Banned Peanut Butter in Schools

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  • kristydi
    kristydi Posts: 781 Member
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    Just gonna tell this story.

    I was an elementary school teacher before I had my kids. I taught a kid with severe nut allergies. One day during snack time I ate a granola bar that did not have nuts in it, but I didn't realize it had been made in a factory that also made ones with nuts. I ate my snack sitting on a desk top. The next class included the nut allergic kid and his seat was the desk I had sat on. 10 minutes into class his face was noticeably swollen and he was wheezing. By the end of the class period his face was so swollen he could barely see and his mom was on the way to get him. Thankfully he didn't need to go to the hospital. But it was a very powerful illustration of how scary these allergies can be and how little it takes to trigger some of them.
  • kaseyr1505
    kaseyr1505 Posts: 624 Member
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    My youngest brother is autistic and peanut butter crackers is the only thing he would eat.. for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So he would have just had to not eat lunch. That's a long day... good thing he's out of school now. I get the ban, totally, and would support it, but for him that would have been awful too. Curious to know what the school would do in that case...

    He probably would get a waiver to go to a school that didn't have a nut ban.
  • kaseyr1505
    kaseyr1505 Posts: 624 Member
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    My niece had a fairly severe allergy, she grew out of it and thankfully it is much milder now. In kindergarten, another kid had a PB sandwich, and because kids are gross, didn't wash his hands. He came in contact with my niece, and she had to go to the ER/almost died.

    So, I am in favor of nut bans. Children often don't understand allergies, and I don't think they should be taught the lesson by making a classmate really sick.
  • jnichel
    jnichel Posts: 4,553 Member
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    Good. I hate peanut butter.

    zq6LL5m.gif

    Say it isn't so :angry:

    Sorry, it's so. Never have liked peanut butter. Love the little Resse's peanut butter cups (only the little ones), but hate peanut butter.
  • bloodyhonest
    bloodyhonest Posts: 196 Member
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    To the selfish parents who oppose this rule: this will save your child from witnessing a death of a classmate due to pb at school.
  • mank32
    mank32 Posts: 1,323 Member
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    one of my MFPeeps has been hauled out of our workplace to the hosp with critical peanut allergy reaction idk how many times. peanut butter can disappear from the earth as far as i'm concerned. :brokenheart:
  • SunofaBeach14
    SunofaBeach14 Posts: 4,899 Member
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    meh - I'd rather not have my kids be responsible for another kid's death. If we can save a life by skipping a PB&J then I think that's a pretty small price to pay. On the other hand, if you believe that PB&J is your God given and Constitutional right please feel free to sue the school district over such an important issue.
  • jamebb
    jamebb Posts: 86 Member
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    This wasn't a thing when I was in grade school. Are the bans usually just for peanuts or for all nuts?
  • kimothy38
    kimothy38 Posts: 840 Member
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    I think it's unfair to the other children.

    Just because a select few kids have allergies to "____ food" doesn't mean that the other kids in the entire school should not be able to eat them during school time.
    You say this now but what if your child was the one with an allergy? I find it mildly annoying that I can't make my son his favourite peanut butter sandwiches for lunch but on the flipside I think it teaches kids tolerance. I'm just thankful that my kids don't have allergies.
  • Keepcalmanddontblink
    Keepcalmanddontblink Posts: 718 Member
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    Our school, instead, says that swapping lunches is disallowed, and if caught, both students will potentially be expelled from school. It's a very serious issue. The kids swap anyway a little, but they also seem to know who has what allergies and all that. It's not a secret. they just tell each other. And, they seem to be pretty respectful of it. Our little league games don't allow peanuts at the games. So, all our kids have grown up with it. That's also why most airlines no longer serve peanuts on-board. I don't know. this isn't a new thing at all. I'm a little surprised that this is even a topic anymore.
    I work at a kids clothing store and some of the schools are peanut free. The only ones who whine about it being unfair so far, are the parents. Most of the kids I've asked (from 6 to 10), don't seem to mind, and would rather not see a friend get sick. Kids had those allergies when I went to school as well. They had a separate table, but you still had to worry about cross contamination.
  • kcmcd
    kcmcd Posts: 239 Member
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    This wasn't a thing when I was in grade school. Are the bans usually just for peanuts or for all nuts?

    I can't speak to all schools but ours are peanut and tree nut free. Peanuts aren't actually nuts - they're in the legume family. Closer to soy and beans. But people react just as dramatically to actual nuts. It's scary.
  • mank32
    mank32 Posts: 1,323 Member
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    But it was a very powerful illustration of how scary these allergies can be and how little it takes to trigger some of them.

    When I was working daycare with 1-2 year olds (primo allergy-onset age), a boy developed a pea/soy allergy right in front of our eyes. We of course stopped serving him peas/soy. I'll never forget the day he started getting red splotches on his face, after we did NOT give him the peas the other kids were eating that day. We were very confused. Then, we learned that simply putting him in the same room in which the peas had been cooked was enough to set it off. :frown: So we stopped serving peas for a while (big daycare center, too).
  • pwittek10
    pwittek10 Posts: 723 Member
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    Our school has been a non peanut school for years now.
    It is not just the peanuts we have to review all products
    for nuts.
    We have 2 kids that have extreme
    I would rather ban peanuts than have a deathly sick child
  • mank32
    mank32 Posts: 1,323 Member
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    I didn't have any food allergies in my class growing up (and it was pretty much the same 20 or so kids K-6) but my younger brother did, so I am accustomed to hearing my mother talking about making a batch of something for the class plus a frosted ricecake for the wheat-allergic kid and a PB ricecake for the diabetic kid (PB not a problem at the school, funnily enough). I don't know if anyone else ever grumbled about this, but in our family the discussion was centered on making sure these kids felt included and treated with kindness. :heart: my 2nd cousin (3rd grade this fall) has no allergies in his class, thank goodness, so they get all the cakes. :smooched:
  • AnninStPaul
    AnninStPaul Posts: 1,372 Member
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    Our public schools do prohibit peanut butter in home lunches.

    However, if a child's school lunch account is empty (or negative) and they do not bring a home lunch, they are given a Smuckers Uncrustable, filled with peanut butter and jelly.

    Good to know they're consistent.
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
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    I am happy to not send my daughter to school with something that could potentiality harm another child. I don't see why this would ever be an issue -- while some people do exaggerate allergies, but some people do have life threatening reactions. My daughter not being able to eat peanut butter seems like a very minor thing.
  • DJ7203
    DJ7203 Posts: 497 Member
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    I think it's unfair to the other children.

    Just because a select few kids have allergies to "____ food" doesn't mean that the other kids in the entire school should not be able to eat them during school time.

    It's unfair that a kid can't have their favorite sandwich at school because it would endanger the Lives of other children? You can't be serious. they can eat it at home , it's not the end of the world.
  • ELMunque
    ELMunque Posts: 136 Member
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    I have no problem with the peanut ban, I would be devestated if another child was hurt due to my childs sandwich and so would my child. We don't have the peanut ban here at all as far as I know, my kids eat at school and are only allowed to take fruit for snack (my rule, not the schools). Thankfully I only have one in elementary and she's a meat eater. When my oldest girl was in elementary she took her lunch because she's a vegetarian and her lunch often had peanut butter so she could get her protien. She's in highschool now so she can leave to get her food, and they have vegetarian options at school in high school. But had their been a peanut ban when my oldest was younger I'd have been a little annoyed maybe about having to figure out a healthy alternative, she's a picky eater and if I had just made her eat the school lunches she would have french fries and that's it on some days. But I wouldn't be annoyed enough to be like screw that kid and his/her deathly allergies, I mean, what kind of person would do that?
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,952 Member
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    When I was a kid in the early 2000s they had a 'peanut free' table for kids w peanut allergies to sit at. Lol it was like quarantine they hated it cause they couldn't sit w their friends.

    Now that you mention it, we did too!
    Don't know how that helped my friend though who can go into shock just smelling it.

    The only thing I find weird is that, statistically, the number of people with peanut allergies is just 2%. I guess the problem is that the reaction is so unsafe. Not like a dairy allergy.

    That's likely a stat from before allergies went on the rise though.

    ETA: Yep just did the math (based on who knows what source lol) But the site said peanuts account for 90% of the 21 M Americans affected by food allergies. So, 90% of 21M is 18900000. The population of USA is ~317,493,212. Divide and multiply by 100 and we get about 6% of the population.

    That's high enough for me to justify banning PB. I never really cared for PB anyway. It smells better than it tastes so I always get disappointed.

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