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?

Not to drip feed sorry, I don’t want to explicitly say I haven’t broken any rules (probably have through not checking every label of food) but I’ve definitely not sent anything that’s obvious. Brownies did have a bit of chocolate in, but mainly beetroot/ cocoa powder for colour, which I thought would be ok as they encourage things like kitkats (described as wafer biscuits covered in chocolate on their safe list), but I guess they thought they were fully chocolate so I should’ve put a note in. Argh!

Shortbread and some scone recipes are egg free, maybe pastry pinwheels or cheese twists if you enjoy baking !

(Ideas occured after my last post)

I've removed many banned items from lunchboxes in my time, including whole pistachios, nutella products (labelled and branded), cadbury's and quality street nut chocolates, hazelnut cakes (bought) and pesto pasta. Nivea suncream also used to contain almond oil so we had to ban that as well.

Or the children with restrictive diets.

My autistic son lived on hummus and peanut butter.

Pastry is really unhealthy to be having on a regular basis. Wholemeal bread is far better. Who on earth has the time to be making pinwheels if working full time anyway.

Mad if they’re allowing kitkats but not brownies from a chocolate point of view OP. Were there eggs in the brownies? Maybe it’s the no cake (egg) rule you fell foul of?

You mentioned the custard pots as confusing the issue, but lots of pre-prepared custard, eg Bird’s, is egg-fee. In fact Mr Bird’s wife had an egg allergy which is why he came up with the custard!

The seeds one is a bit mad...there's such a wide variety of seeds, do they have children allergic to every type of seed?

Off the top of my head....

Cheddar and tomato
Cheese and celery
Cheese and lettuce
Mozzarella, tomato & basil
Cream cheese with cucumber/tomato/lettuce/grated carrot
Halloumi (grilled or pan-fried)
Brie
Cheddar and grated apple
Grilled vegetables (aubergine, courgette, peppers, onion)
Avocado
Coleslaw
Chickpea mash
Tofu slices (grilled or marinated)
Paneer
Bean patties

My autistic veggie son couldn’t eat cheese.

Tofu is UPF and bean patties and chickpea mash in a sandwich🤮

Not really - a Kitkat is packaged and labelled so you can see what it is. A random thing cooked by somebody cannot be trusted in the same way; I've managed to narrowly avoid being poisoned by people insistent that their cake is gluten free when it's been made with self raising flour instead of yeast, for example.

Wow, you CAN read.
I'll increase the difficulty now for you!

You can't choose anything which the nursery staff might consider problematic or unclear.

You don't want to use UPF.

And you don't want to use meat-based protein two days in a row.

You want something the child will actually eat.

Noone is saying it is impossible. Just that your long lists are not proving anything.

Well she also sent in eggs and chocolate so there’s some confusion here.

It all sounds exhausting and complicated to keep the children safe while also allowing external food to be brought in. I’ve been thinking about this, and if the allergies are this severe I’d ask for a review of the situation. No one can promise a totally egg and nut and seed free environment at home, so anything from home can easily be cross contaminated. So really they should do something like our primary school and keep the allergy kids safe at their own table. Particularly with toddlers who are going to be messy and touch each other and everything else. We had plenty of allergies at our nursery but everyone was required to use nursery food so they knew exactly what was in it.

So while I think it’s not that hard to provide an allergy free menu for your child, I would question the setup as it sounds like there are children with serious allergies and this isn’t a particularly safe setup for them.

Plain tofu isn't upf.

My daughter, at nursery age, was anaphylactic to dairy, egg, nuts, sesame, fish, shellfish, seeds , peas, chickpeas, lentils, and kiwi.

Obviously chocolate and sweets weren't allowed.

I still managed to send in healthy lunch every day! Rice, chicken and veg or pasta and minced meat, veggie sushi, fruit salad, crudités, bread sticks, soya yoghurt, bean burgers, grilled tofu ...

It's obviously a drag having to stick to the list, but they're not asking you to be difficult. They're trying to avoid children getting seriously sick or dying while in their care.

Young children share food or touch other's food and it's a sign of a good nursery that they're doing all they can to keep the kid's safe.

Imagine your child had the allergies and you had to feed them this way 24/7. For you, its just one meal a day until they go to school.

Have a bit of empathy for the allergic children, their families, and the nursery staff who have to shoulder the responsibility.

Feel for you op, I'd find that really difficult to work with. We're vegan so eat a lot of nuts, seeds and beans although egg-free would be fine (although probably not pass their visual inspection which seems to be the real issue for you)

It’s processed and pretty grim plain.

Agree, but OP said it was the chocolate in them that was the problem. I agree that doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Are you actually typing those lists, or generating them?

I just can't see anyone finding joy in listing cheese A with tomato, cheese B with tomato, cheese A with lettuce, cheese B in lettuce to be able to call it plenty of choices :))

Fruit? Cheese? Crisps? Sandwich?

whats difficult here?

My dc have autism. 1 had a restrictive diet, all were veggie and one was very underweight. They couldn’t have attended that nursery. With the drive against UPFs they are going to struggle to keep children with such a long list of banned healthy foods .

Jesus Christ. You're just being difficult now..
A vegetarian child isn't being overly restricted on their choices, just because they can't have egg or nut butters for a few meals a week ...

@RessicaJabbit i can’t understand why everyone’s jumping on you! Your suggestions make sense and show there is a ton of stuff a veggie child can eat without needing to eat nuts, seeds and eggs.

I mean come on. Half of food packed for nursery kids comes back uneaten / mauled / smushed anyway. Just make a list of five “main” things your child will eat and do one per day with a different type of fruit, a different type of veg, and a different sweet thing thrown in with it.

I get wanting to feed your children UPF and a big variety etc etc but nursery lunches are not the place to do it, keep it simple and on rotation (so they nursery staff don’t freak out and ban it again), and expand your child’s palette during breakfasts and dinners at home.

The sandwich filling lists are all well and good, but the nursery doesn’t seem to accept OP’s choice of bread despite it not containing anything banned. Which makes sandwiches a bit difficult.

Not all children like white or plain brown bread.

Loads of healthy foods are processed.

Okay.... So they can have different breads then, can't they...or bread sticks or crackers... And have the filling separately if needed....

Or another form of carbohydrate that they like...

Or the nursery could stop being so bloody ridiculous and just let OP get on with it, as long as she doesn’t send in banned food.