his top? It was only recent.

I find the original post very interesting (not the hysterical posts from people who evidently can neither read nor comprehend)

Our scout group is the same, no nut products but I know for certain there are none with a nut allergy but one with a soya and another who carry and epi pen for dairy. Is it because nuts were the first allergen to become public knowledge and so guidance was drawn up and has never been updated?

My son is allergic to a certain chemical in cleaning products, half way through the school year they changed cleaning contracted and my son reacted (hospitalized) and couldn't go to school, I told the school why but they didn't seem to believe me, it wasn't until the education officer got involved that the cleaning products got changed. They do however take nut allergies seriously.

|Ooops, just read that's already been mentioned

Eh? Evidence suggests that human evolution may be happening faster than it has before.
Why people listen to DA about human evolution is beyond me, why not actually go see what the people who actually study genes say, what evidence they have?.

We're eating a much wider selection of food than even twenty years ago, which I imagine means people are exposed to food they react to they wouldn't have come across a generation ago.

I have a sensitivity to okra: I'm not allergic but my stomach swells up and I feel very unwell. I discovered this on a gap year to India and spent a decade forgetting about it until I went to a dinner party where the host prepared a dish with okra and was understandably a bit grumpy I hadn't mentioned it when asked if I had any dietary issues. Now it's popping up as a 'trendy' vegetable and I have to ask about it.

I was fifteen when I first had hummus, I'd say my mother was 50. My daughter will have it as a weaning food. My grandmother probably never ate anything containing sesame.

We're also eating much more processed foods, and exposed to more antibiotics. My baby has an egg and dairy allergy we're hoping she'll grow out of, we think it may have been triggered in part by her having large doses of antibiotics at birth triggered by a suspicion I had an infection.

We're only now starting to figure out more about the gut, and the way we all eat has changed beyond recognition in a few generations. Hopefully there will be big advances in the coming years.

I honestly don't remember anyone in my year at school being allergic to anything - except perhaps for hay fever. Nearly everyone had school dinners and there was no choice of food - you had what you were given. I don't recall allergies/intolerances ever being anything like such a thing. It was rare to hear about them at all.

As a pp suggested, I wouldn't be surprised if later weaning has something to do with it. It used to be quite normal to start with a little bit of baby cereal at 3 months. In fact I remember my sister giving her constantly hungry baby a little bit of purée when he was even younger, and still not satisfied with a lot of formula. . He's in his 40s now, perfectly healthy, always has been, and never remotely overweight.
But people are so evangelical about it now. Reminds me a bit of the stern official advice when I had my first - 'You must put them to sleep on their tummies, putting them on their backs increases the risk of cot death.'
Roll on ten years or so....

My DS had a contact allergy to dairy, school were pretty good at keeping him safe (eg. separate area at milk time with his Soya milk) but there was never any suggestion that they would ban dairy products from the classroom. He used to regularly come home covered in hives from touching milk-covered surfaces or with puffy eyes and lips because someone smeared a yoghurt down the slide.
Nut allergies are not necessarily more serious than other allergies, nor is it true that nut proteins are more "sticky" than milk proteins.
Allergy policies should be based on the needs of the people likely to be exposed to allergens, making nuts the king of all allergies helps nobody.

It is difficult as you can’t ban everything. Ds is allergic to multiple things including peanuts, tree nuts, beans, peas, circle peas , uncooked egg. He was previously allergic to other things as well which he has grown out of but it has left him fussy. There is a bit ban at his school and I am comfortable with just that. I understand the rest of the school can’t have their diets drastically reduced just for him. I would struggle if their was a dairy ban as due to his allergy his diet is already very limited.

Mollycoddling?

I developed a nut and sesame allergy age 10 after eating them regularly until then. Bloody mollycoddling indeed!

Most realistic theory is genetic factors in combination with extensive sterilisation in infancy, meaning that the immune system isn’t “primed” properly - according to a professor researching childhood blood cancer who believes the increase in this is down to the same.

I honestly don't remember anyone in my year at school being allergic to anything - except perhaps for hay fever. Nearly everyone had school dinners and there was no choice of food - you had what you were given. I don't recall allergies/intolerances ever being anything like such a thing. It was rare to hear about them at all.

What a lot of balls. I guarantee you there were children with allergies in your head at school.

Get what you’re given? So anaphylaxis is what, extreme fussiness? Give me a break. Have you ever seen an anaphylactic reaction?

There’s people complaining because their children aren’t allowed to take allergens that are life threatening to other children into school. Honestly, that’s sick. Really sick.

Genuinely; if you just carried on and did whatever you fucking wanted, and packed your child a Nutella sandwich (for example) and then sat NEXT to the allergic child... who then died... how would you actually feel? Seriously? Would you actually be alright with that? You’d breeze into work the next day TOTALLY happy with your actions and their consequences?

If I was the parents of that child I would want you charged with manslaughter. ALL you had to do was not give your child that food item. That’s it. And because you couldn’t be bothered, a kid dies? Brilliant. What a lovely, kind, community minded approach.

Nobody is saying that allergies aren't life threatening and shouldn't be taken seriously now.

But it was true that nobody in my school in the 60s appeared to have any allergies. The school just had one meal choice and didn't take any notice of any allergies or dietary preferences. The only allergy ever mentioned was hay fever. Possibly if you had an allergy, you were told to supply your own food?

It wasn't perfect. The school kitchen was closed down after I left for hygiene reasons. The headteacher regularly told us off because the Essex pigs were becoming the fattest in the world because we left so much waste food that went to be fed to them. And I had a constant battle with dinner ladies for refusing to eat the huge lumps of gristle and fat that they liked to serve.

Too bloody right ziggiestardust

To all those thinking that these things didn't exist back in the day - well they did.

My brother (born 1960) had a severe milk/dairy allergy. His school was told that he wasn't ever to be given anything with milk in. He also knew what he could eat and what he couldn't.
But one dinner lady thought she knew better and that he was just being mollycoddled, and despite him trying to fight against it, she forced him to eat a spoonful of custard.

He had to be rushed to hospital and almost died.

It is really concerning that more children are suffering but we still don't seem to fully understand why, or how to avoid it. Or if we do, standard advice isn't updated and we might be making things worse by following outdated and discredited practices.

@saraclara

I can believe that. School dinner ladies did think they knew everything in those days! I still have nightmares....

Well clearly we are doing something that is causing a rapid increase.
In the 20 years to 2012 there was a 615% increase in the rate of hospital admissions for anaphylaxis in the UK (Turner, Paul J., et al, 2015)

Seeds are now injected with roundup, all these intolerances are in reality caused by the consumption of weed killer

woolly I never honestly noticed anyone with allergies at my primary school either, but found out that one of the girls in my class had a nut allergy when we went to secondary school. I was genuinely shocked; I offered her a hobnob at break and she said she was really badly allergic to nuts and actually backed away. She showed me the epi pens in her bag. This would have been year 8 or 9 I guess, and I genuinely had absolutely no clue before then. I had been invited to birthday parties as a little girl too. Kids are self centred. This was in the 90s. I’d have to ask my mum if we were a nut free school because honestly I wouldn’t know. I was packed lunch but never took peanut butter/Nutella/hummus because the former I didn’t like until I was older, and the latter two were too expensive at that time and my mum wouldn’t buy them.

You can really spot the allergy sufferers/parents of allergy sufferers a mile off. My dd has an egg and peanut allergy...my dts born two years after have no allergies...no difference in how they were weaned etc. So who knows but my god having a child with allergies can be really bloody scary.
We are a peanut free house...my DTs haven't suffered because of that!

www.itv.com/news/2018-10-17/dramatic-increase-in-food-allergy-related-hospital-admissions-experts-dub-modern-epidemic/

I agree with Sir David

Your comments don't seem to agree with this quote from him @SherlockHolmesPipe

Stopping natural selection is not as important, or as depressing, as it might sound

I'd love for the cure to my sons allergy to be for me to pretend it doesn't exist. After all I don't recall anyone being allergic when I was in school, he must be putting it on.

It is simply not true that lots of children with severe allergies died in the recent past. There may have been a few cases. But lots of children now have severe allergies that are life threatening.
Look at statistics and analysis about the actual mortality of children before making wrong assumptions like that.

Also the person who claimed higher child mortality rate in India was because off allergies. Really?? So allergies kill 3 times as many infants and babies who are girls rather than boys? There are clear reasons why the infant mortality rate amongst girls in India is so high, and it has nothing to do with allergies.

There clearly has been a significant rise in life threatening allergies. I know anecdota is not the same as statistics, but I do remember lots of people in the past having mild allergic reactions to things. I am mildly allergic, as is DP, one of my siblings and an inlaw. But few people know as any reaction is mild and just annoying rather than life threatening. But in the younger generation a few have serious allergies. Personally I suspect that those who would have been mildly allergic before, there is a difference in their environments that has turned what would have been a mild allergy into a serious allergy.

In the past people with mild allergies often said a particular food disagreed with them. That was fairly common to hear.