Wait, so now sunbutter/ sunflower seeds and oils are an allergen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably there is a child who is severely allergic in your child's school.

Packing lunches is already difficult enough.

Yes, probably.

But one of the problems here is there may not be a kid in the classroom with a tree not or soy allergy. But many schools just have a blanket ban on those already. So then you add sunflower seeds to it, and now a parent can't send but butter, soy butter, or sun butter. If they are Big 8 free, you also can't send eggs or wheat.

Schools make a mistake in restricting everything. There are too many common allergens. They shouldn't be banned from classrooms unless there's a documented allergy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a Chickpea butter I use as an alternative though it is a bit pricey.

I’m intrigued. Tell me more.

https://www.theamazingchickpea.com

I found it in thr grocery store once. My kid hates the taste of chickpea butter.

If they don't also ban Sesame seeds (tahini), hummus and pita is a good alternative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably there is a child who is severely allergic in your child's school.

Packing lunches is already difficult enough.

Yes, probably.

But one of the problems here is there may not be a kid in the classroom with a tree not or soy allergy. But many schools just have a blanket ban on those already. So then you add sunflower seeds to it, and now a parent can't send but butter, soy butter, or sun butter. If they are Big 8 free, you also can't send eggs or wheat.

Schools make a mistake in restricting everything. There are too many common allergens. They shouldn't be banned from classrooms unless there's a documented allergy.

They shouldn't ban at all because it doesn't work. Creates false security AND makes a$$hole parents like those who have posted here even more likely to disregard or talk negatively about the kids with allergies. As if the kid sare a probl!
Bans arent even evidence based. Nuts aren't even the worst for sheer number- Milk is! And not intolerance, actually allergy to milk.
Banning foods also decreases the availability of foods for kids who have other allergies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am over other people’s allergies. Schools can separate kids that have extreme allergies to their own table/room.

Agree. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Wow, that seems pretty harsh. I’m willing to be inconvenienced so that a child doesn’t end up in the hospital.

It’s more than an inconvenience to say you can’t bring several major ingredients for your own child’s lunch. The kids with severe allergies can have their own table were they are placed with enough distance to not contaminate each other’s areas. That is reasonable. Telling the whole school they can’t peanuts, soy, almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame, wheat, dairy, etc. for their own personal consumption in a lunch room is not reasonable.

[Anonymous]

My SO has a sunflower allergy, so it is real..it is also not well marked on packages.
It is also absurd to ban 'all the things.' sunflower oil is in many porcessed foods (fwiw, processing takes out the allergen in most cases). Soy is in everything.

However, this sounds ridiculous, op.

I got a call from camp last year bc of something a counselor saw in my sons lunchbox, which they thought was an banned allergen (it wasn't). However, it made my kiddo stop eating a sandwich at camp bc he was scared he was doing something wrong. And, wtf a counselor policing my kid's lunch?! So my kiddo ear junk food bc he was scared to eat his legit lunch that looked like an allergen. Facepalm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am over other people’s allergies. Schools can separate kids that have extreme allergies to their own table/room.

Agree. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

That’s the logic that justifies slavery fyi. Humans suck.

[Anonymous]

Sunbutter is so awful, I'm glad it is banned

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? I'd never heard of this allergen but just got a note we can't send sunbutter or other sunflower seed products to school anymore. Is this just a random occurrence at our school or have other people encountered this one elsewhere? It's a bummer because we use sunbutter in place of peanut butter specifically to avoid allergens, and we had previously also been told not to use Wowbutter because it has soy and soy is a "Big 8" allergen.

How common is this in your communities? We're struggling right now because our kid is on a declining growth curve so I'm trying to pack as many calories and protein/fat into her diet but it can be challenging within the food restrictions.

Nutella.

Also you can lie about what the sandwich is made of, just keep it inside the sandwich

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? I'd never heard of this allergen but just got a note we can't send sunbutter or other sunflower seed products to school anymore. Is this just a random occurrence at our school or have other people encountered this one elsewhere? It's a bummer because we use sunbutter in place of peanut butter specifically to avoid allergens, and we had previously also been told not to use Wowbutter because it has soy and soy is a "Big 8" allergen.

How common is this in your communities? We're struggling right now because our kid is on a declining growth curve so I'm trying to pack as many calories and protein/fat into her diet but it can be challenging within the food restrictions.

Nutella.

Also you can lie about what the sandwich is made of, just keep it inside the sandwich

Nutella is made with tree nuts, which are already banned at many schools.

[Anonymous]

We have never had nuts banned at any of our kids schools around the country (sometimes will be banned from specific class parties as needed, which makes sense) and the cafeteria serves pbj as a back up option. I am sympathetic to allergies - dh has a very sever food allergy and dc just grew out of egg allergy - but you can’t ban everything, and obviously there are ways to make it work in schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am over other people’s allergies. Schools can separate kids that have extreme allergies to their own table/room.

Agree. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Wow, that seems pretty harsh. I’m willing to be inconvenienced so that a child doesn’t end up in the hospital.

It’s more than an inconvenience to say you can’t bring several major ingredients for your own child’s lunch. The kids with severe allergies can have their own table were they are placed with enough distance to not contaminate each other’s areas. That is reasonable. Telling the whole school they can’t peanuts, soy, almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame, wheat, dairy, etc. for their own personal consumption in a lunch room is not reasonable.

Correct but this is why it's easier for schools and it's also lazy to say oh you just can't bring this in but they're not checking lunches, parents are not paying attention and even you have suggestions of a sneak it in because who is actually checking the lunches. The actual evidence-based interventions are hand-washing after lunch and cleaning the tables.
In the classroom they shouldn't share supplies and hand washing should happen after snacks it's literally that simple the problem is hand washing actually requires time and honestly from a allergy perspective and a non allergy perspective I would rather them focus on hand washing which would probably cut down on 50% of the colds and viruses that the kids exchange all the time.
I'm in allergy groups and we have the discussion all the time with parents of kids with allergies who want the school to be nut free completely disregarding that there are seven other top allergens and the school is not going to go dairy free or egg free. So there happens to be this prioritization of allergies where people are like oh well I understand the peanut but I don't understand wheat allergies they're all top nine. So again limiting one allergy from the school quote on quote because it doesn't actually work and nobody actually pays attention to it still limits the food choices of kids who have allergies and those that don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm at a parochial school and we got a list of what we can bring to the Christmas party and it basically consists of gummy snacks, Capri Sun and chips, all individually packaged of course. Everything else is an allergen.

No fresh fruit? Dried fruit? Crudite? Cookies for crying out loud?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am over other people’s allergies. Schools can separate kids that have extreme allergies to their own table/room.

Agree. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Wow, that seems pretty harsh. I’m willing to be inconvenienced so that a child doesn’t end up in the hospital.

Except there's no evidence that allergen free schools work. You're being inconvenienced so that the school can look like they're doing something, not to keep any actual kid out of the hospital.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am over other people’s allergies. Schools can separate kids that have extreme allergies to their own table/room.

Agree. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Wow, that seems pretty harsh. I’m willing to be inconvenienced so that a child doesn’t end up in the hospital.

Except there's no evidence that allergen free schools work. You're being inconvenienced so that the school can look like they're doing something, not to keep any actual kid out of the hospital.

And on top of that, peanut free is prioritized over all other top 9 allergies when they are not a) the largest incidence (shellfish is first, and peanut is tied with milk) or b) more likely to cause death compared to other top 9.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's a Chickpea butter I use as an alternative though it is a bit pricey.

AKA hummus.