Nursery packed lunches - allergens list feels overwhelming!

[Querious]

Hi all, NC’d for this one! Never thought I’d be this kind of person to question an allergy policy in schools as I have lots of friends and family both currently and in childhood with dietary requirements like coeliac/ severe nut allergies/ vegan etc which I’ve always tried my best to accommodate when hosting them at mine or going out places to eat. However, my DC’s nursery have created such an exhaustive list of banned food in packed lunches that I’m really struggling to put together something healthy ish that a 3 year old will eat! Not allowed:

• egg (incl mayo and as an ingredient)
• nuts (incl coconut)
• seeds
• fish
• Chocolate
• sweets

I try to cook/ bake most things we consume and keep mainly low UPF but I’m not a zealot about it. Because of this however, the teachers are routinely removing things from my child’s lunchbox for fear of causing a reaction. In the short return after Christmas this has included greek yoghurt with strawberries blended into it (questioned the seeds so replaced with a packaged yoghurt), a sandwich made with wholemeal bread (seeds), a sandwich made from white focaccia (had some black flecks in - pepper, but they couldn’t be sure), hummus (homemade with no nuts but they couldn’t be sure!!), beetroot brownies (too much chocolate), sausage rolls (queried egg glaze, it was actually milk) and a piece of cake (as cakes are made with egg).

Genuinely tearing my hair out to figure out what I can put in a lunchbox that ticks all the nursery’s boxes plus my own lower UPF plus my DC’s picky habits - plus isn’t the same thing every day! For ex DC won’t reliably eat white bread, probably because we don’t buy it, prefers the hardest crustiest uncut bread you can buy 😂 I can’t afford school lunches and the menus aren’t great from a UPF perspective. Help! AIBU to think this is really difficult?

Christ what a completely absurd and in all likelihood counterproductive way to handle allergen safety in that kind of setting. No wonder the birthrates are headed for zero.

In our school when a child had a serious allergy they meant they couldn’t be around allegens (except nuts) the child was not able to be in the lunch hall. You can’t ban everything a child has an airborne allergy
to, it’s too restrictive for other children and that is when we don’t even have packed lunches so technically the caters could comply.

what is their policy?

That list contains restricted items like pasta and hummus! Possibly lentils will be prohibited too. Crisps and crackers are also unhealthy and maybe removed!
I don't think you appreciate the difficulty here and not every child will eat other stuff you have mentioned.

Yeah I don’t think the list is the issue, ours was the same list. The staff did keep a vigilant eye but wouldn’t have been bothered once I explained the pepper situation for example. I thought it was commonly known no cakes or chocolate to be sent in though so don’t think that’s unreasonable. I’d also expect to be questioned on the hummus too. Can’t you just send obvious things in to save everyone (including you) the hassle. We used to write on everything what was in it, is that an option?

If they rejected a portion of yoghurt because op has mushed a strawberry into it then they will also reject all the items in your comment that contain seeds. No pun intended but I think they are nuts and do not understand how to assess the foods. Literally every fruit contains seeds, that's basic biology. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, apples.... honestly this nursery sounds unhinged.

I've just had a look at that sainsburys bread as I'd struggled to find egg free some time ago. I see it's a new recipe and has just been made egg free, the reviews are not positive!

They are being a bit over the top. Your child has a packed lunch which your child will be eating. If your child has allergies to foods you will not include them in your child's lunch box.
If there is a child with allergies then that child will not have foods in the lunch box that cause issues.
I worked in pre-school. We had lunches. We also had a child with allergies. We also had children with religious food restrictions. Each child had his or her own lunch. We never had issues with lunches.
The only thing I can think of is that the children are not supervised at lunch times, therefore enabling them to take others food. Of course, there is also the option for a child to take his egg and mayo sandwich and liberally smear every toy in the nursery with it.

I think the only issue was they didn’t know they were strawberry seeds. A note for anything a bit different is the way to go I think OP.

many people allegies to strawberries but seem to be low key learned when my bro wayhaving trouble tomotoes and strawberries can cause acne ,rashes etc
many dont know they are allergy

As a vegetarian, having no eggs, seeds or nuts is actually quite challenging as they are key protein sources. I assume you can’t send hot food and I don’t know any toddlers who’d happily eat cold beans or cold tofu. So it would be cheese on repeat which is not particularly healthy. You can’t argue with the ban on sweets though.

I empathise with this but also as a mother of a 5 yr old son with a severe sesame allergy, the idea of hummus coming into school to potentially get smeared on tables, frightens the life out of me.
My packed lunches could accommodate your allergy list as they were nothing great (not high on UPFs but probably a bit higher than yours). Cheese sandwich, yoghurt, piece of fruit. All quite boring but easily avoids the allergies….

How do nurseries police what children eat at home?
What would happen if a child had peanut butter on seeded toast for breakfast at home? Or boiled egg and seeded toast?

I’m asking because my DN is allergic to peanuts and she had an allergic reaction to her DGM eating peanut butter 8 hours earlier. She DN was hugging with her face touching!
And she had washed her hands and washed her face after eating!!

You can use egg free mayo with turkey or ham sandwiches.
cheese sandwiches
savour veg muffins (made with cheese and whichever veg you decide, works well with broccoli!)
crackers/oatcakes and creams cheese/sliced cheese
baby cucumbers
melon
sausges
annabel karmel chicken and apple balls
peppers, tomatoes, pretzels, breadsticks,
oaty flapjacks instead of cake?
bluberries or banana in yogurt

I’m not sure OP is vegetarian though?
She was sending sausage rolls (homemade I think) into nursery. Perhaps they were vegetarian ones but there was no mention of that.

They don’t police that.

Call them out.

They didn’t like a glaze on a sausage roll but ok with egg in custard?

Didn’t like a brownie but ok with a Kit Kat? That has got to be taking the piss. That has nothing to do with an allergy then

@fashionqueen0123
Most pre-prepared custard pots are egg-free, eg Bird’s. I think that’s what nursery meant but OP didn’t realise.
The chocolate situation seems odd but, in general, I think they’re finding the home made food problematic because they don’t know what’s in it.
Communication is the key here.

It seems obvious to me a brownie isn’t a slab of chocolate and it appears to be a different issue to the allergy one as then they wouldn’t allow Kit Kats.

That makes sense re the custard then.

Ive never heard of a seed ban though! So this whole thing seems odd

I'd do baguette with cream cheese on top (own brand cream cheese is often not upf).

Or cheese and crackers. Breadsticks and cream cheese as a dip?

Lancashire Farm do a squeezy pouch of vanilla or strawberry Greek yoghurt now which I don't think are upf. They aren't a cheap way to buy yoghurt but would prove to the nursery that the yoghurt is safe.

Then I'd do carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, olives, apple slices (or other fruit and veg as your child likes and as per season).

Then either a shortbread biscuit or other commercial non upf biscuit, or something that normally doesn't contain eggs like flapjack. I agree, as a baker, that not being able to use egg and it also having to be obvious that you haven't, does make it very restrictive.

I sometimes put sausages in my DC's lunchbox. It's 95% pork which I buy so I don't worry about the 5% upf.

Maybe they were worried about eggs in the brownie, I don’t know.

It’s possible that one of the children presently in the nursery is allergic to various seeds?

Save time, and food, ask the nursery for as detailed a list of acceptable foods for children's lunch boxes. After all, if they have a prescribed list of banned foods, then they should have a prescribed list of alternatives.

It would be pretty difficult to manage I imagine they might ask parents to avoid peanuts and also limit contact in the room between children to reduce the risk. From a parent perspective I'd probably chose a smaller setting where there are fewer children and risk of exposures or family/friend based child care.

I have a few friends who's children are allergic to contact not just ingestion of food and they have to be careful with parks, groups/classes and soft plays as they cross contamination of dairy and other allergens from uncleaned hands whilst handling equipment/toys is enough for them to react.

How hands are cleaned can also be impact the cross contamination - proteins are effectively removed when washed with soap but not when they are washed with water or with hand sanitizer.

Probably, but the adults won't let the children take things out of their boxes, or think it's fun to swap bits and bobs, will they. They also won't make a massive mess, fail to wash their hands properly, and go smearing egg all over the toys. Probably.

I swear there is seed oil in everything that comes packed? Apart from fresh fruits/veggies. Most breads/toasts have them.

My daughters nursery had a no homemade food policy and her school has a no food for sharing policy.
It's not just trusting the that dairy free butter is used instead of butter it can come down to which dairy free butter has been used. So they would need to provide the ingredients of all of the ingredients not just butter, oat milk etc. My daughter is allergic to coconut so since flora made all of their butters dairy free she can't have them and there are some oat milks she can't have as they have pea protein in.

Also, companies don't have to make it clear that they have changed the recipe so you would need to see the package of each ingredient. So far there has only been one parent that I have trusted to make my daughter cake and only because her children also have food allergies and she checks all the ingredients with me. With all other parties I give the parents a list of the supermarket cakes that are safe for all of the children in my daughters class (8/30 are dairy free, 1 also nut free and my daughter is dairy, egg & other things free) or I provide small cakes.