May contain nuts

[grassverge]

I have just bought a job lot of cereal bars for the kids packed lunches for the next 4 weeks. They were delivered today and have no nuts in the ingredients but say at the end “May contain traces of nuts”.

All kids go to early years / primary settings that have no nut policies. Should I still put them in their packed lunches?

YABU: take the financial hit and don’t use them for packed lunches
YANBU: manufactures just put this to cover themselves from liability. Go ahead and send them.

Don't send them it's not worth the risk

I do yes

They've been prepared or packed in an environment that may have nut dust. I know that in my GC classes there isn't any children who have diagnosed nut allergies and all of these children come to class parties so I would send them in.

If there are no nuts on ingredients i would and do send in.

Nuts is not an ingredient. It just means the manufacturer produces other lines of products which might have nuts so they can't guarantee there is no cross contamination.
The only time you won't see this is if they are produced in a facility that never has any nuts in it.

"May contains" are fine. Almost everything is a may contain (unfortunately for me). As someone with a nut allergy I won't eat them but the risk is absolutely teeny tiny for someone else to eat them and cause any risk to me.

I probably wouldn’t in case the kids share their snacks, especially at that age. It’s not worth the risk, can you imagine triggering another child’s allergic reaction because you want to save ten quid? Just use them as home/ trip out snacks

I would send them in.

If the settings have asked for no 'may contains' I would respect that, particularly for small children where the risk of contact is higher.

I am a parent of a child with a nut allergy who carries an epipen. I’d say you’re absolutely fine to put them in lunchboxes. It’s a warning, not a guarantee of nuts and that’s very different to sending your kid in with a peanut butter sandwich.

The only scenario that I would avoid sending them in, is if the class teacher advised of a child in the class with a severe nut allergy and explicitly asked for an extra level of caution.

i was actually advised by our paediatric allergist that it was up to us to decide whether or not to avoid ‘May contain’ foods. We do though, with the exception of the organix children’s oat bars, which we tried and had no reaction to.

My son has a nut allergy so I wouldn't feed him the cereal but would absolutely eat near him and would never expect his school to ban them, as that would be ludicrous.

If you pay attention to labels, you'll probably find lots of other things you eat have May contain nut labels including cereal bars, baked goods and bagels.

It's almost impossible to find foods that don't have that warning. Imagine how careful a factory has to be to make that claim.

I would send them in.
If you have a nut allergy you wouldn't eat them, but fine for them to be eaten by others.