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.

DDs school is nut free. It basically means don't send in food that obviously has nuts in it i.e nutty cereal bars, peanut butter, chocolate spread etc. It hasn't been a big deal at all but please don't just send children in with something obviously nutty anyway because a child at our school went into anaphylaxis at dinner time the other week because someone had bought in a peanut butter sandwich and their parents said they didn't agree with the rules which is why they did it...

Yanbu. I have a child who carries an epi-pen.
SO many products are labelled as 'may contain nuts' it would be impossible to tighten it up that much.

As long as they aren't bringing nut products in then I think that's all they can ask.

It’s just the school being lazy. So much easier for them to tick a box and say they’ve done all they can by sending this, even though it’s unworkable. As PPs have said, they should be following the advice of Anaphylaxis U.K.

I have a friend who is allergic to potatoes.

Even being in the same room with a potato product will cause swelling, breathing difficulties, skin rashes, the whole nine yards. Just breathing the air of a room with anything potato based in it - so someone opening a packet of crisps in her vicinity - and she's potentially reaching for the epi-pen (which is not a safe option for her, because she has multiple health issues).

Substitute 'Nut' for 'potato' and imagine this policy applied to that. No potato based or potato containing anything in the building at all - in a primary school.

It's easy to say, yes, but no-one needs to eat nuts, but for vegans and those with dairy or gluten issues and allergies, nuts form a large part of the substitutes. And it remains the case that what is applied to one should be applied to all, so:

Nuts
Milk
Fish
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Gelatine
Pork
Beef
Gluten (so wheat)

Those are all in the circle of people I know, all to a serious, time in hospital, call an ambulance level.

Vegan/vegetarian/religious diets, and I don't know what's left to feed kids. Plain pasta, maybe?

Allergy aware is better than allergy ban, and the school should be actively managing it rather than left-shouldering to parents and then wringing their hands saying, 'but we told them!' when it all goes wrong.

Ask the school for examples of what they consider will make a healthy nutritional lunch for a child and be nut free.

Do they provide school lunches?

YANBU and I say this as the parent of a peanut-allergic child. The rule is impractical and unenforceable. It needs to be much simpler - no peanuts or tree nuts, and no swapping of food from lunchboxes.

It's just the school covering its arse. Almost every food product 'may contain traces of nuts' so the makers don't get sued. Just don't send in anything that's obviously nutty.

I remember looking a the print on a bag of peanuts and it saying warning may contain nuts

The school is doing their best and asking you to be careful too. In our school it is nuts and certain fruit.

it's pretty easy to make food at home that is nut free, and crisps, apples, plums, bottles of water etc are safe. No-one is expecting lab conditions.

I think it's unreasonable - and I have a child who is anaphylactic to a number of things including all tree nuts and peanuts.
"May contain" is basically a get out of jail free card for manufacturers so that if they have any nuts in the same factory etc they can say "we told you so" if there is any cross contamination. So it is on lots and lots of things which almost certainly don't contain nuts. Asking a large group of people who have nothing personal to lose to follow such restrictions is bound to fail.
It is one thing for a nut allergic person and their family to exclude "may contain" products (and even that is not always necessary) but I think asking an entire school to do so is probably both excessive and unworkable.
The chances of a child in one year group being harmed by a child in a totally different year group in what sounds like a big school consuming a product that might, but probably doesn't, contain traces of nuts is very small. I can't see that it would be any more risk than passing someone in the street who had recently eaten the same thing. We cannot control the whole environment and people with allergies probably encounter those who are eating or have recently eaten their allergens every time they use public transport or go into a public place. If a child in year R has an allergy, telling year 13 they can't have something labelled "may contain" for breakfast is unreasonable. In fact the danger is that by making the restrictions so onerous, people just ignore them completely - its quite tough even if you are highly motivated, and the vast majority won't be. So potentially the risk for the allergic child actually increases if very strict exclusions are attempted.

Peanuts aren't nuts - they are legumes. Presumably the factory also handles tree nuts so will be legally required to warn of potential nut contamination. Peanut and tree nut allergies are different things.

My DD has a nut allergy, though not severe. Even though school were aware she often had to deal with teachers bringing in cakes for parties with almonds in them, a prize for a reading challenge? Peanut M&Ms!!!!!
Please spare a thought for the child and family and just don’t send in nuts. Traces is a bit ridiculous though.

The anaphylaxis society actively advise against nut bans. The reason why is because children then grow up without taking responsibility for their allergies, and the result is that they become complacent as they’ve never had to think about it, and then the number of anaphylactic reactions increase significantly in secondary school where it simply isn’t possible to ban nuts or nut products.

My DS was in a class with a lad who had a peanut allergy, and he had 3 reactions in his first term at secondary.

Children need to learn from an early age that they need to ask if something contains nuts if they’re unsure, that they shouldn’t be accepting food from others, and to make people aware that they have a peanut allergy.

Banning nuts is just lazy. There are several other allergies which can be as severe, but nuts are good headline grabbers plus it would be impossible to ban dairy or eggs for instance, so nuts are an easy target.

I'm mom to a dd with a severe nut allergy.

If we didn't buy anything that had "may contain nuts" we'd probably starve lol jk.

Seriously though tescos have bottled water atm that says may contain nuts!

M&S are the worst with the labelling. Such a cop-out!

Both my children are anaphylactic to nuts and other foods . If we never gave them anything that was a may contain then their diet would be severely limited. This policy goes too far.

Banning nuts and nut ingredients is reasonable and seems to be the norm here. Banning "may contain" items is bonkers.

I'm astounded at how many people agree that the school shouldn't ban food with traces of nuts due to a highly allergic child.

I wonder how people would change their opinions if it was their own child who was allergic. I dare say it would be all.

Our school did this and my friends daughter was very allergic to nuts

people would forget or just feel it didn’t apply to them and send their kids in with Nutella on sandwiches and she’d be blue lighted to hospital and then spend weeks in ICU.

it was a constant battle. So bad she took her child out of school because the school couldn’t keep her child safe and she never knew when that phone call to say her daughter had been airlifted would be the last one……

It doesn’t mean you can use nuts at home. But be aware of the food or utensils that you’re sending your child in with.

all children are different and some parents on here of children with nuts allergies might be or relaxed. It does depend how allergic they are but best to be safe rather than sorry. I can’t imagine the fear of living with that over my child and I still to this day don’t know how my friend does it.

That may be what you would expect, but it's very clearly not what they've asked for.

Also, brushing your teeth just before school would be quite unusual - who has an extra hour to wait around? I would expect most people to do theirs when they get up, before breakfast.

Yanbu unreasonable OP. What about those children for whom a peanut butter sandwich would be a valuable addition to their diet due to poverty? Or fussy eaters who might eat hummus? Nuts and seeds are a valuable part of diet.

The school is unreasonable and effectively washing their hands of responsibility- if something goes wrong they will blame the other parents for not following this (impractical) guideline.

Also, these kids are old enough to understand not sharing food. At my dd's nursery they serve egg-free meals in her room for the sake of her allergies - I'm grateful although I didn't request this and was surprised, i think maybe there's more than one child with an egg allergy - but that's because at under 2yo they're all snatching off each other's plates. Above about 5y, surely the kids can be trained to wash hands and not share food.

This thread had highlighted that some posters dont understand how food labels work. The OP isn't being unreasonable. The school have asked for no food that may contain traces of nuts. In a factory setting these will be foods that are made in the same factory as products containing nuts, and they cannot guarantee there will be no traces. If they eat nuts at home then all of her homemade food may contain traces.

Gosh the replies on this post are shocking!

But lots of us do have children with life threatening allergies. Myself included. We are the ones reading the damn packets all day every day. Forlorn has just pointed out that Tesco bottled water has 'may contain traces of nuts' on it.