Allergies and primary school lunches

[notamorningpanda]

Hi just wondering what primary school are doing to cater for children with allergies in regards to school lunches. I was surprised to learn that in the primary my child attends ALL children with an allergy action plan HAVE TO choose from the allergen free menu (which excludes the top 14 most common allergens) even on days when they can eat the standard menu. So a child with a shellfish only allergy for example, has to have gluten and dairy free meals every day, even though most meals won't contain shellfish! Is this common in primaries?

My Mum taught at a school where one child was severely allergic to eggs, the parents insisted the school was declared an egg-free zone. A letter had your be sent to all other parents asking them not to pack eggs in lunchboxes and no eggs for snacks. Cooking classes has to be egg-free recipes. It was crazy.
If the meals are provided by the school are the children not aware what they can and can't eat? I only had school meals from 11 but I knew what to avoid to not set off my lactose intolerance.

Sounds very similar. All of pur meals are made in a kitchen locally.

If your child doesn’t have an epi pen then of course they are being extra cautious. If there was an accidental cross contamination the school has no immediate intervention available. The supply company isn’t being “lazy”, they are trying to provide meals that are safe for people with a huge range of allergies. If you want your child to play Russian roulette with the standard menu then tell the school that that is what you want her to have from now on.

Ours has an adapted menu on the basis that if they can eat the meal as is or adapted slightly they have that. My child has an allergy outside the top 14 so it doesn’t work for him to eat “allergen free” food as it could contain one of his allergens. I wonder what your school would do in this scenario?

If there's definitely no shellfish on the main menu, can you choose for them to have the main menu instead of the allergy menu?
My daughter has a similar situation at her school as she has an intolerance to a very common ingredient, but its quite a mild issue/reaction.
We were directed to discuss it directly with the catering company rather than the school and when we realised it would mean that she only had one option for lunch dictated by the company (rather than the 3-4 options available daily to everyone else); we opted to keep her on the normal menu as some of the meals they would make 'safe' for her were foods she doesn't like and wouldn't want to eat. The catering company were very intense about it and we had to give confirmation in writing that we accept responsibility for any reaction etc.
This was all separate from the school keeping first aid/safety records about her intolerance reaction and what she might need to deal with it if necessary.
To me it sounds like the catering company are using the easiest option for them but it doesn't seem like a good choice for your child to have such a restricted menu.

Yes this is what I'm hoping for, but all I've been told so far is that it's the catering company's policy that all children with an allergy action plan must have access only to the allergen free menu. The school have now passed my questions on to the catering company so we'll see what they say. In the meantime she's on the allergen free menu.

A couple of years back, one of the kids at work had a tuna sandwich. She had a severe reaction to it, despite having a solely shellfish allergy. I imagine that either the tuna itself or where the sandwiches were made were the source of the contamination.

My DS has a shellfish allergy (and peanuts). He used to have an egg allergy but thankfully outgrew it recently so that made life easier.

No he is not required to eat dairy/gluten/top 14 allergen free food for every meal. The school makes sensible adjustments for him.

The only thing that is like you describe is that for him to have an egg free chocolate muffin for dessert it would also be dairy and gluten free. I assume they just have an allergy muffin mix that they use for all the kids. That wasn’t a problem for us at all as I can see baking several different types of muffins would be very time consuming.

I think for me, the key thing is the severity of the allergy - if you daughters reaction can be treated with antihistamines and the school would be able to administer these in the case of cross contamination then it seems that the non allergy menu would be fine for your daughter but the catering company want to absolve themselves of any risk and the company your school uses seem to have decided the best way to do this is to put every child with an allergy onto an entirely allergen free menu.
If you're comfortable with the risk then I would approach the school/catering company on the basis that you're willing to take responsibility for any reaction that occurs.
We were willing to do this because we know my daughters reaction will be mild and not health threatening.
But understandably you may not be comfortable with that and if that's the case, I think you won't have much luck changing the catering company's decision as they won't accept liability unless you agree to follow their policy.

If someone has been diagnosed with an IgE allergy, there is no way to be certain that allergic reactions will be mild. Past reactions are not a predictor of future reactions in terms of severity. Component testing exists for some allergens and can provide info on how you are sensitised and could be associated with a higher risk of anaphylaxis, but there’s nothing that tells you that you will only have mild reactions.

Of course it must if a child is being fed a meal five times a week for 40 weeks of the year that does not contain any of the 14 main allergens. That is cutting down the number of foods that they can eat drastically. it's limiting enough as it is having an allergy to one or two things without eating as if you are allergic to 14 things.

I'm quite sure the allergy-free menu is equally nutritional..

Have you seen some of the allergy free foods? A lot of our kids barely touch theirs. Being forced to have it every day when it's unnecessary would just mean they barely eat.

My allergy child was told he couldn’t eat anything out if the kitchen because of cross contamination they don’t even order him the dairy free milk even though it’s free for them to order at the same time as normal milk??

Well, you would be incorrect in your surety.

That sounds miserable for the children. My DD has coeliac disease and her school just does a gf version of the main meal (if it isn't already gluten free, which it often is) her meals can have all the rest of the allergens because she's not allergic to them and its ridiculous to avoid something you're not allergic to. But this is made simpler for the caterers in that there are no menu options for anyone(there's just one option each day), they know at the start of the school year (updated when necessary) how many special diet meals to make and which special diets they are and just made a variation of that day's meal. No issues in 10 years except once when none of the special meals appeared but DD didn't bother to ask kitchen staff about it and just ate salad and crispbread.