AIBU to think peanuts should not be eaten on the Tube?

[SuperGinger]

I was on the Tube yesterday and the man next to me had an open packet of peanuts which he was eating. It's such a common allergy and I know quite a few people, including my own brother, who would have had a serious reaction if they had been on that Tube.

Should I have said to him he shouldn't eat peanuts on thevTube even though I would not be impacted because I was worried about other potential sufferers in the carriage, as it's a very confined space and it was rush hour.

AIBU - It's a free world
YANBU - peanuts are a very common allergen and people should not eat them in confined public spaces.

Yanbu but people are selfish

Yabu, it wouldn’t occur to me not to eat nuts in public as it’s one of my main food sources. It’s literally in every protein bar I own.

If I had a serious allergy to something then I’d move down the tube away from them or get off. And obviously carry an EpiPen.

Nuts are a very common food, dictating not to eat them in a public space seems onerous.

I was on the tube last week and a loaf of young American teenagers were eating their lunch on their, most had peanut butter sandwiches as I could smell it.

Unfortunately some people are arseholes

I’ve never even considered this. I won’t eat peanuts on the tube again though!

I don’t think you can ban eating nuts in public. They are in so many protein/snack bars.

I don’t think you are allowed to eat food on the tube.

Where do you draw the line? My daughter has an airborne milk allergy - she can’t go into places like Starbucks as she reacts to the milk in the air. Even the Allergy charities no longer advocate banning nuts in schools. Personally, no I wouldn’t eat them, but I don’t eat on the tube anyway as I’m don’t feel the need to constantly be eating. the Allergy UK page where they do not recommend a blanket ban in school is below.

www.allergyuk.org/information-and-support/at-school/for-parents/

I like peanuts, peanut butter and cereal bars with nuts in, but would gladly support a ban on nuts being eaten completely full stop anywhere and everywhere if it saved people's lives.

(Not that that would ever happen of course)

My son has a milk allergy. I can’t remember exact details but when we were last at the allergy clinic there was a poster which said milk was on a par with peanuts for causing anaphylaxis. Now I do think peanuts are more likely to be airborne so perhaps a bigger risk but where do you draw the line? No dairy products to be eaten anywhere public?

It did always annoy me that the school was so hot on being a nut free school but happily gave 4 year olds milk to potentially spill and wipe all over the classroom.

This is incorrect.

Ha! I’ve just written a very similar post!!

Have I understood you correctly? You'd support a complete ban on eating nuts on the UK?
Presumably you'd also support a complete ban on all dairy foods, eggs, shellfish, wheat (and probably everything else too) using that logic?

I wish it was true!

The vast majority of allergies (including nuts and peanuts) are not airborne. Contact is more common. Someone could eat nuts outside, then touch multiple things on public transport for exsmple.

Nut/Peanut allergies are not mpre serioys than other allergies and "nut bans" mean that other allergies are taken less seriously.

Cow’s milk is the leading cause of fatal anaphylaxis in children in the UK (thankfully it’s a very very small overall number).
Presumably this is at least partly because removing dairy from environments is inconvenient so we don’t bother. And I imagine it’s also partly because people tend to take nut allergies more seriously (I don’t mean the people with the allergy, I mean people making food for/near them).

10 people die of anaphylaxis every year in the UK - are nuts on public transport a factor in any of these cases? DH has several anaphylactic allergies (including peanuts and tree nuts), but he doesn’t expect an allergen free world. He expects properly labelled food, and proper cross contamination procedures and trained staff at restaurants, in food manufacturing etc.

Calling for a ban on eating nuts in public spaces is plain ignorant. You would have to ban all products that may contain nuts, you would have to tell everyone they must wash their hands before getting on the tube just in case they had eaten toast with peanut butter for breakfast and not washed their hands before leaving home. And as others have pointed out, you would have to ban all possible allergens that could be airborne or transferred onto surfaces by contact.
Anyone who has a known nut allergy is more than likely to carry antihistamines or an epipen, and if it were so severe may choose not to travel on packed tube trains in the first instance.
For those of you who say you’ll stop eating nuts in public now, you’re very ill informed.

That's absurd.

There are so many allergies. My dm suffered anaphylaxis from wasp stings. The last time she was stung, it stopped her heart. Would you advocate us removing all wasps from the UK? What about bees? Without them many species of plants (and therefore higher species including humans) wouldn't survive.

Where would you stop?

Challenging someone for eating nuts in public is bonkers.

You can dictate what people eat. Everything is an allergen to someone, part of having an allergy is learning how to manage risk.

I hope you'd be researching your childs allergy so you can quote definitively what affects them and what doesn't.

I'd happily follow a peanut ban, but - without thinking I may eat a Snickers.

Bit extreme.

I doubt it's even occurred to him.

OP I wouldn't bother challenging him because unfortunately I would assume that someone with a nut allergy that severe probably wouldn't risk travelling on the tube.

They simply wouldn't make an assumption that no one would be eating nuts, so they'd plan for it.

It would be nice to live in a world where everyone was that considerate and switched on about allergies, but they just aren't, and if I had a severe nut allergy I just wouldn't go on the tube and/ or would be carrying an epipen.

I think I eat something with peanuts in every single day in some form or another. On my crackers which I will have with me, in my protein balls from Lidl (stop buying them everyone I can never get hold of them!), in my snack bar

So I would have it all over my hands for much of the day and eat on the tube, train, office, bus stop etc

I also eat a lot of mini babybels as snacks. Apparently that is a more deadly allergen than peanuts.

@SuperGinger like previous posters my main source of protein is nuts. I would never eat salted peanuts on transport because they smell but I have bars containing nuts. Since I don't touch the nuts (wrapped) I don't see how I could contaminate anyone but am happy to learn if this could be the case.

Have you ever been on any public transport?

I think some people it just genuinely wouldn’t cross their minds.