Shit I accidentally set a marzipan into a nut free school

[FairfaxAikmann]

DS gets a snack box to school as he's autistic and often doesn't eat school dinner.
The box is bigger than I would send otherwise as it's intended to be a makeshift lunch if needed.
In addition to the usual fruits, veg, cheese etc he always hangers a cake type thing - something like a mini roll.

However as it's Christmas we had mini Stollen in the house so I sent that.

I had no idea there was marzipan in the middle! I hate raisins so have never eaten the stuff and DH had taken it out of the packaging and out in the biscuit barrel.

Thankfully the SEN unit is separate and there's no nut allergies there.

But shit, I fucked up.

What's the worst you've fucked up with school stuff?

I sent mine in with a Nutella sandwich once - I was so desperate for her to eat something I completely forgot about the nuts.

School receptionist called me, mortifying.

@PhulNana that's nice.
The one I posted only had pine nuts in it, no other nuts. I was responding to the posts saying that all shop bought pestos contain cashews - they don't. So this one is nut free (accept for the pine nuts) for those looking for one without nuts in it.
Not everyone has the time, ingredients or inclination to make their own pesto. HTH.

Wrong. Allergies can develop at any age to any food. I've developed anaphylaxis to a food I used to love and eat in large quantities. Last year I had a severe reaction to it and can't ever eat it again. I was advised allergies have a genetic risk factor but equally can occur spontaneously for absolutely no reason.

It makes sense imo for primary schools at least to be nut-free as such young children should not have the burden put on them to manage their own conditions safely. My DC's school also has milk, egg and sesame allergies, and has protocols in place, particularly within the affected classes, to manage those. Luckily, the milk and egg ones are not airborne as far as I understand, otherwise it would make producing a nutritious packed lunch quite difficult (my fussy DC would essentially be limited to a jam sandwich everyday). But if we had to make it work, we'd just make it work. All children should be able to access school without worrying about their personal safety.

I have sent madeleines in without realising they contain almonds. Luckily, the serious nut allergy in the school is a peanut one but it gave me a nasty shock when I realised and I've been more careful ever since.

I don't have the time, either so I get stuff like M&S Green Pesto: basil, extra virgin olive oil, pecorino cheese and lightly toasted pine kernels £2.90 for 130g. Tesco Finest is a similar price but it's got potato starch as well.

This is so selfish. Imagine being on a plane with a nut allergy (feeling reassured it's a nut free zone) and then there's customers like you not caring because you feel justified due to the person seated next to you not caring either. This is literal life or death for certain people🤦🏽‍♀️

@gotomomo do read about poor Natasha Ednan Laperouse. She died from anaphylaxis on a flight and I can't imagine the distress she, her accompanying friend, family and fellow passengers suffered that day. I'm horrified and disgusted by your selfishness

I think other customers should be alerted at least 48 hours before the flight if there's restrictions

how would this be possible? There are people buying tickets last minute, there are always passengers moved to another flight for various reasons like missed connections and cancellationis - airline would need to lock the passenger list days before and a nut allergy sufferer with a missed connection would need to sit at an airport for a few days?

You can be allergic to some nuts, but not others. I'm allergic to brazil nuts and walnuts (make throat very inflamed) but fine with peanuts and almonds.

Well unfortunately you need to make time next year, as if there is a child with a severe nut allergy then it could have a huge impact.

That was awful but nothing to do with other passengers or nut free planes, she ate a sandwich she herself had bought

Dealing with nut allergies by attempting to have a nut free school makes no sense. If you do this you are entrusting your child's health and wellbeing to random untrained and uneducated (about allergies) people whose priorities really don't include your child. You cannot sufficiently guilt-trip every parent to make any environment actually nut-free. Some parents are simply immune to guilt-tripping. You need instead to work on the assumption that the environment isn't nut-free and have procedures that protect the child inbthe context of an assumption that any door handle could have been touched by someone who had peanut butter for breakfast and any item that didn't come out of the allergic child's own lunchbox may contain nuts.

It's also really discriminatory to privilege nut-allergy people in this way over other allergies. Dairy, soya, strawberries eggs, all can be terrifyingly severe allergies too and in a large school there's likely to be a range of allergies. You can't ban all possible allergens from the menu, you wouldn't be able to give adequate nutrition (especially to vegetarians) if you tried.

Yes this exactly. We have family in Spain and spend a lot of time there in non touristy areas and its just not a thing in the way it is here, particularly in the weaning months.

Its a strange thing that its so different

No @bellac11 the evidence doesn't show this

Dealing with nut allergies by attempting to have a nut free school makes no sense. If you do this you are entrusting your child's health and wellbeing to random untrained and uneducated (about allergies) people whose priorities really don't include your child

Do you mean other parents or school staff??

you cannot sufficiently guilt-trip every parent to make any environment actually nut-free. Some parents are simply immune to guilt-tripping

Its not guilt tripping, its trying to educate them on the effects it can have on other people and hope they have respect for that.

You need instead to work on the assumption that the environment isn't nut-free and have procedures that protect the child inbthe context of an assumption that any door handle could have been touched by someone who had peanut butter for breakfast and any item that didn't come out of the allergic child's own lunchbox may contain nuts

Most people with kids with allergies still do this, they dont work under the assumption other parents follow the rules, they still educate their child on how to stay safe, The nut free element simply helps lower the risk, especially for the little ones still learning themselves how to manage their condition. But there are also still procedures in place in nut free schools incase a child does have contact with nuts.

Other posters have already set this out as well

I've taken hundreds of flights in my life, and have never been on one with a nut-free announcement. I'm sure I have flown with many passengers who did have anaphylactic allergies though. So how common is this type of announcement (not very, clearly) and how do they determine when a flight is going to be nut-free?

How can you honestly not know that marzipan has almonds? That is baffling to me.

Wouldn't people read the ingredients more closely especially in the case of nut free schools? Or even just to know what's in the food that you are feeding your child? How do you 'not have time' to read the ingredients? I am sure that if it affected your child you would find time. But who cares about anybody else, right?

I agree YireosDodeAver, and this aligns with what Allergy UK says. We’ve been at 4 primary schools, only one of which was nut free.

How could they give you 48 hours notice? They don't know until check in if they have a particular customer on a flight.

Flights can be diverted or cancelled. Flights are often overbooked because not everyone will turn up.

I think it must be really hard for people with severe allergies partly because some people do make up allergies.

I was at uni with someone who claimed to be allergic to tomato seeds, but was happy to eat pizza and my home made chutney and I know my chutney has seeds in it (she didn't tell me about her allergy before eating it).

You can be allergic to only some nuts. My daughter is. The allergy clinic told us for the purpose of school she’s allergic to “nuts”, but actually it’s only two specific nuts that she’s allergic to. And not peanuts 🤷🏼‍♀️

People keep making this point but presumably the allergic friend was allergic to almonds otherwise she wouldnt have been amazed that marzipan was made of it (given that she eats it) and disbelieved the previous poster.

@Beginningless yours is the most random and funny one!

What marzipans made of has never really crossed my mind, I’ve never made it. I don’t have any allergies and I don’t have any friends or family with any so I’ve never had to think about ingredients of food unless I’m actually making it myself. As I said I wouldn’t send the obvious foods with nuts in to school, but if I don’t know about it then that’s that really.

Everything people are saying on this thread about how people ought to manage if their school is nut-free is clearly working on the assumption that all parents are just like them, with the same level of conscientiousness and concern. You need to remember that some kids are sent into school with a couple of fun-size chocolate bars and last nights leftover mcdonalds in their lunchbox. Some parents barely care about their own kids nutrition let alone bothering to look at ingredients. There is no school that doesn't have a few parents like this, probably known to social services but falling just short of the criteria for actually removing kids. These are not people whose cooperation with a nut ban you want to trust, and every school has some. You probably don't know them as they don't tend to chat at the school gate or come to PTA meetings. All the efforts of the nice kind cooperative people are wasted and pointless in this context because if your allergies are really serious enough that what other people eat affects you then there's no benefit from only 98% of people cooperating, you still won't achieve a nut free environment and there's no real reduction in risk if there's even one person who isn't cooperating.