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?

Pretty sure most ARFID kids wouldnt be crying about no nut and seeds, no fish, no eggs.

most kids with very limited palettes will still be able to eat plain foods they generally prefer at this nursery. Breadsticks, sandwiches, safe fruits and veg, crisps, yoghurt pots, even Kit Kats (and therefore I assume many other choc covered biscuits like penguin bars, clubs, wagon wheels etc, so nursery aren’t actually being as strict as many other schools).

So marinate it.

And of course it's processed...So is cheese...so is bread ... So is milk ...so is yogurt...

So is the homemade chicken and vegetable soup you made with organic ingredients lovingly grown by hand your seasonal garden....

Yogurt with cut up grapes - seedless or a peach nectarine etc

brown bread doesn’t have seeds unless it says seeds??

I think a note is best.

doesn’t seeds mean seeds you can actually eat not just all seeds? Otherwise that would rule out most if not all fruits?

That doesn’t work for a nursery of differing ages and some children who cannot yet talk & communicate if they’re experiencing a reaction. Or be caught straight away if they’re sharing food.

that can work if the child with allergy has 1-2-1 supervision but if it’s multiple then it’s not possible. And even so I’d argue that approach should be one supervised by parents who are willing and able to take that risk. Rather than put on nursery staff.

As an allergy mum I dont see it as a sign of a good nursery, rather a lazy one.
They are transferring the responsibility of a child not having a reaction onto other parents.
Eg They can't possibly know if the innocent looking wafer bar that's allowed actually has nuts in....my kids food isn't sent in wrappers so defo no way of checking...and I bet they dont police familiar looking foods anyway.

UK Allergy advice is not to remove food from school but to be careful & vigilant

Interesting take.

From my experience, some nurseries we viewed didn't take the allergies seriously enough and had no rules in place.

The one we chose was super hot on allergies, including food banning, so that sat well with us.

I know foods aren't meant to be banned in schools and I do agree with this as the kids need to learn to risk assess. However, I don't believe this is the case for nurseries, is it?

Ultimately, my daughter's dairy allergy was the one that would cause the scariest reactions from traces, and dairy was actually never banned, so the staff had to be on the ball anyway!

I don't have baby nursery experience, just school nursery age 3. Not sure if that makes a difference.
School didn't ban any allergens, not even nuts where I am. Most kids allergen seemed to be dairy so birthday cakes were swapped out for haribo bags that went home with the child.

I don’t think that’s an overwhelming list, in that there is a huge amount of option outside of it, and I don’t think any of those things were ever in my packed lunch as a child to begin with.

I’ve got a lifelong nut allergy - peanuts, tree nuts and sesame, and to be honest think the ability to not die, should carry more weight than a simple dietary choice or someone’s simple preference for hummus.

Why can’t you just send her with wholemeal bread without seeds or oats?

Actually, Allergy UK advice for nurseries is this:

“If lunch boxes are brought into the setting, check them for allergens before they are given to the children and make sure all parents are aware of any known allergens, asking for their cooperation in avoiding these.”

So OP’s nursery appears to be following the guidelines.

Q: My child has a nut allergy and our school will not ban nuts, why?

It is not possible to guarantee and enforce a nut free zone as staff cannot monitor all lunches and snacks brought in from home. A free from environment creates a false sense of security and does not safely prepare children for environments where nuts may be present.

Age appropriate education and awareness is important.

The school would need to consider other children with different food allergies and it is not practical to restrict them all. The school should have procedures in place to minimise risk of reaction via cross contamination etc.

So maybe private baby nurseries are different to school nurseries.

I think a conversation with the manager and the labelling to demonstrate that your food does meet the guidance is the way forward.
If you are struggling for ideas, how about

• homemade baked beans ( would they heat them up?)
• vegan omelette made with aquafaba
• couscous or rice based dishes. We make a couscous salad which is eaten cold.
• sandwiches with home cooked meats etc. Bake your own gammon for ham, leftover roast chicken. Meatballs are delicious cold in a sandwich and can be made without egg
• fruit salad type desserts or vegan cupcakes

Obviously the labelling is key here and they have to agree that if you've labelled they will trust you !

So maybe private baby nurseries are different to school nurseries.

@constantnc The guidance is different for early years settings. I’m not sure being private has anything to do with it though.

Can I just state

not having these foods on site will be potentially saving a child’s life. So I wouldn’t be too bothered about it. I work in a nursery and we had a child allergic to egg, beans, nuts, bananas… so do you know what we did… didn’t have those on offer at all easy peasy.

… Until you have a celiac child join and another with a sesame allergy and dairy allergy ….

at which point you feed the kids water and raw veggies I guess???

it’s not sustainable to keep banning foods and expect other parents to keep up / understand.

our nursery kept my highly anaphylactic child safe with food protocols and supervision around food .

It is the nurseries responsibility to manage through risk assessment and adequate staffing - not putting the onus on other parents who frankly are (because they know no different as it’s not their issue ) often clueless about allergies and cross contamination etc…

This is exactly why this sort of thing won’t work. The OP herself admits she doesn’t check labels so who knows really what else has been sent in. And it only takes one parent to create a tragedy. I still don’t think the list is that hard to avoid, but if every parent has one meal that they aren’t careful about that will add up to a problem eventually.

i am anaphylaxis to shellfish so sometimes I just don’t eat if the restaurant doesn’t seem confident or my friends forget and have something on a buffet. I always have a granola bar with me. Allergies are hard and even adults make mistakes. It would be much easier for everyone if they focussed on the children who need protection instead of assuming everyone in the entire nursery will be vigilant.

You are being ridiculous. That’s not a long list.

And who wants to cause the death or illness of small children

stop flouting the list. You are creating work for the staff having to check your lunches and causing risks.

I'm celiac and I know how many times people trying to feed me have been caught out. There's no way people in general accurately read labels and interpret bans correctly. I'd be concerned with any setting whose allergy management relies on dozens of parents closely studying ingredients.

Something seems really off about the management of this. They need to be communicating with parents better, not just examining the contents of lunchboxes. To then complain about you giving pasta in a thermos when you're trying to find a way to comply with their requirements while also provide something your child will eat seems to point to an ill-prepared meal culture.

Given strawberries mashed into yoghurt was banned due to seeds then surely tomatoes and grilled veg as a minimum would be sent home too?

So you're left with... Cheese, different cheese, different cheese, cheese with apple, or tofu.

Great choice for a child! Not.

Young children are supposed to be exposed to a variety of foods each day, week. This list, and more importantly the nursery's policies and inflexibility, are batshit IMO. What is the child supposed to eat if so much of their lunch is sent home?

Much better for the nursery to take some responsibility and cook nice food, working around the known allergens.

This reeks of a nursery who can't be bothered to deal with some perfectly normal food sensitivities and allergies so are pushing the problem onto parents.

A few posters have said @Querious has repeatedly broken the rules, but I can’t see she has said that anywhere. Wholemeal bread doesn’t necessarily contain seeds, and they can’t mean seeds on strawberries.

@Querious it sounds super difficult. I would email the nursery and say you understand the rules, will be making homemade and will include a note of ingredients but they are not to remove food from your child and not to give them substitutes (esp UPFs, people really don’t understand how those have fucked with our biology).

In the opening post she said she’d sent in cake that contained egg as well as brownie with chocolate, and that the nursery had issues with these as neither egg nor chocolate are allowed (though Kitkats somehow are??)

The nursery is being lazy!

It is their job to be hyper vigilant about allergies instead they are passing the buck to other parents creating an unreal environment where these foods don’t exist

Ive made the vegan nyc cookies on the janes patisserie website and the were amazing. Sure you could sub the chocolate chips for raisins or something? It used stork baking block which was vegan. The normal recipie only had 1 egg in it and if I remember correctly you could use milk (vegan if needed) apple sauce or mashed banana to combine. There are tons of vegan recipes on there. I have a friend who's coeliac and a relative who's lactose intolerant and there are plenty of work rounds

Again, this is the guidance from Allergy UK for early years settings:
“If lunch boxes are brought into the setting, check them for allergens before they are given to the children and make sure all parents are aware of any known allergens, asking for their cooperation in avoiding these.”
OP’s nursery appears to be following that guidance.