How nut free does nut free have to be?

[ILoveAFullFridge]

No peanuts, fair enough, but no nuts at all? Almonds and pecans are a different species to peanuts.

Are they over-egging the cake, or am I being too blasé?

"are different species" - redundant "a"

Depends on the individual. You're correct in that peanuts are not in fact a nut but a legume so some who are allergic to peanuts are also allergic to other legumes like chickpeas. However, many are allergic to other nuts as well as peanuts (my DH is allergic to peanuts and most other nuts except almonds). There is also the issue of cross-contamination as many nuts are processed in the same place as peanuts so even if a person is technically only allergic to peanuts, they are often told to avoid all nuts because of the high risk of cross-contamination. In my DS's case, we don't yet know which nuts he's allergic to but given his family history and his list of other allergies we've been told to avoid all nuts for now and at some point they will try to do testing (although there is no truly reliable test for allergies other than a food challenge).

Makes sense. But also makes this nut-free policy nonsense, because chickpeas are not banned.

Ah don't get me started on nut-free policies! I'm afraid I don't believe in them. They're totally pointless, unenforceable and give a false sense of security. My DS has life-threatening allergies to milk, wheat and egg - does that mean his school should ban all of these? So why ban nuts? There is a mis-conception that allergies to nuts are somehow worse than any other allergies but it's perfectly possibly to have a severe allergy to celery and a mild allergy to peanuts but you don't hear of schools banning celery do you?

I 100% agree with you, but as neither I nor any if my near ones have a life-threatening allergy, I am, apparently, not allowed to comment.

(We do, however, have quality-of-life-threatening allergies and intolerances, and take responsibility for managing them ourselves.)

I filled in the survey, but think its a bit bizarre. Firstly, difficult to read, secondly I study labels when I go shopping, dependant on how frequently I buy any particular product. So pretty much every answer was 'weekly', whereas more realistic answers would have been that for certain familiar, frequently bought products I might only check the label intermitttently every few months, and unfamiliar, irregularly bought products I check every time I buy them, so still every few months. Overall I am looking at labels every week, but its not the same products every week.