5 or 6 years back we had a kid at school with a massive allergy to nuts...wasn't just peanuts, and they didn't have to come into contact with them - just being in the same room as an open packet of nuts could trigger a reaction. The whole campus went nut free. I had no problem with that - I rarely wanted to send anything excluded under the policy anyway.
I only found out last year that that kid had left 3 years ago, but they had decided to leave it a nut-free campus because "it was easier".. "Cry Wolf" anyone?

Why is it a problem now? Nothing I remember from my childhood.

I have come across people with issues for all sorts of foods, as far as I am aware they have to be ingested.

There certainly seem to be a lot more allergies "here and now" than I remember from either a different time or a different place...

Nut allergy girl went into anaphylactic shock after plane passenger ignored three warnings not to eat nuts on board | Mail Online

OMG how awful!

i would also add - my son had some odd allergic reaction at school - turned out to be not a proper allergy but thats another story - but the point i wanted to make was the school nurse called an ambulance and sent him off to the ER. Cost me a thousand bucks just for the pleasure of a ambulance ride alone. so heck yes - if there is a kid who is going to go into major shock from a trace of peanut - its better to avoid it if you can. Poor parents already probably have to pay a tonne of money for epi-pens and allergist appointments etc.

Many kids have other allergies and they are NOT often life threatening and merely uncomfortable - and to avoid every possible allergen in a school would be impossible - but the more common and sometimes fatal ones like tree nuts are somewhat easy to avoid in a school situation.

While its a pain to restrict what you give your kids - imagine how you or your kids would feel if some kid actually died after contact with peanut butter on the hands/clothes/books of one of your children.

Jewish daycare.

I remember a kid always seemed to have jam on white bread which he used to press together so it was really thin (I think i used to often get cheese and pickle on whole wheat).

Yes, I worked in schools both sides of the Pond where no nuts of any kind were allowed on school property and I find it perfectly reasonable .... Severe childhood allergies are a definite scary problem that seems to be on the rise.

A UK lower school near me with a no-nut policy had an incident where the pupils were told to hold hands, and the fact that one girl had eaten something with peanut-butter at home the day before triggered hives & wheezing in an allergic child who held her hand.

Not as serious as anaphylactic shock, but still unpleasant for the child and frightening for the children who observed it.


Less trouble when the next allergic child joins that school population. It's quite difficult to change from allowing nut products to NOT allowing--usually inspires a round of debates and grumbling from parents. Much easier to just leave the policy in place.

So is it just Schools or anywhere a child might go?

I thought most schools were nut-free these days anyway?

That's hardly a life threatening allergy though, that's misguided mythology there.

I remember the jam butties, too. Great days ...

Lol, yes as sandwich related problems go fairly minor. Problem is Young Sir does like his bacon (raising Jewish kids the right way).

Of course. It is a far greater crime to deny one's children the flesh of the animal kindom's greatest contribution to the world of meat ...

Our campuses are on an "as needed" basis.
Or, as it turns out, a "whatever's easiest" basis.....

Pate and ready salted crisps for me, I was awfy posh. The dude enjoys crab and sweet chili sauce in his

All well and good until the word gets round (as it did last year) that the policy was in place unnecessarily, so people started ignoring it. It's impossible to police every kids lunch box, so now, if the situation arises when we really do need a strict policy, there are going to be folk who don't believe it, hence don't comply....