To email school about them banning any food that "may contain traces of nuts"?

[PartyGoose]

Had an email last night from DD's school (it's a school that goes right through from 3-18 so covers all age groups) saying that as of today give us plenty of notice why don't you no food can be brought onto school premises that contains nuts or "may contain traces of nuts" due to a child with a severe nut allergy starting there.

I can't see how this is workable. It rules out about 50% of bought food, and 100% of food made/prepared in my kitchen as we eat a lot of nuts at home.

Obviously I am more than willing to avoid sending any food that actually has nuts in, and I'm going to take extreme care to check labels etc going forward.

But...surely they can't expect everyone to avoid anything that "may contain traces of nuts"? That's just not doable for most people.

Neither my DC's Primary School, their secondary schools nor the primary school that i worked in were nut free.

So there are 4 schools for you without the policy.

We would have struggled as we have lots of peanut butter and hummus.

My daughters nursery is completely nut free including food with traces of nuts, it is not as difficult as it seems. When they first introduced it, a parent asked ‘What? All for one child?” Imagine if that was your child. For a small inconvenience and forward planning you could save another mothers child’s life, seems like a reasonable price to pay.
If you have ever witnessed a child having an anaphylactic reaction or had your small child fighting for their life in your arms…. choosing a different snack doesn’t seem such an big deal!
It is also true that at a young age, children develop allergies very quickly and unexpectedly. My daughter has been given products which may contain nuts and sadly has had reactions to these even though she may have eaten them the week before.
She starts school in September and I can only hope and pray that parents are more sympathetic and informed than some of these comments.

They are not implementing a nut free policy though.

They aren't saying 'no nuts'.

They are saying no foods that say may contain traces of nuts. Which is a completely different thing.

I hate to break i to you @Mumof382, but I very much doubt that the nursery parents are being as careful re nuts as you would like them to be.

Nursery staff will have no way of knowing if bread in a sandwich comes from a loaf labelled 'may contain nuts', or not. Likewise with ricecakes, breadsticks etc. They can't know if the child had crunchy nut cornflakes or museli for breakfast, or if their sandwich was prepared on a counter where a packet of peanuts was opened the night before. You simply can't check this stuff - and even close relatives will forget, I've found. (And that's before you get to the confusion that is allergy labelling.)

All you can do is to be as vigilant as possible with food yourselves as a family, and to teach your child how to live with an allergy. And have plans - and pens - in place in case something does go wrong. And it's safest to assume others will often get it wrong, even if they have the best of intentions.

How do you know what foods "may contain traces of nuts" though, when labelling as such isn't a legal requirement? Just because a food isn't labelled as "may contain" doesn't mean it's guaranteed nut free. How does it work in practise, do staff check labels on everything? Do they ask parents to avoid sending in any home made food in case of cross contamination in home kitchens? Again to make clear I will never send anything with nuts or nut oils as an ingredient, I'm talking about the "may contain traces" foods here.

I'm not trying to be confrontational or ignorant but I am struggling to understand how it's doable and just how careful I am being asked to be! Hopefully school will clarify this soon.

I have a feeling that some (lots? most?) of the parents in your school won't think about this nearly so much as you are doing, OP.

They'll avoid nuts and anything obvious and that's it.

I completely agree, there is no way of knowing how someone else prepares homemade food and whether or not this is cross contaminated. That is unfortunately a risk parents of children with such severe allergies has to take.
My daughters nursery checks every packet (if it is in one) and sends it home uneaten if it says may contain nuts.
My daughter at 3 years old is completely aware of her own allergies and often role plays not being able to have food with her toys as she checks it for nuts. She also points out the epi pen scar that runs down her thigh that she managed to pull out at 14 months old.
I think it is important to sometimes stop and think about some the things we can do as adults to help safeguard any child’s life… and if it takes you a few more minutes browsing on the supermarket shelves to find those things safe for lunch boxes and snacks then so be it.
An important lesson to sometimes walk in someone’s else’s shoes.

OP I know you're frustrated and its definitely not funny. But using "see all" to just read pages and pages of responses saying "for fucks sake I'm not going to send nuts" phrased in numerous different ways, well, it did make me a least smile wryly. Only on mumsnet.

It's not a 'so be it' situation though as other parents are not reading every packet.

It's been demonstrated lots of times on this thread alone that parents are confusing a 'nut free policy' with what we are actually talking about here, not bringing food that may contain nuts.

It's madness to suggest that people should 'walk in the shoes' of anaphylactic children.

i have an open box of crunchy nut cornflakes in my kitchen cupboard and. Jar of Nutella.That means that every foodstuff not in a sealed packet in my kitchen may contain nuts. There is no way I can make a packed lunch that I can guarantee mignt not contain traces of nuts in my kitchen right now. The only way to comply with this rule is to have a nut free house. Do all of the posters saying “it’s simple don’t send nuts to school” truly have no nuts in their house in anything? No nut oils? No nut bars? No Nutella? no peanut butter? No satay chicken? No hummus? (TAhini) No random choclate with nuts in left over from Christmas? No almond essence? No marzipan? No emergency veggie nut cutlet in the freezer? No left over chinease take away? No almond milk? No abidec kids vitamins? Etc

my nephew is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts and this is the sort of check we do of the house before he comes to stay and then a big clean. It’s full on and I respect so much all those who do this full time for their allergic kids

foods can be made in the same factory as nuts. whcih poses the same risk to the chid. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand.

My friend is a vegetarian but wont eat Burger king vegetarian burgers because theyre made on the same bloody grill.

eating anything with traces of nuts could kill this child.

im appalled at the responses.

Keep a wee cupboard nut free.

seconds in your life is years for this childs life.

The lack of reading comprehension of some posters is absolutely shocking on this thread.

OP YANBU - if thr school secretary messages back to say that the message is correct as it was originally sent then I would be asking them how you are supposed to achieve this considering everything in your kitchen may contain traces of nuts due to you having nut products in the house. Unless they are going to provide school meals for every child, made in an entirely nut free environment, then they cannot guarantee no nut traces and there is no way for it to happen.

I just looked in my kitchen cupboards - I have a bag of cashews, another of pistachios, bags of trail mix which contain nuts, peanut almond and pistachio butters, flaked almonds, crunchy nut cornflakes, box of peanut butter and chocolate flapjacks, a jar of nutella, peanut oil, jar of tahini, a bar of cadburys fruit and nut, and almond milk. That's just the explicitly nut containing items I could see at a quick glance, I'm sure if I took every item out of the fridge/freezer/cupboard then I would find many more with "may contain nuts" labels.

I have had bariatric surgery and so I can only eat tiny amounts and have to get as much protein in as possible - nuts and nut butters are one of the easiest and most convenient ways to up my protein so they are a staple of my diet.

There is no way anything made in my kitchen would be entirely 100% nut free, never mind nut trace free, so if DD had to take packed lunches to school and couldn't have anything that may have nut traces there is literally nothing in my kitchen she could take to school.

Keep a wee cupboard nut free.

Even if a cupboard is nut free that doesn't mean there isn't a chance of cross contamination in a kitchen that houses nuts elsewhere.

If I have peanut butter on toast and then a while later I touch the handle of the "nut free cupboard", there is a possibility that there will still be peanut butter traces on my hands and so then anything I touch in that cupboard will have possible nut traces on them

Yeah, but then youve at least tried.

all of this "il be sending my wean with crisps and i dont give a shit" isnt much comfort really, is it?

I have a nut-using kitchen

🐿

Nah. Thats rediculous.

If the school insist that their email is correct with banning ‘May contain’ foods, just send an email back saying you will not be able to guarantee all food you send in will be compliant as you if have nut products in the house. They can provide free school lunches that comply with their policy for all children if they want that to happen. Completely unreasonable to expect families to be able to comply with this, if it were me I simply wouldn’t do it and would tell them that. Not bringing actual nuts in is one thing but banning ‘May contain’ is not reasonable.

I have a son with a peanut allergy and I understand the anxiety of parents of children with allergies sending them to school. I am in Ireland and we only have 2 allergy consultants here. DS is under the care of one lady and she is amazing. She said that in all her years she has never experienced a child having an anaphylactic reaction from eating a product that said "may contain traces of nuts" and DS could eat those products.
As an ingredient reader for 12 years, I know it is virtually impossible to pack a lunch with products without this warning. It is unsafe and unfair to expect parents to comply.
The best way is to educate children, parents and teachers. My DS's school was nut free, his consultant disagreed with this. She said she advocates for schools to have a policy whereby children understand if they eat nut products they wash their hands afterwards. The school wouldn't do this as it was easier for them to just ban and ignore the reality that children would continue to bring in nut products. A boy at DS's table regularly brought in peanut butter sandwiches, I asked the teacher to request that the boy wash his hands afterwards and wipe down the table, the school wouldn't do this, this just told the boy no more PB sandwiches.

I understand the worry about allergies but seriously it is virtually impossible for a child to have a serious reaction because they were around your child that ate something that may have contained traces of nuts. How does that child function through the rest of his/her day? Using public transport, activities, play dates, etc. OP tell you child to wash their hands after they eat to remove any potential traces.

no food can be brought onto school premises that contains nuts or "may contain traces of nuts" due to a child with a severe nut allergy starting there

This seems entirely pointless and harmful. Excessively anxious and rule-abiding parents will be changing their own shopping habits and reading all the labels. Cavalier parents will (not unreasonably) think the whole dictat is ridiculous and carry on as before.

If someone is so vulnerable to exposure to nuts that they cannot be in the same room as a product that has been prepared in a kitchen where nuts have been used then really they have to take necessary precautions, not the rest of the world.

"Well we tried 🤷‍♀️" isn't good enough if it ends with a child going into anaphylaxis because you weren't careful enough.

This is why it is important for the school to clarify the issue. If they are just being overzealous then people aren't going to comply strictly with the rule and the more times people send their children in with items that "may contain nuts" and there is no issue then the less careful people will be and the lass likely they are to follow any of the nut rules, until the day someone sends something in that causes anaphylaxis and then the parents are blamed for not following the rules.

If the child can't have/be around actual nuts then go nut free as that is easy to follow and can be policed easily - separate table, wiped sown before and after use; hand washing before and after meals; lunches checked for no nut products before they sit at the table with the child with allergies etc - but the more rules put in place the less people will follow them and the more the child will be endangered.

DS is under the care of one lady and she is amazing. She said that in all her years she has never experienced a child having an anaphylactic reaction from eating a product that said "may contain traces of nuts" and DS could eat those products.

I'm surprised by this, @Lima1, as our consultant told us the exact opposite - that DC was to avoid eating anything that may have nut traces. He is also very good, an authority in his field with many papers to his name.

I do think there's only a tiny chance that classmates eating 'may contain' products will cause a serious reaction in DC, and I would not expect the school to ban these products.

The consensus at the moment from experts is that schools needn't ban nuts either.
However, they also state that the certainty of evidence for this position is low and that it's a conditional recommendation for now. They also say that more care may be needed for very young children and for people with disabilities.

That is interesting @Muffinsorcrumpets the lady I am speaking about is a vice chair of an allergy association, is involved in a number of immunotherapy studies and trials and has written a large number of papers. One thing she works on is building tolerance of products (under strict controls of course). She is very interested in the impact of of allergies on parents/families and said you have to balance trying to live a somewhat normal life with managing the allergy. I was very very strict with checking products, she said there is still a risk from "may contain traces.." but it is very low and unlikely to cause a severe reaction.
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I didn't know that about the kinder easter eggs! Thank you.

But other parents aren't making or buying food for the nut allergic child to eat it's for their own child. The child with allergies should be well aware of not sharing foods with others and a teacher/dinner staff should be observing to make extra sure. The school should educate the kids regarding not sharing foods and have stringent cleaning processes.

I feel everyone saying it's very easy to avoid may contain labels have never actually had to spend hours of their life reading labels. I also think if this was any other allergen it would be received different imagine if a school said no soya, kiwi, milk, wheat, lentils, egg, beans, sesame, fish, garlic etc including may contains. Everyone with an anaphylactic allergy has a risk if eating the foods but they wouldn't ban most allergens they'd find a work around to keep the kids safe therefore it can be done without food bans.