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?

You can guarantee 100%🤣

You absolutely can’t speak for what all kids eat 5 days a week.

Outright food bans aren’t necessarily seen as best practice anyway.

Never said you would.

But their sandwich would have bread and butter in it - alongside any filling you choose.so they would be getting a source of protein. even if the filling isn;t protein based. Could be cucumber or tomato or marmite or jam or whatever# they'd still be able to get protein.

and even if there was zero protein in the lunch by some weird contrivance - its ONE SMALL MEAL a day - they can have a protein packed breakfast, dinner and any snacks can be protein based.

Why would they go hungry?

My child can't eat nuts, seeds or eggs (amongst other things) and he doesn't go hungry. It would be even less of a thing if it only had to be one meal a day as opposed to all meals every day.

Sure - ok there's definitely a child that ONLY eats nuts, seeds and eggs to the exclusion of every other single food source on the entire planet .... and they happen to go to this nursery.... I'm sure it will be fine if they take their lunch in.

Your child doesn’t have a hugely restrictive diet alongside food fears.

I've seen plenty of kids have just bread and biter in their sandwiches ...

so what?

She just cant have nuts at nursery - feed her nuts every minute of the day around nursery if it means so much to you ...

He does have quite the restrictive diet.

So what?

how many children of nursery age on the entire planet will only eat nuts, seeds and eggs, to the exclusion of every other food source?

Apart from nuts (which I can understand), unless the child(ren) with the allergies are nicking from someone else's lunchbox, what is the problem?

So no baked goods containing egg?

Ok so bread or biscuits are OK. As long as not seeded.

No nuts is pretty standard.

No chocolate or sweets isn't allergens, it's just for health reasons.

So meat, veg, fruit, crackers, cheese, rice, couscous, corn, pulses all ok.

That's not too bad really.

Very messy eaters at that age and they play very closely together.
The AllergyUK guidelines seem to be different for early years settings (under 5s) compared to their guidelines for schools in general.

Age.

My son is 10 and he understands that he can only eat lunch from his lunch box, not to share food and many other things he's old enough to understand that keeps him safe and out of hospital.

Very different story if we're talking about toddlers.

an elaborate meal ....

its very difficult to make a sandwich - everyone knows this - even harder to put some left over pasta in a tub - yep very tricky... and putting a banana or an apple or a satsuma or a pear in a box...how very bothersome. Wait .. cutting up cucumber or tomatoes or peppers, it's very awkward - we all know how dififcult it is.

🙄

I will quite happily fall over with shock if anyone has an autistic child who will only eat nuts and seeds.

They’re far more likely to be averse to them.

It’s a red herring anyway. In a fictional reality where someone’s child has a diagnosis of a ND that means they’ll only eat eggs, nuts and seeds - the nursery would have to deem that a health need, and accommodate for it. Which they don’t have to do for a parent’s preference to send focaccia bread.

Wants and needs are different. And would be if it was a genuine diagnosed health need for ND too.

https://www.allergyuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Early-Years-and-Allergies.pdf

They do advise that the nursery check lunchboxes and that they ask parents for their cooperation.

I thought the list wasn’t too bad to follow, but I can’t believe they’re actually taking the food away from your child when they’re unsure, especially in case the glaze is egg glaze when it’s not. Plus, did you add seeds to the yoghurt or were they unhappy about the seeds on the strawberries? That would rule out all fruit and veg which I would be very unhappy about. I would try adding notes maybe. It must take a long time to audit all the lunchboxes in such detail, which does make me wonder if it’s quite a serious allergy.

its very difficult to make a sandwich - everyone knows this

If you're coeliac it is difficult to make a sandwich without egg, a lot of gluten free bread contains egg.

Most biscuit recipes contain egg. And as someone said ahead, a lot of gluten free bread contains egg to hold it all together. I think this is the problem. They can’t possibly know what is in the food, but aren’t trusting the parents to follow the instructions.

Lots of posters being very sanctimonious that it’s not a restrictive list and then including examples of foods that are very clearly on the banned list (mayonnaise, pesto, hummus) and others that may be (wheat, rice quinoa, oats, chickpeas, beans) depending on the classification system being used.

The problem is less the OPs ability to pull together a reasonable lunch and more the unclear standards which have seen her sesame free hummus and seed free bread banned.

I actually had an argument with someone once when I was looking for vegan GF bread, as they were insistent that dairy free = no egg.

I have never complained about her not having nuts. I was replying to you saying that there isn't a child where only from that list nuts would be the only thing they could eat. While actually as my daughter is allergic to dairy and eggs and soya (including eating meat from animals fed soya) and coconut and peas and fish and tomatoes and aubergine and onion and shellfish and garlic and beef and peppers and celery and celeriac and tapioca plus others. As well as previously having a gluten intolerance and needing a low fibre, high fat diet for her toddler diarrhoea. he only she would be able to eat would have been the nuts which is exactly the reason she doesn't have packed lunches.

One thing that is annoying for me as an allergy parent is that these restrictions don't accommodate those that have other allergies that aren't nuts.

I think for many it’s because they wouldn’t send a 3 year old to nursery with chick peas to begin with.

As an aside, some of us also have children with genuinely very restrictive diets, based on actual real needs, so not being able to send them with eggs just seems like nothing.

Why would wheat, quinoa, oats, chickpeas, beans etc be problematic? Genuine question.

I think we have to remember that at best this protocol is designed to lessen or minimise risks, not to prevent risk altogether.
Careful supervision and awareness will still be needed on the nursery’s side.

I agree with others that notes might be helpful in cases where OP is using a free-from version of foods that are more usually problematic (sesame-free hummus or egg-free pastry wash for example). Otherwise they’re bound to cause alarm.

ETA I know it’s a hassle but most parents wouldn’t want to put a child at risk if they could help it. Hopefully?

Eggs as an ingredient in a cake? Aren’t there eggs in bread and pasta too?