AIBU to report nut-containing muffins being brought into a nut-free school?

[AlmondFlourmuffins]

I’m really conflicted whether to keep quiet about something or not . If I say something it will be completely obvious it was me that reported.

Dd best friend always takes in a homemade muffin to school as has packed lunch. Dd had a play date and when I picked her up said that she had some and can we make them for her lunches after the half term break so I asked for the recipe.
One was a ‘Bakewell muffin’ made with almond flour and glace cherries the other was a peanut butter chocolate and banana marbled muffin. The thing is it’s a nut free school and when I said ‘oh I’m surprised you’ve got away with this’ after she shared the recipe she just laughed. Now I’m feeling like it’s wrong?

I know in the class there are no nut allergies but I have no idea obviously about the rest of the year/school. But if I say something is it going to cause a massive problem ? This is dd best friend and I just don’t know what to do ?

Nuts are the only thing that ever get bans. DCuz has an egg allergy, (she's actually a bit better with it now), when she was a kid she had severe reactions/was hospitalised and nothing was ever banned. She works in a school now and although she hasnt been hospitalised since being a child, her pupils can still eat mayo etc for lunch.

No there isn’t. Not if there’s a dairy allergic child in the school then there should be a blanket ban on dairy if the school are going to stick to a blanket ban on nuts. You can’t have it both ways. Either allergies are serious and to be taken seriously thus meaning the banning of all allergens, or they’re not. You can’t just ban one because it’s easy and leave the other to take their chance because you know that it’s neither reasonable nor possible to ban the other.

If We had a post on here saying that a parent had sent in a sandwich which contained butter instead of spread and should they report them everyone would be saying that banning dairy was not realistic. And they’re right.

And while banning nuts is possible, it’s just a stunt really when the same schools will happily allow dairy which causes more deaths than nuts.

The same parents here who are saying that by sending your child into school with nut based products are going to cause the death of a child clearly don’t prescribe the same sentiment to them sending bread and butter in with their child. Why is that?

This is up there with people in lockdown accusing those going out for milk of murder because they went to the shops, I think we had such terms then as “you clearly don’t mind then if people die because two of you went out instead of one,”

Not really, in a school that bans nuts but does not ban dairy. Dairy is a whole food group and it's often recommended in a lunchbox for a primary aged child.

We were given an egg ban for a few years when there was an egg allergic child at our school. It was a mess. Some people removed actual eggs, some also removed mayo from sandwiches, pasta salads etc but others carried on using it, and the school itself served quiche.

You can let school know OP but it's quite possible it'll result in the school falling in line with Allergy UK's recommendation of removing the nut ban. Our school has just done exactly that.

You have misunderstood. I am saying that if you have or have not been asked to avoid an allergen matters. I am not saying dairy allergies are not dangerous and equally worthy of our concern. If a school asked me to avoid dairy in lunches for a child’s safety, I would do that. If you haven’t been asked, you can’t take action.

Anaphylaxis UK do not recommend Nut bans

"We don’t typically recommend complete nut bans because they are very difficult to enforce and can lead to a false sense of security. Children can be allergic to other common food allergens, for example milk and egg, and it would be impossible to ban them all. We recommend a whole school allergy awareness approach of all allergens. Settings should carry out an individual risk assessment for any child with an allergy and put appropriate measures in place to reduce the risks as far as possible. Every setting is different, but this may include extra cleaning measures or adjustments of the timings and locations of meals and snacks if necessary."

Discussion with Anaphylaxis UK and Allergy speacialist

Also in canada they did research and there more hospitalisations from nut free schools than those that didnt ban nuts.

These allergies can be fatal - would you want that on your conscience? If your child had this serious allergy then how would you feel about other parents knowingly sending in nuts when they’d been asked not to?

You can absolutely report it without dobbing in the other parent if you want to - just email and say you don’t want to give individual details but you know for a fact some parents are sending in cakes made with peanut butter etc and perhaps they could send out a reminder to parents about the importance of avoiding any nut ingredients etc.

I have a severely allergic child (albeit to an unusual allergen). I personally do not support blanket bans. They create hysteria and scaremonger without much (if any) benefit.

What’s far more important is that school staff (and once age appropriate, the child + their peers) are trained in anaphylaxis recognisation and management. Accidents happen - blanket bans do not prevent this

I fully understand why dairy isn't banned. I never even asked my children's school to ban dairy even though they both had anaphylactic reactions to contact with milk at school

But all the advice says that nuts shouldn't be banned either.

In every school there will be children with life threatening allergies to milk.

So it's just deeply irrational to be violently objecting to someone sending nuts in if you yourself send your child to school with dairy products

Yes Ds is allergic to sesame and tree nuts. Just like milk, hummous is not banned either.

And I expect there are children with sesame allergies in every school as well

I never broke the nut rule while living in UK for 20 years. We have had children in primary and secondary for years as we have had 3 over the years 16 years apart from 1st to 3rd child.

Relocated 6 month ago to Scandinavia - and no nuts rule (or other food rules apart from no sweets and fizzy drinks) in schools. And no harm done.

I would mind my own business.

Btw I have a milk allergy and can't have gluten. No school ever restricked the other children in my childhood.

I don't think any of us are suggesting milk should be banned in schools

It's more pointing out the utter irrationality of judging someone for sending a cake containing nuts into school when everyone cheerily sends lunch boxes full of dairy products to school

I have watched a child with an epipen and milk and egg allergy. Mostly because I can't do milk myself and know the basic rules.
It makes no sense to ban only one thing. At all.
You have to work around the child and their needs.

Since schools are routinely nut-free but never dairy-free, and since younger children are drinking milk in the classroom (are they still? Ours was funded by the EU) it makes sense that more serious reactions relate to dairy. I have no idea which is the more serious allergen, but statistics react to initiatives.

There isn't a hierarchy of more serious allergens. Anything can be a serious allergen. We need to get away from the idea that different foods are better or worse. It's founded in ignorance

The risk of a severe reaction varies from person to person

The severity of a reaction also varies enormously in the same person on different days.
All sorts of factors interplay to affect how likely they are to have a severe reaction on a given day - stress, ill health, hormone fluctuations,. Exercise, alcohol .

Poor responses also impact the severity of the reaction. It seems very few school staff know or understand that if you suspect an allergic reaction you do not move the child. Standing/walking could dramatically exacerbate the reaction.

Or buy /make a nut Free one. My friend makes this and I’ve tried the sains free from and both taste great

I agree with the vast majority of what you’ve said.

Regarding not moving someone who’s having an anaphylactic reaction, hospitals fall down in that regard too. When I had an anaphylactic reaction to medication administered in hospital (as an outpatient) I was asked to jump from my bed and run across the room to the oxygen set-up they had. Looking it up afterwards, I was shocked to find that studies have shown medical professionals other than allergy specialists often do the wrong thing when dealing with anaphylactic reactions…at least sometimes that’s because they don’t recognise them as such. (I was also refused an epipen in the same incident, even though I asked repeatedly for one, and was treated with iv steroids instead…that’s also the wrong thing to do in every guideline there is!)

There isn’t a hierarchy of more serious allergens.
While this is very true at an individual level of course, at a population level, nuts and peanuts are statistically known to be responsible for more anaphylactic deaths of adults in the UK than all other food allergens combined.

In children, dairy and nut/peanuts are responsible for the most deaths statistically.

It’s not ‘ignorance’ to know this to be true while still recognising that individuals can be seriously allergic to almost any food.
They are the facts.

That must have been terrifying.

As for this, there's no words.

And I had to stop someone giving them a chocolate finger biscuit because apparently chocolate isn't milk, it's chocolate.

The amount of pure ignorance around allergies is mind boggling.
I hear you about people trivialising it too, I've a milk allergy and "oh you'll be alright with a bit, won't you?"
Um, no.
Everyone should undergo allergy awareness testing or something - don't know how that would work, but they should! You'd still get idiots pretending they don't exist though sadly

I’ve sent her a message this afternoon thanking her again for the recipes as dd wants to have them in her packed lunches too after half term. I said we made some this morning but modified the recipe to not include nuts as school is nut free and I don’t want to make anyone unwell . I then sent the amended recipes and said i thought maybe she might have missed when the school had said about being nut free (I knew she hadn’t but wanted to give her a get out) she replied and said ‘thanks’ and this emoji 🫣

Just report it anonymouslu

The law is changing to make allergy training mandatory, following an excellent campaign by the parents of Benedict Blythe who died as a result of exposure to cows milk at school

https://www.mishcon.com/news/allergen-management-in-schools-lessons-from-the-benedict-blythe-tragedy

More information on the new rules for schools here. I am so grateful to Benedict's parents for their campaigning
https://theallergyteam.com/schools/

I hope the new requirements will create a culture shift where people will stop thinking "nut free" is analogous will "allergy safe"

I will never forget my daughter's PTA proudly announcing that they were distributing chocolate bars at the school summer disco to ensure they were "nut free" without pausing for a moment to consider that that meant my daughter (and others like her) would surrounded by hot sweaty children coated in a sticky layer of cows milk.

Have you contacted the school telling them that Nut bans are not recommended or are you just on here virtue signalling

You absolutely have to report this!

You just don’t know if there is a child or adult who’ll come into contact with it and it provokes an anaphylactic reaction. They don’t even need to ingest it to cause a reaction

There should be no dilemma when it comes to something like this

Your last sentence is quite concerning. You do realise Epipens are not guarenteed to work/ halt the reaction. They are sometimes only able to try to delay the bodies response till they get to hospital - if that takes some time, a child can die if they have a severe allergy. People being taught to manage an allergy is not a solution for the person having contact with the allergy in the first place and could have terrible consequences.