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?

So in all this with poster's stating things as facts and other people stating the facts stated are wrong if this many poster's can't agree on what is facts or not how on earth would parents be able when sending food for their children or schools themselves?

The problem highlights that most ordinary people who don’t have children with allergies don’t understand and have the detailed education.

I honestly have now learnt all about pine nuts, cashews, peanuts but didn’t before. This is actually quite detailed knowledge that you can expect average Joe to follow without detailed instructions.

if there was a specific child with a life threatening allergy in a class/school I would expect the school to send very detailed information about that what can and can’t be brought in. I wouldn’t expect parents to research all this. It isn’t practical.

Please report.

It is true that traditionally pesto only contains pine nuts. However, most brands now contain significant quantities of cashew nuts in them.

Your friend is an idiot who could end up killing someone. A dear friend of mine died from her nut allergy aged 18. I still miss her.

Hi, I know pesto is pine nuts which are tree nuts / seeds (these can be allergens too) but a lot of shop brought pesto in jars has cashew nuts in it, I can never buy it myself due to allergies and I make my own.

It's worth mentioning to the school, you never know how an allergy can affect someone.

For me cashews give me an instant headache but for a child it could be more severe.

Exactly

Why are nut allergies so common now? 1 in every 50 children. Tripled over the last 30 years.

https://www.uhs.nhs.uk/whats-new/news/peanut-allergies-could-dramatically-fall-if-babies-weaned-early-on-peanut-products

There seems to be a potential link between pet ownership during and before pregnancy reducing the risk for allergies AFAIK.

except for hamsters (according to some Japanese study IIRC).

improved hygiene is often cited as a reason IIRC. Which - I would suspect - might explain the possible association between pet ownership and allergies. Most pets - as much as I adored my cat - aren’t particularly hygienic.

changing agricultural methods, external factors impacting our immune systems and a delayed introduction of certain foods might play a role as well.

IF I wanted to put my tinfoil hat on I’d wonder about formula feeding tbh.

Surely the school just changes what bans are in place if a child attending has as serious allergy. Since we’ve been at our primary school it’s been a bit free school as children with severe but allergies attend. Last year new pupil with severe egg allergy started attending so it’s now a nut and egg free school. It’s about mitigating risk.

Last year new pupil with severe egg allergy started attending so it’s now a nut and egg free school. It’s about mitigating risk.

As someone who has coeliac children I'd really object to an egg free school, lots of gf bread contains egg, and eggs feature quite heavily in their diet which is already hugely limited due to avoiding gluten. They also have an allergy to bananas but I don't expect those to be banned.

It's just not practical to ban all foods where a child is allergic. In their school that would be at least nuts, bananas, kiwis, strawberries, eggs and milk and that's just the ones I know about.

Nut/Peanut allergies are particularly serious though. There are a number of reasons for this. You’re more likely to have a severe or fatal reaction if you ingest some food allergens than others, and nuts and peanuts are a prime culprit, especially in adults. Dairy is also particularly dangerous in children. It does vary by geography too.

The linked figure shows fatal cases of anaphylaxis in the UK between 1992 and 2012, and it gives a picture of how serious peanut and nut allergies are. The fact that the seriousness of dairy allergy in children is not widely recognised by the public is also a big problem. The public can underestimate the problems caused by fish/shellfish too. And, as you can see from the part of the figure entitled ‘other’, fatal reactions can come from a wide variety of sources. All allergies do need to be taken very seriously.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/M-Gowland/publication/268883665/figure/fig1/AS:392230629068820@1470526477804/Cause-of-fatal-food-induced-anaphylaxis-cases-by-trigger-in-children-A-and-adults-B.png

Some of the reasons why peanuts make powerful allergens are outlined here.

theconversation.com/tough-nuts-why-peanuts-trigger-such-powerful-allergic-reactions-127120

Pine nuts are seeds not nuts

Don't report, pesto is fine. If you feel you must contact the school maybe ask them to provide a definitive list of what's allowed and what's not. Rather than put the onus on parents to make a judgement on something like "are pine nuts actually nuts" it would be so much simpler for the school to just provide a list of products/brands that are allowed in school and another that aren't.

Nut allergy mum here. Most pesto is made with cashew nuts and could kill my daughter. However there are pestos that are nut free. And yes, pine nuts are a seed, not a nut

Are you returning to your judgemental thread?

Thought not.

Pine nuts will cause a reaction my friend ended up in hospital because some moron added pesto to the sauce I'd made! I felt horrible 🙁

Actually, @nomas, as the mother of children with allergies, I really appreciate people like the OP who take allergies seriously and look out for my kids.

Whether nuts should be banned in schools is a separate issue. (Personally I think it depends on the age of the children and that it’s appropriate for small children but not others.) But in OP’s school, they are banned, so to then not comply is particularly dangerous as those with allergies won’t be trying to avoid them there, and teachers may be less strict about not food sharing or hand-washing after eating. Basically, schools that don’t ban nuts put in place other strategies to keep allergic children safe, and those strategies may not be in place in this school.

To a large extent people with allergies do have to rely on the decency and the awareness of others, whether that is eating out, or in a nut-free school, etc. There is a lot you can do to help yourself, but not everything can be controlled by the allergic person and they do need to rely on others too.

I also think the school needs to be very clear about what is and isn’t allowed and, as has been mentioned already, that might be the best way to approach it with them OP, rather than ‘telling tales’ on a particular mother. It’s not fair to expect the general public to research the ingredients of things or know common substitutions in products when they don’t usually need that information.

However, you’ll still get people (like OP’s friend) who don’t really seem to care even when informed.
It is a constant worry.

trouble is often pesto has cashew in it - DD is super sensitive to that even in small quantities.