To think this 'nut free policy' is OTT for a school

[MerryMarigold]

So, letter home about next term's 'nut free' policy and I think it's a bit extreme but tell me what you think. In packed lunches (I will have 3 having packed lunch next year), we are not allowed to include:

• Fruit and cereal bars which contain nuts
• Sesame seed rolls
• Nutella
• Peanut butter
• Cakes made with nuts
• Muesli bars
• Baklava/ Nougat/ Turkish Delight
• Any packets of nuts

I would assume we are not allowed to give them pistachios in a Tupperware box either.

Anyway, my point is that how can they police it this closely? I know some kids cannot come into ANY contact with nuts, but for example, my kids would have nuts in granola at breakfast and probably not always wash their hands before school (if they remembered to clean their teeth when they first get up). I also refuse to check the ingredient list of everything I put into a packed lunch for 3 children so there are bound to be nuts in something they end up having.

Nuts are very healthy and nutritious, so we basically need to swap nut based products for something less healthy. I am most upset about the Muesli bars and no cakes made with nuts. Ds1 is a major food-refuser. He has never managed school dinners and food at home is an issue too. He nearly always has a muesli bar in his lunch, which I suppose I will need to substitute with biscuits. And sometimes I would include cakes made with nuts just to up his nutrition at lunchtime a bit. He doesn't like any form of meat, fish or cheese in his sandwiches.

I do sympathise that there are (a very few) people who have a 'life threatening reaction to nut products' (quoted on the 'nut free policy' letter). However, I would assume they do carry an epi-pen as it is impossible to create a completely nut free environment in a large school of children who are eating nuts at least at home. So, in reality it is not life threatening unless there is a child who has an unknown severe nut allergy. I would even be compassionate if it was stated that a child (without mentioning names) had had a reaction several times in school, but I very much doubt a child has reacted at school, and there may not even be a child with a severe nut allergy, so this is just scare mongering really.

SO, I do need to feel more positive about this and the extra work it will cause me, the extra moaning from my child and the reduction in nutrition. Please tell me off gently! I've had a bad night with not much sleep though, so please bear with me.

Mistigri- however careful you are accidents do occasionally happen, especially where young children are concerned.

As I say, his current school do not have a nut ban and it's worked well. Other schools do, it really doesn't hurt to comply. I can assure people concerned that it makes people complacent, that it doesn't. There will still be other measures in place.

YABVU! I teach a child who has a SEVERE nut allergy, and we have gone totally mut free in school now for lunches/snacks/treats. There were a few selfish parents who moaned at first when the ban was introduced, but most just got on with it and accepted it for what it is. If you can't be bothered to just check a few packets for your dc's packed lunches so that it could potentially safe someone's life, then you are very selfish.

soupdragon

Your wasting your breath.

It doesn't matter that the major allergy organisations don't support a ban. I was hoping for a balanced discussion on this thread but why have that when you can shut down all sensible discussion by accusing people of being selfish and stupid and not caring about allergic children?

Ladypenelope
Where did your school take their advice from re the nut ban? I would be very worried sending my nut allergy child to your school, as that type of response tends to lead to complacency. It also dismisses other food allergies as if they are not as serious.

Again as i pointed out above. There was research that looked into hospital admissions from nut free schools and schools that didnt ban nuts. It made no difference to hospital admissions, nut bans do not make things safer at all.

DS has a boy in his class who is allergic to nuts and we are careful about what we send in as we are aware he could die if we send in nuts by accident.
this type of post is just irritating, virtual signalling at its best.

Sashh

airbourne nut oil is mostly a myth. Blindfold tests show that people with allergies dont have reactions from being in the room with nuts.
Also peanut oil is very rarely allergenic because it is highly refined and the proteins are removed in the process. Only expensive tree virgin pressed nut seed/oils tend to be a problem and they are expensive and not likely to be used in schools etc
There are very few situations where it my be a problem ie industrial food settings and that can be any food ie rice and maybe airplane settings but even the specialists are not sure about that ie not necessarily nuts floating in the air as the proteins are too heavy rather than deposits on seats etc from other people eating them before.

Not one person on this board have explained why allergist and specials do not recommend nut bans

Again as i pointed out above. There was research that looked into hospital admissions from nut free schools and schools that didnt ban nuts. It made no difference to hospital admissions.
My friend has penicillin allergy, he had a cheese sandwich on a plane and ended up with anaphylaxis in flight and had an ambulance waiting for him when he landed. Many foods cause anaphylaxis, not just nuts but they are very unlikely to be banned at school.

The management of the allergic child at school: EAACI/
GA2LEN Task Force on the allergic child at school

no for anyone who is interested a position paper on how schools should handle allergies

The people posting that blindfolded participants can't identify peanuts will just think I'm making it up, but I'll waste my breath anyway...

I have walked into big spaces (ie a village hall, a train carriage) and said immediately 'there are peanuts in here' and I have always been right. There are pubs near my office that I don't go into because they are very peanutty and I immediately start streaming and my face puffs up. This is not a life threatening reaction but it's bloody miserable and socially awkward and believe me, this is not something I do for effect - I want to be able to have a drink in a pub without making myself ill!

I believe peanuts are the only nuts where it has been proven that they can spark a reaction without contact. It's something about the dry roasting and the dust that it creates. Other nuts do not have the same impact. For example if I eat a tiny bit of walnut I have a life-threatening reaction but if I sit next to a walnut I don't react at all as long as I don't touch it.

I still stand by my earlier post in that I don't think nut bans at school are helpful to the allergic child overall. I understand that anaphylactic reactions are serious, but I don't think that making sure the child never has to deal with the situations where an allergen can crop up is the best course of action.

I feel very lucky that my parents didn't try to protect me from allergens to the extent that seems to be the way of things today. We had meals out, holidays abroad, went to parties, I had school meals etc. In all of these situations I learned what I needed to do to look after myself and also benefited from good experiences. Yes, there were mistakes, but at least I learned how to use my epipen and got used to it so that once I was an adult I knew I could look after myself. If I hadn't had a couple of severe reactions as a child (but old enough to remember) I don't believe I would have been fully equipped to deal with situations as a teenager/adult.

Whether or not you agree with the nut ban - try planning family meals when every member of the family has a different allergy!

I would love to be able to just ban one food type for one meal a day...

It's a piece of piss, so long as you can read....!

There was a case in North America several years ago where a group of five year olds were curious about their classmate's nut allergy and gave him a brownie with nuts to see what would happen. The child with the allergy, obviously knew he wasn't supposed to eat nuts but the other children didn't tell him about them. He had several previous exposures. As others here have pointed out, reactions become much more serious the more the child is exposed. This particular child died despite having an epipen and rushing to hospital.
I'm shocked how selfish people can be. If something like a no but policy can prevent fatal injury and keep parents mind at ease, shouldn't other parents be happy to help? What if the shoe were on the other foot?
Anyone comparing this to secondary students is being ridiculous. There is clearly a difference between the judgment of a 6 year old and a 13 year old.
I'm sorry you don't get to send your son with but muesli anymore but imagine having a child who could die from an allergy and having the other parents moan about not getting to send pistachios to school.

My dd has a peanut allergy. I am relieved my dd's primary school has a nut ban because, even though she is very good about not sharing food, I wasn't convinced that a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds would consistently follow good food hygiene rules even with a great deal of adult supervision. She is now nearly 7 and I have much more faith that it would be possible to keep her environment safe.

I have always felt that it is important for her to learn how to deal with nuts because this is the life she is going to have to lead. But like everything, it's about doing things in age appropriate ways.

Also, there is an issue in school around having to be there. My dd's school once had a bring in food from home party. Someone brought in some bombast mix, full of peanuts. This is the sort of thing that makes my blood run cold. Lots of kids getting peanut dust on their hands, then touching other items of food or just furniture. If my dd touched these other items and then her mouth, she could die. She has reacted to tiny amounts. In the real world, in a situation like this, I would take my dd and leave the party. I know it's not safe. I don't believe it would be possible for school staff to keep my dd safe in these circumstances either.

Wow, was working yesterday so haven't RTFT yet. But...

Typical AIBU. I am selfish for having a moan about something which is going to cause me some hassle. I am not unsympathetic. I am saying some explanation from school would help and having a moan that it will be difficult with my food avoiding ds1.

Yes, it would be selfish not to follow it. Did I ever say that? Even in my OP let alone later? Some of you need to learn how to read past the title.

OP you said 'I refuse to check...'

It doesn't matter that the major allergy organisations don't support a ban. I was hoping for a balanced discussion on this thread but why have that when you can shut down all sensible discussion by accusing people of being selfish and stupid and not caring about allergic children?

Oh I know - it's like they have blinkers on!

DC's school have a nut ban. It's not a problem for me at all. However, if you have a child whose only protein is some kind of nut product, what do you do? There are children with food phobias and I believe that children with ASD can often have issues around food (I know my cousin did). There needs to be a balanced approach, not hysteria.

All the people saying that a child can have nuts at home - how about they have a nut snack on the way into school or for breakfast and manage to transfer some via contact to a child with a severe allergy? Especially if they have no idea that the ban is there because Johnny has a severe hut allergy because no one has told them for privacy reasons. Surely if there is a ban it has to ban nuts before school too. Which is bonkers.

My dc has a severe nut allergy, they are aware of it but at this young age I don't fully trust them to not accept food that doesn't have nuts in if offered. It's very scary. So I'm glad the school has a full blanket ban on nuts.

I'm really opposed to a total nut ban. The same consideration is never given to children with severe dairy, soy, egg allergies.

Banning nuts is a total cop out in terms of managing risk, and as noted by PPs is not recommended by actual experts, but you know, this country is sick of experts eh?

If it's so hard for a nut allergy child not to share food and need a nut ban - how do egg allergic children in schools manage? Or do we just not care about them?

CheeseAndSprinkleys but you can nkt be sure that the school is but free! Someone can easily chuck a brownie into a lunch box, not realising it has nuts. You have to assume all food is potentially contaminated.

Soupdragon, yes you summed up everything I was trying to say.

I do think perhaps the nut 'ban' (inverted commas as I don't think you can get rid of any traces on people) will reduce the amount of nuts in school so that is a good thing, and I am certainly willing to do this.

However, yes it will be difficult with ds1. It is very difficult already, but he only has 1 year to go, and he does eat sausage rolls (but only freshly cooked ones) so that is one option (hopefully the sausages don't contain nuts, but who knows what they contain?).

I'm puzzled as to why it's nuts that schools tend to ban when some people have severe and potentially fatal allergies to dairy, eggs, berries etc.

Because nut allergies are much more likely to result in very serious and potentially life-threatening reactions than other food allergies.

But as has been pointed out by many people who have experience of severe allergy, blanket bans are not recommended by experts.

I think that nut bans at primary school are understandable as you can't always rely on younger children (those with allergies or their friends) to avoid nuts.
I think that some schools/holiday clubs can be really over the top though. For example, the staff at a holiday club my DD went to would go through everyone's lunch boxes to see whether anything contained nuts and would remove things if the label said that it "may contain traces of nut" I took my business elsewhere when they removed a Cadbury;s creme egg from her lunch box for this reason.

Having suddenly had to read the labels has been a real shock to me. My DD has intolerances to dairy, eggs and soya we think so have spent a lot of time reading labels. Interesting finds have been eggs in pesto (grana Padano cheese uses egg proteins) dairy in salt and vinegar crisps from some brands, soya in almost all commercial breads including fresh bread other than Ciabatta types in both Tesco and Sainsbury's.

I don't know how fancy primary school lunches might get but a child might acquire a taste for Aldi smoked salmon which isn't that expensive - at least two of the varieties of that have pesto marinades - so would contain pine nuts and dairy (cheap pesto so no posh cheese though).

I can see how even a considerate parent with no major investment in the nut ban wouldn't read the label on everything - just the things they thought would be risky - and wouldn't think to check the crisp packets - I was expecting dairy in cheese and onion but not salt and vinegar or smokey bacon.

I guess the nut ban would only work in combination with other precautions rather than instead - reducing levels in the environment rather than being properly safe.

Wow, I never thought of pesto (pine NUTS, doh!). Ds2 loves pesto and could easily see myself giving himself some leftovers for packed lunch. Didn't mention pesto on the letter though. Are all nuts the same? Are seeds included with nuts, as they mentioned sesame seeds. Houmous contains Tahini doesn't it? Where does it end and what is a 'nut'?

OP before i read your post i thought the food list would include ridiculous things that would obviously not be a danger to nut allergy people ie crisps. Having since read your post, you list things are may seriously be dangerous to someone who DOES have a serious nut allergy ie my dd. You are a lucky bastard to obviously not mother a child with an allergy that could, lord forbid, actually KILL them. Grow some and think of others. There are LOADS of other things you could put in your childs fucking lunch box ffs

I must say that all the schools that my DC have attended have still been extremely vigilent in addition to a nut ban.

All staff are aware. There are photos of the DC on the medical room walls with information. Epi pens are kept on site and lots of staff are trained. At secondary, many class mates have been trained too use epi pens too. DC's mates enjoyed that .

All trips have involved conversations with the medics trip supervisors etc. A recent DofE expedition involved a training session for everyone in the group...

OP another two things you have said that are wrong. 1/ it isn't just about an allergy child eating something that may make them ill/kill them. They can be equally ill if they TOUCH something that has been touched by a child with ie peanut butter on their hands ie a door handle and 2/ AN EPI PEN DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK, THAT IS WHY SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY DIE FROM ALLERGIC REACTIONS.

Pesto is pine nuts and that's a seed, bit like a coconut. Unless you have to avoid seeds too we've been ok with them.