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?

It's a bit much though, isn't it? They are taking a massively restrictive approach to allergens in the lunches that includes anything they think could possibly be "wrong" even if it in fact is fine, plus they feel they can moralise to parents about about whether their choices are healthy enough.

Pretty sure it’s more overwhelming for the parents of little ones with life threatening allergies….

Seedless sourdough bread with cheese
Fruit
Cucumer / Carrot sticks
Cheese stick (as in slice some cheddar)
Greek yogurt with raw honey
Chicken drumstick
Homemade sausage roll (can make with nitrate free sausages and omit the egg glaze)
Pasta salad
Oat flapjacks with butter & maple syrup

There’s basically loads of healthy options you can choose without risking other kids’ lives….

All schools do the last bit 😅

A chicken drumstick for nursery age children 🤣Parents working full time whipping up batches of home made sausage rolls, parents paying £££ for sour dough- no! Just no! The nursery needs to make clear such a restrictive food policy before parents sign up. Many would look elsewhere.

It’s not a good way to manage allergies and relies on many other people which no nursery can safely guarantee. Also to stop allergies children need exposure to foods which this limits and finally there are children with other food restrictions and intolerances who will end up with highly restrictive diets as a result of such an insane list.

OP I’d leave.

Any nurseries not ensuring the above aren’t happening aren’t nurseries I’d want my dc in. They’re clearly lazy and just want parents and children to do their job for them .

I’d find this really stressful and probably look to moving my child settings.
I understand that there are clearly children with significant allergies and it’s important to protect them but the stress of worrying if I’ve accidentally sent in the wrong thing and that may harm a child or may result in my child not eating much would be quite overwhelming for me.

Half the things on your list are full of UPFs.
Meat substitutes are definitely not healthy.

As is puff pastry in reference to the previously mentioned home made sausage rolls unless working parents are supposed to be whipping up batches of homemade puff pastry too. Pastry also has little fibre in it.

Don’t be stupid. Obviously the other children can be exposed to the allergens at home or elsewhere, but the nursery have a duty of care to protect the children with life threatening allergies.

I’ve listed the above foods because the OP mentioned she wants to avoid UFPs and makes a lot of things herself. You can carry on giving your kids a Dairylea lunchable or whatever else you want, but yeah believe or not some toddlers do eat well and eat chicken drumsticks just fine…

OP is already sending in lots of homemade food as she doesn’t want UPFs. That’s her prerogative.

100% agree with this. I have always said it should be the responsibility of the person with the allergy and their family to manage risk, not the world around them. It is impossible to control everything around a person with allergies.

My friend's daughter has a nut allergy and from a young age she was taught never to accept food from others or touch other people's food.

Chicken drumsticks have bones and really aren’t ok in a setting for babies and toddlers particularly if they can’t even stop lunch box sharing!

The guidelines seem to be different for very small children.

It’s all very well your friend’s DD learning not to accept food from others or to share food, but what if her little nursery friend eats a peanut butter sandwich and then sneezes in her face, hugs her, kisses her, bites her in a moment of pique.
Very small childrare are much messier and more unpredictable than older ones.

And presumably it also took some time for your friend’s DD to learn how to keep herself safe around food? There will have been a period where she was too small to be aware, and then a period where she made mistakes. The nursery environment needs to be safe for children as they learn to protect themselves.

Well the healthy eating policies in nurseries and schools have been in place in the last few years from government directives. Due to the fact the uk has among some of the fattest toddlers and primary age children in the world. So obviously a significant proportion of parents aren’t able to make good food choices without structure in place

Eh? a chicken drumstick is an entirely normal thing to put into a kids lunch box, if you are trying to feed them healthily and don’t want them to have a sandwich every day. My kids often have leftover meats from the fridge in their lunchboxes, also leftover casseroles / pasta / cous cous/ stir fry etc. I’m not “whipping up” any of these dishes at 5am for them, I’m sticking them in the microwave and then in a thermos, very easy.

Obviously you don’t need to pay £££ for sour dough but I imagine the poster above was making the point that if the OP (who wants to feed her kid high quality non UPF items) wants to put bread in then sourdough is an option. All high quality non UPF bread will be £££ unless you are making it yourself. And regardless, barely any normal breads have nuts, seeds or egg in them anyway so can’t really understand what the fuss about not sending in sandwiches is about.

imagine it from the nurseries perspective, they have a lot of children they are trying to keep safe. If a child has a severe allergic reaction in their nursery that will be a traumatic experience for everyone, and opens up the nursery to scrutiny, possible legal action. It’s scary. Of course they are going to be very cautious with what comes in, esp homemade / unusual items.

Just to be devil's advocate here but it might be a member of staff that has a severe allergy to one or more things.

A child who has eaten an egg mayo sandwich might take the hand of a worker.

So you have

meat
veg
pasta / potatoes / bread / rice for a carb component.
fruit - but clarify the seed bit.
dairy.

So pasta with a sauce, passatta is a good option.
A Wrap with salad and chicken or beef and peppers
Fresh fruit - sliced mango, strawberries, blueberries, slices of apple, slices of pear
yoghurt
meatballs in pita bread
cooked baby potatoes
cherry tomatoes
cheese

I think in these situations communication with the nursery is key.
It's ok to be worried and overwhelmed by allergies, I can't talk for all allergy parents but for me it was definitely worrying and overwhelming to start with. Read ingredients carefully, the main allergens have to be in bold or underlined so they are easier to spot. If you are unsure send a picture of the ingredients or recipes for sanity checks. The nursery might have advice from the parent about what is suitable. Once you have a safe list of things you can send in it just becomes less stressful
I send my daughter into all childcare settings with a list of foods she can eat and also where to buy them. For example my daughter has a soya allergy and for bread it takes me very little time to say branded bread, Sainsbury's and Morrisons avoid, own brands in Tesco, Aldi, co-op and Waitrose are ok. Bread products like wraps, crumpets and pittas usually ok.
The other thing is that exclusion aren't or shouldn't be the last line of defense. Parents shouldn't send in excluded foods but at the same time nurseries should be checking foods, they should be ensuring that any child with allergies isn't at risk of touching or eating other foods, food is kept to the eating area, good hand hygiene to ensure that there's no cross contamination to door handles and toys and so on.

It’s not crap! It’s similar to the mix that my celiac neighbour uses, but for those of us who only do occasional GF baking, it’s better than buying packs of each of the ingredients separately

Ingredients from the packet:

Potato Starch, Tapioca Starch, Vegetable Gum, Citric Acid

Then don’t be obtuse and remove the chicken off the bone

Wow

These are literally healthy foods being remove for less healthy food!

talking about a vicious circle! Probably what is in the food is the reason why allergens developed in the first place!

No, what working parents have the time to pick if what meagre chicken there is off drumsticks if a morning?

This, this, this!!!!

No way would I be feeding my baby or toddler UPF foods containing ingredients like that.

It’s up to nurseries to safeguard allergies not parents that nursery staff actually have little scrutiny over and will have no idea what is in many foods. If nurseries can’t stop lunchbox sharing on ratios of an adult per 4 children they’ve got serious issues to worry about.

Yes, I’m sure it’s all the allergic people’s own fault 🙄🙄