To wonder what is dangerous about my child’s lunch

[NameChangeAK]

I received a message from school today saying my child’s lunch contained a prohibited item and to please review the policy “as there are children with severe allergies and it’s dangerous not to comply”

I don’t usually provide packed lunches - DC has school meals, but they did like todays meal options.

Ive responded and asked what the item was but waiting for a response, but I’m confused - it’s clearly a nut free school but I can’t see anything else anywhere about other banned foods

the packed lunch contained:

• ham sandwich (with butter) on brown bread
• apple
• frube (strawberry flavour)
• carton of own brand apple juice
• Pepperami
• babybel

any ideas what could be the problem or Aibu to think they’ve mistaken the ham as peanut butter or something ridiculous?

My DH is now threatening to teach DC this.

@Helengreggregson Frubes (and the other brands) are quite hard for small children to open. Imagine "Miss can you open my yoghurt please" repeated by dozens and dozens of little voices 😂
Petit Filous style yogurts are much easier for small children to open.
(also see Capri Sun drinks vs regular carton drinks 😂)

I thought all MN children took leftovers in a food flask?

This is glorious

Good point :)

You didn't put a knife in there did you?!

I've worked in schools for years and I'm a bit baffled.
My kids have allergies (nuts, fish, egg etc) so I understand the nut allergy thing but if someone had a severe dairy allergy, that makes it very difficult for parents preparing lunches.

I've never seen a member of staff go into a child's lunchbox either and look at which kind of bread they have (unless they are very young perhaps).

I think either they've got the wrong person or you need to have a word.
'prohibited' is quite a strong word for a packed lunch!

I stopped complying with school packed lunch rules when they sent my son home with a lunch box full of puke. Yes, my son puked at lunch, aged 5, and I received a call from the school to pick him up.
Picked him up, along with zipped lunch bag, which I opened next day full of puke.

That's disgusting and cruel.

I'm actually quite relieved to be working in secondary now as we have less lunchbox warriors. 😂

I always make sure my youngest (still primary) has a piece of fruit though even though I know he won't eat it. His dad said the other day, you know he won't eat it'.
I said 'I know, but people are watching. Lunchboxes have status!'

There are children, literally starving all over the world! some schools need to get a grip! My dd is Nd, bordering on eating disorder, I will pack her whatever I can get her to eat that is ok to be left in a lunchbox (no fridge for 5 hours)
Luckily our school is reasonably laid back, other than giving advice and obviously adhering to allergies.

I would have phoned the school as there is nothing there we wouldn’t send in our child’s packed lunch. I’d say all of those items will be in alot of packed lunches every day so the school will have a huge problem if any are banned. I agree with other comments that possibly has been sent to the wrong parent?

It was the frube. Dairy allergy.

The day school judges my lunchbox is the day i’ll go in and make a judgement on the teachers weight/fitness/health…fair right? Luckily, we have a great school and the only thing banned is peanuts.

Everything listed is fine in moderation and what 99% of kids will have in their lunchbox. Nothing is bad if you live an active, balanced lifestyle. I pity poor kids where a parent worries about a babybel and an apple juice.

So no children in the school can bring in cheese, yoghurts, milk or anything dairy in packed lunches? Is that correct? Thats ridiculous if thats the case.

This makes me angry!

I've seen kids come into school with half a bar of chocolate, cold, hard pizza and chips from the day before and even nothing - right, parents forgot or told the child to do it themselves.

That is what we should be keeping an eye on.

Not a fully packed lunch where probably 99% of the class have the same thing.

School needs to stop all this controlling behaviour and stick to proper safeguarding.

Exactly! The OP packed a perfectly fine lunch for her child and is left wondering what she has done wrong.

Lets keep an eye on (and help) the kids that are going home to an empty fridge.

No, if you would RTFT or even just OP's posts, you'll see that it's just frubes that are banned because they're so much messier than other yogurts and so present an extra risk to a particular child with a severe milk allergy. Other dairy products are fine. It's a pretty sensible policy terribly communicated.

You could take someone’s eye out with a pepperami.

:nod’s wisely:

This is true.....

A risk assessment is required!

Surely they can't ban other kids eating something just because one kid isn't allowed for religious/ethical reasons?

Though the evidence for banning foods to protect allergic kids isn't very good anyway, so maybe they don't care how reasonable they are being.

I only mentioned this fact because many do not know this fact. The sweets were being used as an example, as if no one would have any problems with them, other than the sugar content.

My son's friend takes whatever is left over from the family take away - sometimes it's a curry dish, sometimes it's chips, sometimes it's just a giant chunk of cake.

Is that MN enough?🤣

This reminds me of when I was at school and our Headteacher banned Kitkats. Her argument was that they were sold in the 'chocolate bar' aisle in shops, so therefore were chocolate bars. Clubs, Trios, penguins, all fine. Kitkat, poison.

Ugh left over reheated chips?? 🤢

It is bizarre isn't it. Either have a no chocolate rule or all chocolate is OK or all chocolate coated biscuits are OK. Imagine my kids going from a Kitkat school to a no Kitkat school. How do you explain that to kids? I suppose all you can say is sometimes adults are a bit dim.

Ours allows "chocolate covered wafer biscuits" so a full tunnocks caramel wafer or even a four finger KitKat is allowed... but not a 1" fun size twix from a box of celebrations 🤷‍♀️