Food allergies... - please educate me

Hillbilly Housewife wrote: I'm getting to be so very annoyed.

I realize that there are children who have severe allergies that can be deadly... but is it really realistic for everyone else's parents to make sure not to send anything that's even been processed in a plant where there "may" be nuts...

I'm not about to start changing everything I buy, i'm not about to take extra time in the grocery stores to make sure that nothing I buy may contain traces of nuts to being processed in a plant that may also make things with nuts.

I sent a note to the teacher this morning because I'm not about to change my life over someone else's kids. Life happens... and not everyone in the world is going to be nut-free, all the time... Already we're limited to no nuts of any kind, no sesame seeds, no peaches, no strawberries. I'm just so pissed! (ETA - ticks me off becuase I cook with a lot of peaches, strawberries, I make jams and jellies, fruit bars and other things with them... and I like adding sesame seeds to a lot of the foods we make, including some breads. It doesn't seem that bad... but it's a good portion of the "sweeteners" I use in baking for the kids!)

So...parents with kids with severe allergies (calebsmom comes to mind) PLEASE PLEASE tell me what the heck I should do, and is it realistic to expect that everyone ELSE is as careful with what they buy as you are, if the allergic kid isn't theirs and they at least don't send the reactive food? I am educated on the actual allergies, etc... but I just don't see how the school can realistically expect everyone to double check all the products to ensure there's not even a TRACE of nuts from being processed in the same plant.

Boo&BugsMom replied: I'm not an allergy expert, but Tanner's school does not expect everyone to follow those guidelines. We have peanut free tables and such, but there are no severe restrictions like you are talking about. They take precautions, but not so much as to tick off the other parents and make it near impossible for the others. I'd be annoyed too, to say the least.

boyohboyohboy replied: honestly as a mother whos son has reacted severly to foods, and can die from a peanut reaction, i wish other moms were a little more concerned for the wealthfare of others kids in their kids class. its a life and death situation..its not like its something we can control.
that being said, no, i do not EXPECT, other moms to alter their kids lunchs for my son. if thats what you are saying you are mad about,
the school that jake will attend does have a section for peanut allergy kids. its a table set off to the side in the caffeteria off from where the other kids eat.
do i like that..hell no!
i think school is hard enough with trying to fit in, make friends, and kids can be so cruel and pick on kids for no real reason, why give them a reason to pick at a child.

i know its not easy to seperate what the allergy kids can have. believe me I KNOW!
but i think its nice that some people will take the time to at least make sure the really bad offending foods are not present to cause an issue.

would i feel this way, if i wasnt the parent of a child with this issue? i dont know. i dont think its fair to make everyone respond to the child with the allergy, but life isnt fair.

I dont think its that hard to not send foods that might contain peanuts or been touched by peanuts, and I am not aware of any other foods that can cause that kind of anaphylatic shock.

you asked for my opinion.

Boo&BugsMom replied: Snacks that the kids share and stuff that are sent to the school have to be peanut free and allergen free. A note gets sent home at the beginning of the year stating what allergies are in the classroom. I think that is very fair. I wouldn't want to send something that made a child ill or possibly die anyways and I would want to get something everyone could partake in and not leave anyone out. But, if they expected me to make my child's lunch that didn't contain wheat, eggs, dairy, soy, or peanuts (all the allergies in Tanner's classroom)...I'd be pretty irrate. That's a bit extreme. The child in Tanner's classroom is very aware of her allergies and her mother has educated her greatly on the subject. I don't think the "responsibility" should be rested on every parent's shoulders to have to drastically change their children's diet, but it's good to be made aware and educate our own children about it too and accomodate within reason. I think making some accomdations are neccessary, but I think they should also be reasonable. Reasonable being the key word.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Thanks so much for your input. No, I don't have a problem doing my best effort to have nut-free stuff... I usually do. I run a daycare, we don't have many things containing nuts.... and I do make most of the things we send for the kids lunches, like muffins, granola bars and stuff like that... but sometimes we add other snacks, like a nutrigrain bar, and it doesn't say whether or not the product was made in a peanut-free facility or not. I'm not going to not buy it because it doesn't say it, you know?

Of course I'd take into consideration the kids' allergies, I'm not heartless, and I would never want to be the one to cause a reaction... but at the same time, they're asking us to change our grocery list. That's what's ticking me off. I'm not going to not feed my kids something in the mornings, just in case they got a spot of it on their clothes or whatever and I miss it and the allergy gets a reaction that way... they like peanut butter, they'll get it on toast, or in cookies... and i'm not going to stop giving it to them just because a crumb might remain and it gets brought to class.

I'm just frustrated.

moped replied: I do hear ya Rocky, Jack is a total nut kid, loves all that stuff and peanut butter included......it is going to be tough when I have to say no he can't have it at school or whatever....

luvmykids replied: We're pretty lucky I guess, apparantly nobody in our school has a peanut allergy. There is one little girl in the twins' class with a dairy allergy, which limits a lot of the things I like to bring when it's our turn to bring snack, but I never want to exclude her so I don't do dairy snacks.

I agree, Rocky, that you shouldn't be expected to change what they eat at home but I do think it's reasonable to ask that shared snacks accomodate those with allergies.

Boo&BugsMom replied: Rocky, if any of my daycare kids had that severe of an allergy I had the parent's provide their own food. Is that an option for you?

mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied: Well if I'm reading that correctly, that all seems rather extreme to me. Wil has tree-nut allergies and I agree, I hope that other parents would sometimes be more sensitive and take precaution and avoid bringing foods with nuts in them, but ONLY when it is a shared snack. Which is what happens at Wil's school...We rotate who brings snack for the week. And believe me, some parents, and some teachers, are still very clueless. But I would NEVER expect parents to change their own lunches. Food allergies is a part of our lives now, and I mean EVERYONE, it's everywhere, so I think it's all of our responsibility to be aware and educated on the topic, especially since it's a topic of life or death for our kids, but I truly don't expect other parents to change their grocery lists to the point of reading labels and such if it's only food going in their own kids lunchboxes.

I get what some of you are saying, and I can see how it can be hard to say no to your kids...But it's also hard to say no to our kids too. Or to tell them they can't go to school or they can't play with so and so or that they can't eat what the others eat. It's all hard. And like calebsmom said, life is hard, so maybe it's a good empathy lesson to teach ALL of our kids - we sometimes have to change our ways when it means helping others.

boyohboyohboy replied:
I agree with jennie, i do not think that any other children should have to limit their diets to the extent of a child with a lot of food allergies..i think its just acceptable to avoid the nuts and cross contaminated foods.
Most of the other food allergens do not cause such sever reactions..that i am aware of...
i wish there was a better system set up in the schools, but i dont know what that would be.

MommyToAshley replied: Ashley's classroom is nut-free. Not one table, but her entire classroom. The kids bring a snack every day from home, and no one is to bring anything with nuts. (The other kindergarten class is not so they must have put all the kids with nut allergies in the same room). If you ask me, this is a small sacrifice and not the much of an inconvenience if it saves a child from becoming really ill or dieing. At first I didn't fully understand why individual snacks had to be nut free, but then I completely understood the rule after being in the classroom for one day. The kids share their snacks amongst each other even if they weren't meant to be shared snacks. It happens.

There's lots of other options out there for snacks.

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
No no no..... there is NEVER shared snacks.

Each child has to bring their own morning snack, their own lunch, and their own afternoon snack. The only time there is a shared snack is for a birthday or whatever... and then obviously allergies are taken more into consideration.

OF COURSE if it was shared snacks, I'd be totally ageeable to shop for a snack that all can have safely.

boyohboyohboy replied: rocky just for my own clarification, are you talking about your own daycare situation or a public school situation?

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
I'm talking about in the kids' school.


In my daycare I never ever serve foods with allergies, we do not keep it in the house. If I had a child in my daycare with an allergy to nuts, obviously I'd be a heck of a lot more stringent on the foods that I bring in.

DansMom replied: It's tough. What I've done is prepare a HUGE safe snack list---I did all the research on the brands, and there are loads of things that are readily available in average grocery stores. This worked great at Daniel's preschool, but at the kindergarten, they simply want him to have his own snack supply at school, which I provided. They didn't want to distribute my safe snack list. They've prohibited sticky dairy items and all nuts in his room, but crackers with allergens in them are allowed (he eats only the ones I provide). These kinds of arrangements are classroom by classroom.

I can't imagine asking other parents to find that stuff on the shelves, especially "same facility" items. It takes hours. And I wouldn't trust their judgment anyway! I'd still want to check the label myself every day.

Rocky, if I were you I would request that the parents of kids with allergies combine their resources---meet as a group---and provide a safe snack list that everyone can work from, making sure that it includes readily available products. Surely they already know what brands are safe. It's a little bit of hassle, but much less hassle than expecting you to read the labels with three kids in tow at the grocery store. I completely understand your frustration with that end of it---but at least if you have a list to work from, and people buy only from that list, after a while it seems pretty easy.

And it's just a snack. Pretzels are great every day.

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
Already tried that...surprisingly the teachers are the ones that don't want to have the hassle of distributing the snacks, not the parents that are against it.

And, they won't allow snacks that aren't "nutritious". Pretzels falls under the category of junk. So do cookies, some muffins (carrot, banana, oatmeal, blueberry and bran are the onlyones that haven't been sent back uneaten with a note... ) and a couple other things I would have thought were ok, like plain popcorn, organic corn chips... ugh.

DansMom replied: Pretzels are junk food? Wowza. I thought I was crunchy