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.

Can't you just make your son a white bread tuna sandwich or something.

Can't you just read the bit where the OP says her son has many issues around food and s a major DD refuser?

If it were as easy as just making a white bread tuna sandwich I'm sure she wouldn't have started the thread.

You should be able to give your child whatever you want I for their lunch. It's not as though as child who is allergic to nuts is going to reach over and scoff it all. The school are over reacting imo.

YABU. The school may have a child who is highly allergic to nuts. It's a primary school - they need to make sure the children are safe. There are loads of cereal bars etc that you could you have for your children's lunch boxes which are nut free. It's a safe, sensible thing to do. How would you feel if it was your child allergic to nuts? For some children they can have a reaction even when nuts are just in the area. Or if a child has eaten nuts and then touched the handle on a door, then the allergic child has touched the same handle, it can cause them to have a severe allergic reaction.

Can't you just read the bit where the OP says her son has many issues around food and s a major DD refuser?
Alright there is no need to get quite so aggressive.

Obviously the OP has a problem her kid is quite fussy and due to allergies the school have banned a lot of things that he likes. However I realise that obviously allergies trump fussiness.

So I rephrase the question - can't he just have a plain white buttered bread roll or a cucumber sandwich in his lunch box?

@mummymeister the topic was not started as a discussion about whether a ban is reasonable or helpful to allergy sufferers. It was started by someone not happy that her child would miss out - hence why the need to repeatedly state the reason she is being unreasonable I.e someone could die. Pretty sure it would be an issue for her if it was a jelly ban because her child probably won't eat anything else for pudding.

My last post on the topic so I'll just say my child has a nut allergy and still manages to have a nutritious and balanced diet.

You only have to watch one child die from anaphylaxis ( as I have) to realise that the small effort required by you for your three healthy children is not excessive

holly you sound lovely in direct contrast to curious who stinks

YABU. Personally I'd rather my son went without than potentially cause harm to another child.

I'm the parent of a 7-year-old child with life-threatening nut and seed allergies. I send her to school with a packed lunch every day and she is made to sit alone to eat it, to avoid any cross-contamination. Her life is made miserable by all the things she can't eat. The nut free rule is there to protect the life of children like my daughter who are too young to take responsibility for themselves. An epi-pen does not guarantee that she won't die in the event of an allergic reaction. Indeed, many children die every year, despite the administration of adrenalin. Your child won't die if they can't have a nut filled muesli bar whilst at school. My child may well die if she encounters one.

YABVVVVU OP. As a parent of an epi-pen carrying child with life threatening allergies, I cant believe some of the shit I've read on this thread -and I didnt read it all as it is annoying me too much. Worrying about your DCs reduced nutrition from not having granola that's packed full of sugar and shite for breakfast. FFS!

All those saying this is OTT, or wingeing that it's too complicated to remember ingredients, try imagining what it is like to raise a small child with this type of allergy, or to be someone who literally takes a huge risk everytime they eat something not prepared from scratch at home! FFS

YABTU. They've always had this policy at my kids school and it is easy to adhere to the rules. Easy. An epi pen is only for use in an emergency and doesn't always prevent death.

Turkish Delight?? I've never seen nuts in a bar of Fry's! (Want one now)

YABVU! My son is 3, a picky eater, and goes to a nut free nursery. Yes, it's a bit of a pain to figure out what he'll eat, but we get over it. Sorry it's an inconvenience for you. We've very fortunate to have children that don't have food allergies and that we haven't had to experience this, as I'm sure it would be terrifying. As PP have stated, I do not think our taste preferences trump another child's life threatening allergy.

There aren't nuts in Fry's Turkish Delight. I looked it up online. The only allergen listed in the ingredients is milk. Presumably from the chocolate coating.

You can get varieties of Turkish Delight that contain nuts, but it doesn't invariably contain nuts. (just as chocolate bars don't always have nuts but you can buy chocolate that contains nuts e.g. a bar of fruit and nut or a Snickers bar)

You clearly have no idea what it is like to watch your child go into anaphylactic shock. YABVU.

And also Merry I'm quite shocked at your comment about the flapjack. 1) I've never heard flapjack to have nuts in and 2) I am horrified that you would give it to a classful of children without thinking twice. In a school of 300 children statistically there will be 12 kids with a nut allergy. You would literally be playing Russian roulette with their lives. And that is not being dramatic. One bite and they would be dead in minutes. An epipen is not a magic wand.

Can you imagine someone else doing that to your child? Believe me, it is terrifying.

Sorry not sure if this has been pointed out, but people have died on planes from people eating peanuts a few rows away, just breathing in bits can cause this.
Thankfully my children don't have any allergies, but school has been but but free since we've been going for 8 years. Someone ignored this and another child had to have an epipen stuck in them - as previously pointed out this is considered a serious medical emergency, a little more serious than the extra effort you may have to put into making a packed lunch.
My brother has a very mild nut allergy, meaning if he has them he struggles to breathe, which I can't imagine is nice, so imagine if its serious.
A little extra thought to a packed lunch, and giving your child their nuts when they get home surely is better than knowing your responsible for the death of a child?
The fact you ask people to go easy on you suggests you already know you're being extremely inconsiderate to consider another child's life / well being is not worthy of your child taking nuts to school!

Nut allergies can be lethal for some - your child won't come to any harm not eating nuts. If you had a child with a severe nut allergy you would understand why such policies are in place

its probably a factory cross-contamination thing with the turish delight. YABU- and i say that as the parent to a child who eats very very few foods due to his ASD.

There are some Turkish delights with almond oil in them

Peanut allergies are often airborne. That's why it's so dangerous, especially on aeroplanes where the air is recycled.
Obviously in a school dining hall, with air con, that's also a risk. Cross contamination, too - hands touching tables, cutlery, doors.
It won't kill you to take a little care over lunch. It could kill a kid if you don't.
Epi pens are no guarantee that a child will live, it just gives extra time for the ambulance to arrive.
The more exposure, the greater the risk and the reaction, it doesn't get better if they're exposed to little bits here and there! That's not how nut allergies work.
Apparently there are certain medicines that can cause and bring on the (nut) allergy, that may be why so many more people have it now. A friend's was caused by excema cream, it was a side effect. Now she has it for life.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_delight

Some, not frys, may also have pieces of nuts

I think proper Turkish delight has pistachio in it.

According to statistics on average 10 people (that's all ages, not just children) die per year from anaphylaxis in the UK. Obviously we don't want anyone to die from it, but are the measures being taken by schools disproportionate to the stats?

In any event, I stick by my earlier comments that school and other organised activities as a young child can provide useful opportunities to educate the child in how to look after themselves.

From a very young age I would ask the teachers whether I could eat such and such, and at friends' parties I would ask an adult to tell me what I could and couldn't eat. I would never have shared food when I didn't know what it was. I knew that I couldn't dive freely into buffet food. All because adults around me had taken every opportunity to help me to know how to look after myself. Awareness was a lot lower thirty years ago (some people didn't even 'believe' in allergies at all then!) yet those of us with allergies found ways to explain our needs and avoid the allergens.

I haven't bothered to read all the posts - so may be reiterating what others have said MerryMarigold, but here goes: My eldest DS has anaphylaxis. We still don't know why. We found this out by accident when he was 3 years old and he shared my husband's drink of juice (DH had eaten peanuts earlier). The saliva residue on the edge of the glass was enough. We didn't want his allergy to define him, so took all precautions, informed nursery, then school etc., educated him but tried to be as low key as possible. Over the years he/we came in for a lot of I'll-educated criticism and prejudice (despite our low-key approach). For him, at school he felt ashamed because kids who had learned about his allergy in their child-like ways teased him and made him feel different. For us it was painful to watch. The primary school at that time (and some parents) seemed equally prejudiced. Fast forward to now - having avoided nuts completely (he's 16 now ) he was at mate 's house, took a bite out of a biscuit - thought it tasted weird and immediately went into anaphylactic shock. His epi-pen did not work, nor did it slow the reaction. By the time he was in A&E (15 minutes later) he was in acute anaphylaxis and struggling to breathe. It took 4 hours to get him to breathe without help - watching him in the balance between not being able to breathe and pumping him so full of adrenalin that he was in tachycardia as his blood pressure dropped was terrifying. The fact that he had a secondary reaction several hours later which nearly finished him off was unbearable. So that is the reality - please don't make I'll-educated assumptions about allergies ... they really are life threatening and not about over protective parents or schools. The silver lining for us is that this has happened before he heads off for uni - at least he now knows how serious it is - so he is much more vigilant. The awful thing is how it has robbed him of his freedom to be carefree when he should be enjoying his new found independence and freedom.

OK, as the OP can I state why I started the thread, perhaps quoting from MY OP would help.

1. I was unsure how a 'nut free' policy could be enforced due to people eating nuts before school

1. I was asking to be convinced on why it is necessary. I think it's a bit extreme but tell me what you think. Also SO, I do need to feel more positive about this (OP). I wasn't aware that epi pens may not work so that was an interesting learning. As an allergy sufferer (and epi pen carrier in the past) myself, I assumed they would in the event of something awful happening, but obviously would expect the school to have other safeguards in place.

1. I was concerned about my own child's nutrition as PART of the problem here. IF the school was just making a big fuss to egt an OFSTED mark or something then I wasn't that happy about it. Yes, ds1 is a major food refuser. No, I cannot make him a tuna sandwich or a cucumber sandwich. I wish. And yes, the relatively healthy foods he has in his lunch are muesli bars, houmous/ carrot and a pot of pistachios or cashews, or cake made with nuts/ veg. He will eat sausage rolls (not that nutritious but a bit more than a plain roll) but I have to cook these in the morning. I could also try a bacon sandwich, but that would need cooking in the morning too as won't eat it from fridge. Yes, I will cook them to save another child's life, or he will live on a plain roll and crisps for lunch. Fine.

I was just querying whether the nut policy would really save a child's life that's all as I was bit sceptical.

Nowhere did I say: WIBU to send my child into school with a pot a pistachios? Or ask for people's opinions on my children's granola for breakfast (they will continue to have that, sorry not going to ban them from my house).

I have been 'educated', which is what I asked for, although there are clearly some different schools of thought going on. Thanks for your time.