Would you eat a packet of nuts on a plane?

[Purpleturtle45]

I thought it was widely understood that you don't eat nuts on a plane. The woman next to me just cracked a packet open!

Dairy allergies in children are common and a major cause of anaphylaxis, but cause about 5% of anaphylactic deaths in adults. The awareness of nut allergies seems to be helping to reduce incidence of anaphylaxis to nuts, but more awareness around milk allergies in children would be good.

Absolutely not, so selfish. It's just not worth the risk of someone's life.

In that case so is eating many other things people are allergic to!! It’s absolutely not selfish unless an announcement was made and someone done it anyway…THAT would be selfish, otherwise why does it matter when no nut allergy on board?

Flew to and from Jordan earlier this year - we were all served with packets of nuts

Of the flights I’ve been on in the past month.
Emirates A380. Business Class. 17 hour non stop flight. Warm nuts served with champagne. Bowls of nuts on the bar at the back of cabin
Singapore Airlines. A380 Economy. 13 hour non stop flight. Nuts on top of the dessert. Peanuts available as a snack in the galley.
BA Club World. Dreamliner. Medium Haul. Warm
nuts served with champagne
Ryanair. 4 hour Euro flight. Snickers, Peanut M&Ms, Toblerone and dry roasted peanuts available for purchase on board. I’ve just checked their menu online
Easyjet. No nut based items available for purchase onboard. Surprisingly when I checked their menu online.
Air New Zealand. Dreamliner. Premium Economy. 13 hr flight. No nuts at all inthe food or in the ‘Sky Pantry’. In fact they appear to have a ‘no nuts’ policy as to what they serve on board

Wotsits are not the same risk to milk allergy sufferers as peanuts are to peanut allergy sufferers. Wotsits are step 2 on the milk ladder, milk is step 6. There is no peanut ladder.
Wotsist contain 6% milk, peanuts contain 100% peanut.

Spilling milk is different as milk dries in and the risk of contamination is significantly less than peanut dust. It only takes a miniscule amount of peanut to cause fatal reaction. In desensitation programmes, the starting does is 1% of a peanut.
I do think there is a misunderstanding of how serious a milk allergy can be so I am not suggesting otherwise, I am just saying that due to the nature of the products, peanut dust cant be easily seen and a miniscule amount can cause a serious reaction, wotsit dust is not the same.

But tbh, people could be eating peanuts just before they get in a flight, bags could have peanuts in them the person sat in your seat before could have been scoffing peanuts all through the previous flight. Someone eating peanuts on your flight is unlikely to contribute to the risk by very much, if at all.

No, it's up to you to let the airline know or the people in your vicinity. It is not up to the woman next to you on the plane. I would eat nuts unless the airline had specified there was someone on board with an allergy.

I know someone with a severe strawberry allergy, she carries an epi pen. This is what needs to happen for nut allergy sufferers.

My son has an egg allergy, a bit different, but it is my responsibility to plan ahead.

If I was asked not to eat peanuts (either by the flight crew or by one of the people sitting near me), of course I wouldn't eat them - but if no-one objected, I would eat the nuts.

Yes, we were two weeks ago - well in a packet in our case, in economy! Yes, everyone ate them as far as I could see!

It was a country, where peanuts are used frequently in cooking. I doubt anyone could go in a restaurant and avoid them. They were even in the hotel breakfast buffets.

Not surprised, most of the popular western airlines have some form of allergens policy but outside of that it's widely variable and a lot depends on the national culture of the airline.

Thats why I mentioned upthread that people can't assume there's a worldwide standard policy when it comes to things like announcements and eating or not of peanuts on the aircraft.

I often/used to have peanut M&Ms but wouldn't open if asked not to. Now I'd prob play safe and not have them on me at all. But thats my personal choice, they're not banned.

99% of nut allergy sufferers will carry epipens (I've accounted for the maybe 1% who are daft and don't). They aren't a magic bullet, biphasic reactions can happen and they don't always work, and the last place you want to be if it doesn't work is at 40,000ft, which is why just carrying an EpiPen isn't enough.

I saw the girl that died on the plane got 2 EpiPen shots but still died as she'd consumed too much

Are you referring to the girl who sadly died after she ate the mislabelled sandwich?

How exactly would a ban work though? Let’s face it there is enough to do in security to prevent terriorist attacks how on other would you police it?

You can’t ban traces of nuts and you certainly can’t put nut allergies as being worse than sesame say. And quite a few things have nuts cereal bars for example.

there is an argument that airlines shouldn’t serve nuts and move to crackers and pretzels as that is fairly easy to do but stopping passengers bringing on - no just isn’t workable

and an easy way to let them know someone has an allergy

Actually, many nut allergy sufferers are not prescribed EpiPens. In our area, they are usually only prescribed if there has been a previous episode of anaphylaxis or if the patient also has asthma. So it is very possible to have a diagnosed allergy but only carry antihistamine (and reaction severity varies, so people in this position can still have an anaphylactic reaction).

Yes

Maybe then it should be that airlines carry an EpiPen as part of their first aid kit - seems a much easier thing to manage rather than policing passengers

Epipens don’t always work. Even when they do the reaction can come back later. That’s why you’re advised to go to a hospital after having an anaphylactic reaction.

My child must be in the 1% who doesn’t. Her allergy isn’t anaphylactic though. And it’s to cashew and pistachio. She gets the tingly lips and itchy throat and feels sickly. We have had the testing and we’re only offering antihistamines to carry. We try to avoid but in the early days hadn’t realised that certain pestos for example contained cashews so having had pesto in one place with no reaction she had a reaction somewhere else. Same with curry - school curry is nut free so when my mum offered my DD curry she had some as she liked it and then had a reaction. Realised that all curries from takeaways contain cashews. I’m not a curry eater so hasn’t realised this as I don’t buy it at home.

Sorry, just read my post back and realised I wasn't specific - should have read "nut anaphylaxis" rather than "nut allergy". Apologies!

I'm on a low carb diet, nuts are one of my staples and I always have some in my bag.

Of course if the flight crew announced that no one should eat nuts, I would comply.

But I wouldn't pro-actively avoid eating them.

Some airlines do (or certainly did) carry Epipens.

Tui flight.