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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel like not eating peanut butter in public should become thought of as a social norm instead of an accommodation. If this is lethal why take the risk. That’s insane. I feel like it should come with an FDA warning label. [/quote]

BUT... where does this start and stop? For other children peanuts are fine but some or all of the following are life and death:

eggs (including baked into muffins and cookies)
dairy (yes, this means milk but also yogurt, cheese, cream cheese, ice cream...)
meat (yup - this is real)
soy
legumes like peas, beans, etc - and like peanuts, since they are a legume not a nut
seeds (like sesame seeds or pine nuts - again, a seed not a nut)
tree nuts - including almonds, hazelnuts, macadamia, cashews, pecans, pistachios, brazil.... and whatever nuts I'm forgetting right now
but some people (like me) are allergic only to almonds, not to ALL tree nuts - so it gets more confusing

I direct a preschool program - and we won't allow peanuts or tree nuts or both when a child who attends is allergic to one or more of these.  BUT.... we currently have a child who is allergic to eggs and peanuts - but we only say no to peanuts - not eggs.  Is that right? It's a double standard, isn't it?   But children with allergies have limited food choices because of their allergies (and depending on the # of allergies this can be a problem) BUT we shouldn't require all children attending a preschool to stay away from the same foods for no reason and create limits to their food too, right?

I mean, at one point we had a child who was allergic to SEVEN items on the list above - which obviously seriously limited her food options - is that what all 75 other children at our school should do?  Obviously not.
[/quote]

I was actually in an elementary school today that had an "allergy safe" classroom that banned, no joke: tree nuts, peanuts, cow's milk, eggs, and strawberries. I assume the idea was to put all the kids with allergies in one room and then keep it free of their allergens, but man, I felt for those parents--as if allergy parents don't have enough to watch out for, they now also can't send every other protein that their kid isn't allergic to?? Oy. (And I guess yay that there is apparently no kid allergic to soy this year?)

My children's preschool class (which has a reasonable policy of banning foods in individual classrooms if a child in the class is allergic) did ban all nuts in response to a tree nut allergy, and I know the parents of the tree nut allergic child (the only food allergy in the class) tried in vain to get peanuts added back because it was all their child would eat since he couldn't have almond or cashew butter and refused to eat sunflower seed butter. No dice, though.[/quote]

right, I forgot strawberries in that long list!   and some kids are allergic to canteloupe and bananas, too.

I do think it's WRONG to put all the "allergic" kids in one room as those kids who have some but not all allergies have such a limited amount of foods they can eat.  PLUS - elementary school children should not be eating other kids' foods, should know what they are allergic to, and should be able to keep themselves safe.  I started at 5 years old when I went to kindergarten.  Seriously.  Yes, my parents were there but if I went to a friends' house, I had to ask if there were any nuts in the dinner - it was on me.  We only ban nuts or peanuts in a specific classroom IF there is a child with an anaphylactic reaction to said food because we are a preschool and children that age aren't old enough to self-regulate and control their desires to grab food from other plates.  Our egg allergic child was placed at a table without eggs because she desperately wants eggs and will grab a hard boiled egg from someone else's plate first thing.  So if a child had eggs in his lunch, we sat them at the other table from that allergic child.

AND PEANUTS ARE NOT A NUT! THEY ARE A LEGUME.  I need to buy a sign on an airplane and have it fly above every school in August and September each and every year.  Sigh.  [/quote]

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