Pesto in lunch box - nut free school

[Franxie]

I’ve got a friend who has twins my kids class, they are reception age. She doesn’t let her kids have school lunches as she doesn’t think they are healthy.

Today I asked her daughters what they had for lunch and they told me a croissant, mum clarified it was a croissant with pesto spread inside, chicken, mozzarella and tomato slices.

The school is nut free so I said oh doesn’t pesto have nuts in it, she said it was fine, I said it’s really not allergies can be deadly and she insisted it was fine, school never pays attention, it’s healthy and if school ever do ask she will say it’s nut free pesto.

WIBU to report this to the school?

Most jarred (rather than fresh) pesto also has nuts for bulk, because of the high price of pine nuts.

As pp have said, if it’s pine nut pesto, it’s fine as pine nuts are not nuts, they’re seeds.

Shop brought pesto often contains Cashew not Pine nuts anymore as they are expensive. Cashew could kill my daughter or leave her seriously disabled, she carries accept pen bit these don't always work. Even contact with a chol who had eaten Cashew could cause a reaction.
I would suggest you report it because of her blasé attitude and because schools when they go nut free presume compliance and this can make them complacent when a child starts to show signs of an anaphylactic reaction. They can also become distracted trying to work out where it is happening. Personally I would really appreciate you looking after my daughters safety by saying something, but perhaps don't name the parent it is more helpful for the school to appreciate nut free doesn't work and is impossible to enforce.
The Natasha Allergy Foundation are asking for people to share links to there school campaign and education pack.

I think OP was assuming that pine nuts fell under the category of nuts for the school nut ban.

In fact for the purposes of UK or EU food labelling they’re not considered nuts.

They are labelled as nuts for allergy purposes in America though, so it is confusing.

Most pestos do contain cashew nuts though. So you can’t just assume the pesto you’re buying is nut free and only contains pine nuts.

The info you gave stated that so unusual pine nuts are known to cause anaphylactic shocks and that cashew nuts are tree nuts.

My cousin nearly died through eating pesto as she's allergic to nuts and the adult feeding her at the time didn't know about cashew nuts being in it.

A friend of mine has a very serious allergy to pine nuts - epipen, hospitalisation, the lot. So whilst they may not technically be nuts, they can be just as dangerous for those with an allergy. So I guess its a question of whether anyone in the school is allergic to them.

I know, but I was replying to a pp who pointed out that (cashew) nut-free pestos are available, that she is careful to use one herself, and that OP would come across as an interfering busybody in that type of situation.

That was me, I know you were responding to me. And I was responding to you saying the op assumed pine nuts were nuts, I was saying I don’t think she was because most pestos contain actual nuts.

My child has an allergy to cashew and pistachio nuts. Pesto is a tricky one as you can buy it without cashew but you have to read the labels really well. Not everyone even realises. My ex h actually fed my child pesto without realising and it became a quick lesson on why to read the ingredients. Luckily she’s not anaphylactic with it and just needed her antihistamines and was a bit unwell after. Same happened when a relative gave her curry. They hadn’t realised curry contains cashew. DD accepted the curry without checking as school serve curry and she likes it but they sell a nut free one. She just assumed all curry was fine.

If a school told me it was not free I would not expect these to be in school. Not all schools are not free though. My daughter’s school did allow Nutella spread at after school for tea on occasions and she had this when offered as isn’t allergic. However when the school French teacher decided to bring in pan au chocolate and other bits n pieces she wasn’t even allowed to eat them ‘just in case’ and had to watch her friends eat them - she loves them!! Schools seem to send out mixed messages about nuts.

I work in a nut free school which is strict. Someone brought in a box of celebrations and they were confiscated.

Edited to add that our allergy doctor suggested a ‘nut free’ diet at school to make sure of safety unless foods had previously been ok (like hazelnut). So whilst you say cashew and pistachio aren’t nuts but seeds, for allergy purposes they do get categorised as such.

Okay, I must have misunderstood the point of your original post so, sorry.

I do think lots of people would assume pine nuts were included in a nut ban though, because of the name for one reason. DS has nut allergies and people often assume that includes coconut too, even though it doesn’t. So I don’t think they’d necessarily think ‘oh pine nuts are fine, but I’d better watch out for the cashews’. Usually people know these things because they have to. Which nuts are and are not on food labelling lists aren’t really common knowledge I’d say.

But the option to work towards a cure isn’t universally offered. All we have been given for a cashew and pistachio nut allergy is a box of antihistamines and the advice to avoid them!!

My younger daughter is allergic to a range of non food things such as animals and pollen. Her allergies were causing lots of nose bleeds at one point. At no point were we offered a ‘cure’. She was given different medication with awful side effects usually given to asthma sufferers but was told it would hopefully help. It did help the nosebleeds weirdly but not the allergies. She’s has chosen a hobby which she loves (horses) but often has to be dosed up depending on what they’re doing - riding, stable management type things etc. we just increase the meds. She’s come home from school tonight sneezing and itchy as the pollen count is high today. But she’s classed as mildly allergic so no cure offered.

I'm just adding my voice to the chorus of nooooo!!

Pesto almost always contains nuts and would be dangerous to a nut allergy sufferer. I assume the school is nut free for very good reason. I absolutely cannot stand people who dismiss allergy precautions. To think their pesto bagel is more important than someone's life.

I have never heard anything so ridiculous in all of my life.

Of course you shouldn't snitch on your friend over pesto in her kids' sandwiches. Do you realise how ridiculous you sound?

I have no idea - because you haven't said - why you asked your friend's children what they had for lunch, But it really is none of your business; and unless children are routinely allowed or encouraged to swap food, there is also no reason to fear children becoming unwell through your friends' pesto sandwiches.

And yet no one thinks twice about the cheese that was also in the sandwich

Absolutely not true. Cashews are tree nuts. My sons best friend has a tree nut allergy. A small taste of cashew nuts would kill him. Cashews are a serious nut allergen. The OP is being seriously unreasonable with her attitude as she has no idea if the pesto she is using has Cashews in or not and seemingly gives zero shits if she kills someone elses child

The issue is that the school is a nut-free school, so people will be operating under the assumption that it is a safe zone for anyone with a nut allergy. That's what makes it so dangerous when people flout these guidelines, because they're compromising a space that's operating as if it's free from a certain thing.

Whether schools should also be dairy-free, as dairy can be as dangerous and common an allergen as nuts, is a separate issue.

I don't think schools should be dairy free. I just think it's wildly problematic to have an issue with nuts without even acknowledging that all foods are potentially deadly allergens

I don't quite agree.

I think it's reasonable to try and limit exposure to common allergens in spaces that people are required to be in. Kids have to go to school (broadly speaking), so I think it's reasonable that life-threatening allergens are regulated in some way. It's obviously not practical or even possible to omit all potential allergens from a space, but risk limitation makes sense.

Out and about in most of the rest of the world, people can make their own risk assessments of where they judge is safe for them to go. Spaces where people have to be present should be made as safe as reasonably possible, I think. I do think the only reason we don't do this for dairy as well as nuts (they're both very serious and common) is because people are obsessed with cheese.

Definitely report it. Nut allergies is a bit of a catch all for things like this. My son has a nut allergy that includes pine nuts even thought they're not strictly speaking nuts.

As the mother of an anyphylactic child, I'd be eternally grateful to you for looking out for him and others with similar problems b

This is why "nut free" schools are stupid.

A pine nut isn't a nut, but people allergic to nuts are sometimes allergic to pine nuts so falls under the ban.

If a person allergic to nuts is also allergic to dairy or shrimp, do they also become nuts for the purpose of the ban?

If kids are allergic to dairy bit not nuts, do they just have to suck it up?

The science doesn't support nut bans as reducing risk, and most schools have kids allergic to many different things. It's not a useful approach.

So you could easily end up with a school that bans nuts, dairy, eggs, wheat, fish, and sesame products.

That seems really unworkable in terms of children actually eating.

This is why "nut free" schools are stupid.
A pine nut isn't a nut, but people allergic to nuts are sometimes allergic to pine nuts so falls under the ban.
If a person allergic to nuts is also allergic to dairy or shrimp, do they also become nuts for the purpose of the ban?

@TempestTost
Except, in the UK, a pine nut is generally not classified or labelled as a nut for the purposes of allergen avoidance…though I’m not sure what approach this particular school is taking of course.

I think nut free schools lead to the assumption amongst the general public that nut allergies are somehow more serious than other allergies. It's problematic for those with other allergies if their allergies are not taken as seriously.

My DC had twins in her primary class with severe but allergies so I would have told the school. It’s up to them to then decide if it is against their policy or not. The DC’s in my DC class had several reactions when they were there one was because a child in the class had Nutella for breakfast and then touched something in the class.