Ok, so I’ve just seen the new peanut free food commercial, in which a mom is packing a lunch and pulls out a cupcake that has an animate peanut in it. The peanut is smiling, and happy, until she screams in terror and shoves it back into the box. We leave the commercial watching the peanut cry. How have we come to the point that peanut have such a bad rap? I would eat a thousand peanuts a day now instead of whatever product they were trying to sell me, because they’re making peanuts out to be anthrax or something.
Severe food allergies are super rare (1% of the population), and peanut allergies, while counting for about half, still means they kill like 1 in a million kids a year. Why are we so concerned with getting peanuts out of everything!? My generation and older grew up on peanut butter and jam, it’s cheap, and healthy, and filling and kids like it! These are the things we need today in our economy, now they’re eating junk food, because hey, that Mars bar is peanut free! Why didn’t we all die from eating peanuts? They’ve shown that kids can outgrow peanut allergies, by eating small amounts of peanuts over time. So rather than helping, we’re actually making them worse by removing peanut products from everything.
So I say, give them peanut butter sandwiches, take away the McDonalds, and turn them back into normal kids.
—People are Stupid
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2009.
I agree with a lot of what you say, OP.
Banning peanuts across the board is kind of a lazy approach. Why can’t schools go on a case-by-case basis and, if the school has a kid with a peanut allergy (because I’m sure parents have to fill out a health questionnaire at he beginning of the school year — at least they did when I was little in HRM) THEN they restrict or ban peanuts. This whole “peanuts are banned at all schools regardless” policy is designed so the school doesn’t have to do any work: if they had to impose a ban they’d actually have to communicate with parents and put some form of effort in it.
This is what happens when life becomes too easy. The over-protective parents of the 21st century are breeding a generation of pussies.
Though peanuts are something to be cautious of, there certainly is a population of people who are severely allergic, over protectiveness in general seems to be spreading much like the ways of political correctness. Too much, and it will be more harmful than helpful.
While I think that teachers and school admin have better things to do than police peanuts, banning them across the board is unfair too. Perhaps a “peanut friendly” lunch room or vice versa could be the answer?
Actually, Bastard Fish, the pussification of kids has been documented in actual academic studies (sociology, psychology, etc…) and psychologists believe that the lack of rejection kids have faced over the past 15 or so years is stunting their emotional and psychological development because they aren’t exposed to negativity as kids and don’t know how to deal with it when they are adults. Just because mommy and daddy said you were unique and special and the sun shone out of your ass doesn’t mean everyone else will think the same thing. In fact, I think it’s a pretty safe bet they won’t. I did my second degree with someone who is a product of this…one was bad enough…if the majority of kids end up like this we’re all fucked.
But, I mean we wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s self esteem!!!
I’m so scared.
Also: I like hellakitty’s idea! Parents of the peanut-allergic would probably bitch about it and go on about how their kids are being “excluded” and push for a complete ban. Parents can be assholes these days the likes of which I’ve never seen.
While I think that we should be aware that allergies exist, we shouldn’t force everyone to suffer because of that. Peanuts are actually a very healthy food item (despite being fairly high in sat. fat) and have a significant amount of protein. When I was in elementary school, I developed a rare allergy to a certain type of pesticide used in the US. While not life threatening, it was still an allergy (less than 5% of that 1% to 5% of children that are actually allergic, are actually fatal). Did the school stop using US fruit and veggies in the cafeteria food in light of that? No, they didn’t. It was too rare, and not threatening enough. I also had a friend whose parents told both the school and him that he was allergic to peanuts and chocolate, when in fact he actually wasn’t. People would eat peanuts around him all of the time and he would eat chocolate as well, not one allergic reaction. I honestly think that it’s because schools in general (primarily in the US) have had some high-profile cases where children have had really negative reactions, combine that with the pussification (PK, write a thesis and coin that term, please.) and there we go, schools being over sensitive and kids are being coddled. Mind you, children should be coddled and kept in a bleedin’ bubble according to most parents these days (sterilize everything around you, use moisturizing sensitive-skin wet naps to wipe their mouths of everything, wear a helmet in the car, don’t let them outside because they’ll breathe secondhand smoke, blah, blah, blah) which PK make a point of: there’s gonna be a generation of self-righteous whiny little punks who think that they deserve everything for nothing.
When I was a child we had a kid in our class who was allergic to bee stings. Did we kill all the bees? No. Were we all confined to the school at recess? No. We were told that this was the case, so that we were aware of the problem, and then it was up to that child to be cautious and alert a teacher if there was a bee around.
If kids with allergies know not to eat peanuts, and the other kids and staff know not to give that child food/food with peanuts, then the risk is practically nothing.
But no, peanuts are instead made out to be this horrible monster killing our children.
A good friend of mine from university was allergic to peanuts. She could tell if there were peanuts in the room. I had a peanutbutter cookie in class one day because I didn’t know she had an allergy. She knew right off when I was eating it (she didn’t see it) that someone had peanuts and when she saw me with the cookie told me she was allergic. I of course went to get rid of the cookie in a garbage can in the hallway and she said that I didn’t have to throw it out, just wrap it up in the plastic and put it back in my bag. She wasn’t high maintenance about it at all, but, some people unfortunately ARE.
And the ones who are, I find are the one who are either making a mountain out of a mole hill or faking it. This girl I went to high school with was allergic to OMG ALL SCENTS and had OMG ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS! The teachers had to use washable crayola markers on the board, and once she yelled at a teacher and went storming out once she realized the teacher had forgotten and was using a regular one. She realized this half way through class and only when she SAW the marker. On another occasion I was sitting beside her and my friends behind us and I were using permanent markers (and as the mature high schoolers we were, we used them to write notes to each other about how she was faking the whole fucking thing) and she didn’t see them and had no idea we were using them i.e.: she faked the entire thing (well, in her mind I’m sure she wasn’t faking).
I also had a teacher who was OMG SO ALLERGIC TO NUTS AND CHOCOLATE that her throat would apparently close up if she was in the general area. Ironically, my best friend used to eat almond chocolate bars in her class all the time while sitting up front and NOTHING HAPPENED. Why? because she never noticed the chocolate bar and because she wasn’t deathly allergic.
If you don’t develop said allergic reaction until you actually notice or see the allergen then it’s probably all in your head. A lot of this shit is blown out of proportion by a bunch of fucking hypochondriacs and over-cautious fuckwitt parents.
I knew someone like that back in highschool, never saw or heard about them ever becoming sick, but apparently she was allergic to EVERYTHING.
One time she was working on a video project with a friend of mine and she complained about a typo in the credits after it was done, because she worried about points being taken off. If you know about video making, it’s easy to fix but often takes a long time to render the video. Besides, it was already burnt to dvd. Plus, nobody’s going to give two shits about a typo in the credits of a highschool video project.
Needless to say, she got her mother involved and had her mother lecture my friend over the phone about getting the video corrected.
What does this say about her character? Everything has to be her way and her mother is a heavy influence in her life. Her condition was blown out of proportion because of her over protective mother, and the end result was a person who believes the world must revolve around her, and isn’t tough enough to fight her own battles.
It made me question whether all of those warnings about her allergies had as much validity as she made them out to be.
It’s true there are people who are genuinely allergic and they’re cool about it, I’m fine with that, but I agree with most people speaking here that often the way certain children are brought up influence the supposed sicknesses they have growing up and as adults.
It’s really easy for ignorant people to bitch and whine about how “today’s kids” are so overprotected and to jump on this ridiculous bandwagon of hating parents of food allergic kids. First of all, people are making crazy assumptions about what rules are enforced in “schools” (in general, not a specific school or daycare even) and base these assumptions on an article they read recently about how the food allergy thing is overblown. Well, feel free to continue to bitch, but when your kid is the “only one in a million” that peanuts can kill the story looks a little different.
Bastard Fish: I have a friend who had to work with someone in a group project in UNIVERSITY who couldn’t make any decisions within the group without calling her mom and asking her for advice, and when she couldn’t get a hold of her she’d make the group wait. The stories I heard were unreal!
If I were you and this girl’s mother called you I would’ve told her to take a long walk off a short peer.
If my kid were the one in a million who was that allergic to peanuts, I wouldn’t make the other 999 999 kids bend to my situation. I would make sure that my kid knew how to deal with this problem, and make sure that the adults in charge knew as much, but I wouldn’t try to ruin a perfectly healthy food for everyone else.
The trouble with peanuts is that some kids can touch peanut residue left on a table and touch their eyes or mouths (because lets face it: kids are dirty). This is a reality..peanut allergies *are* more serious than most others.
Does this mean that peanuts should be banned? I don’t think so.. Train the kids to wash their hands.
I have a severe allergy to egg. I grew up with my teachers thinking I would get a tummy ache. Did I end up in the hospital because of food in school and ignorant people? Yes Did I almost die? Yep. Did the school ban eggs? Not a chance. I certainly learned a good lesson!
getting others to cater to you seems to almost be the way of the world… all the PC lingo so as not to offend… all the by-laws to protect those innocent bubble-kids…
If your immune system can’t fight off something so common in public as peanuts then you should at least have the brains needed to survive on your own in spite of them. Otherwise, I’d say it’s just thinning out the herd of the dead weight and predator fodder.
I can’t believe the idiocy of some of these comments. So what if we’re endangering the life of a child and forcing them to be in the presence of something potentially lethal? PB&J for all!!! You dumbasses. This has nothing to do with rejection or having things ‘their way,’ this is a real, deadly medical condition. You’d have to be a fucking asshole to risk the health of a child for a sandwich.
you’re right there Halidweller…
we should put all Arachis hypogaea, peanuts and peanut infected products and blast them into space.
Because some people could die from them, no-one should be allowed to possess one. We will all live at peace once children can be safe and we’re entirely rid of peanuts.
that’s the way it should be…. yeah.
Right Halidweller, the needs of that minute 1% of 5% of all children that actually have a peanut allergy, outweigh everyone else. I know it’s a tough gig, but these kids should be put in a bubble, because fatal peanut allergies are usually accompanied by other, sometimes more common allergies, like environmental allergies. Home school them, if you want to be that protective. If and when I become a father, my kid’s will go to school with peanuts. Kids have a hard enough time trying to eat healthy in school, and cutting out something like peanut because one kid has an allergy, sorry. I don’t buy it. I worked around my own medical conditions when I was a kid, so did everyone else here.
I think I want a peanut butter & honey sandwich now, maybe black forest ham..tough call but I think I am leaning towards the PB…
Young students with severe, life-threatening peanut allergies deserve a safe school environment.
If they ingest even a small amount of peanut protein, their bronchial tubes can swell shut, causing death by asphyxiation.
This is not a medical condition that can easy “worked around” as has been suggested here. Peanut butter gets all over school surfaces poses a fatal risk to students with severe allergies.
It’s not just some “inconvenience.”
Let’s all hope that our medical researchers learn what causes this life-threatening allergy and develop a solution.
Who knows — the research might help us understand other auto-immune diseases such as diabetes which affect much of the world population.
Until then, is it really a massive inconvenience to eliminate peanuts from the school environment?
I hardly ever agree with Pretty Kitty and the other bitches here but here it is!
When the school sent a notice that 2 students (siblings) with severe peanut allergies were being enrolled and peanuts forever banished from the environment in the way of whole grain breads, granola bars, the works, they also sent an information sheet about how a single micron of peanut oil could cause DEATH to these children.
I was a single parent for a long time. My son, at 12 years old, was a ‘latch key kid’. He came home and made himself lunch. To think that if my son disobeyed me at lunch time and made himself a peanut butter sandwich and didn’t wash his hands that he could KILL a person simply by leaving a micron of peanut oil on the keyboard in the the computer lab…. UNTHINKABLE! To set my kid up to cause another child to DIE…. to make my son responsible at 12 years old for the safety and health of another… I was appalled, to say the least.
It’s enough to prohibit eating in class or food in science labs, etc. If these kids are deathly allergic to peanut oil, I’m sorry, the public school system should cater only so much to special needs children. Children with special needs that need to be observed within a micron to ensure the child’s SURVIVAL should NEVER be a public responsibility. Home-school the child, put them in a facility designed for this special need, put them in a fucking bubble but don’t ever make my kids responsible. We don’t even let them vote!
The peanut issue is a hot topic and each side has their points. I worked in a daycare in which we had toddlers and preschoolers who had epipens for peanut allergies. Most of these kids are unable to tell when there are peanuts in the room, and then ask for those peanut products to be disposed of or wrapped up an put away.
I acknowledge however that a preschool is much different from an elementary school though — in that kids don’t always have their hands in their mouths.
I think what the non-peanut allergy” side needs to understand is that kids with these allergies can die. Does that mean that they should be excluded from the social opportunities and benefits (I use that loosely) of the public school system? If so, where do we stop? Anyone ever heard of the slippery slope?
Put yourself in a parent’s position: Your child, who could die from a small exposure, is sent off, away from you, where you cannot protect or control what he/she comes into contact with. Would you not be concerned for your child’s life? Esp if there are parents out there who say “who cares if they’re allergic? That’s THEIR problem — let them deal with it”? I think a little compasion and understanding would make this topic a little more pallatible.
And if you’re looking for healthy food options for your kids: pack them a healthy lunch! What’s wrong with a jam sandwich, with some carrot sticks and an apple? Does the two tablespoons of PB really make THAT much difference?
The peanut issue is a hot topic and each side has their points. I worked in a daycare in which we had toddlers and preschoolers who had epipens for peanut allergies. Most of these kids are unable to tell when there are peanuts in the room, and then ask for those peanut products to be disposed of or wrapped up an put away.
I acknowledge however that a preschool is much different from an elementary school though — in that kids don’t always have their hands in their mouths.
I think what the non-peanut allergy” side needs to understand is that kids with these allergies can die. Does that mean that they should be excluded from the social opportunities and benefits (I use that loosely) of the public school system? If so, where do we stop? Anyone ever heard of the slippery slope?
Put yourself in a parent’s position: Your child, who could die from a small exposure, is sent off, away from you, where you cannot protect or control what he/she comes into contact with. Would you not be concerned for your child’s life? Esp if there are parents out there who say “who cares if they’re allergic? That’s THEIR problem — let them deal with it”? I think a little compasion and understanding would make this topic a little more pallatible.
And if you’re looking for healthy food options for your kids: pack them a healthy lunch! What’s wrong with a jam sandwich, with some carrot sticks and an apple? Does the two tablespoons of PB really make THAT much difference?
The two tablespoons of PB makes little difference. It’s the white bread requirement that has a pretty nasty affect, Kathy.
I think if my child had a deadly allergy and the school agreed to my kid’s special needs I’d be some pissed off to find out, ultimately, a little kid killed my child. As a parent wouldn’t you be appalled to learn your rotten 9 year old didn’t wash their face after PB for breakfast and KILLED their school mate? WHY the school would want such responsibility is also beyond me.
You can parallel peanut oil to the flu virus. It can kill kids if the child already has medical issues, and it gets smeared all over desks and chairs and computes by kids who don’t know better to wash their hands. Do we ban children with the sniffles from going to school? No. We teach them to wash their hands. And this is something that can also make every other child very sick, even if its not fatal to them. Yet peanuts are public enemy number one. Because 1% of children might die if they happen to touch something that might have peanut oil on it, and then put their hands in their mouths.
I do agree, keep them out of daycares, they kids don’t and can’t understand the problem. But if a kid can learn to read and write, they can learn to wash their hands, keep their snacks to themselves, and be aware of an allergy, as I was with the bee sting kid.
They teach a lot of stuff in health class, least of which relating to general sanitation. There should be more focus on drilling elementary kids that washing hands is incredibly important. You’d be surprise how many kids don’t wash their hands after using the washroom, let alone how many adults. That is the lowest common denominator for eliminating the spread of these substances, yet there is no focus on it. All they focus on is banning things. You got to stop the problems at the source, you can’t glaze over them with blanket solutions.
Has anyone heard of how they are curing peanut allergies (which happen to be a fairly new allergy)? they are giving people micro bits of peanuts every day and it eventually cures them of their allergies. 100% success rate. Sweet. I don’t want to have to see a poor peanut cry any more.
Okay Kathy, I’m allergic to a certain pesticide on American fruits and veggies. Do you think the school when I was a kid banned those products because I was the only one that was allergic? No, it way too rare (just like fatal peanut allergies, again, it’s estimated that of the 5% of all kids that have this peanut allergy, only 1% is fatal. That’s if the kid doesn’t have an epi pen to stop the reaction). I went all through elementary eating food made with American fruits and vegetables. Guess I was just lucky that my body only breaks out in a rash when I ingest it.
Why not save the peanut butter for after school snacks and weekends? Whether it’s deemed as frivolous or not, do we really need to be putting young children in danger? It’s all fine and dandy to say “teach them proper hygeine”, but when it comes down to it, 5 and 6 year olds don’t always do exactly as they’re told. Why not err on the side of caution and pack something else for lunch? There are a million other options. Save the peanut butter for home. Don’t you think you’d feel bad if some kid died because you insisted on bring peanut butter to school to prove some kind of point?
It’s not just PB HH, but anything that contains peanuts, or may have been made in a factory that makes things that have peanuts. It’s cupcakes on the commercial! Next thing we’ll be banning milk and dairy because of kids who are lactose intolerant.
And when it comes down to it, the fact is that its a super rare allergy, with a super low fatality rate. The media has just blown it way out of proportion, and so companies are jumping on the band wagon and making it far more of an issue than it needs to be.
Kelley, I have read about that study, and I think that it’s part of the reason that it’s become more of an issue now than it used to be, because before kids naturally got those small amounts of peanuts in things which cured them without anyone even knowing it was an issue. But now we’re going to have tons of kids who have more severe allergies as adults because they weren’t exposed to any peanuts as kids.
PAS is right HH, the mortality rate is extremely low in all cases, and in most cases, the child has a epi-pen to avoid to actual onset of fatal conditions, and the teacher is well versed in what needs to happen. We can say “pack something else” but this extends even further, Schools have even asked in some instances to avoid peanut products altogether both at home and at school, because one little micron can set off that “fatal” reaction, and that micron can be carried on breath. Not to mention too, PB in general is one of the cheapest and quickest solutions for a lunch, in terms of healthy choices. There are households out there that cannot afford those other “options”. Almonds contain cyanide. Do we ban almond products? Again, rarity is the issue. Why should society stop eating something for 0.05% (with the media’s assistance, this figure seems like 50%) of the population?
yes Dr. Fever, you ARE lucky that you only broke out into a rash. The kids that have a fatal reaction have their throats close up.
I think what we need to realize is that, as in any debate, people will always be every emphatic about their side and will never be able to be convinced otherwise. We aren’t attacking people here, and please remember this is a place for people to bitch and vent — no matter what their topic of choice. Counter bitches will not wn them over.
So Dr. Fever, are you trying to tell me peanut butter is the only thing some people can afford to feed their kids? Sorry, but there are other cheap things you can have your lunch. Sometimes you just need to think outside the (lunch)box.
You’re right – it’s a tiny percentage of kids who have these allergies. However, as a parent, I’d rather send me kids to school knowing they’re not potentially going to cause a medical emergency in one of their classmates. I can give my kids peanut butter after school, or on the weekends. We’re talking about 5 meals a week peanut-free. Why is that such a big deal?
My child’s elementary school has 4 children with peanut allergies, and it’s certainly not a big school. So maybe, PAS, it’s a bit more common than you think.
Again, no one’s going to die if they DON’T have peanut butter for lunch, so why pack it when you know there’s a chance someone COULD die?
Alright HH, tell me a food product that has the same health benefits, all for the same cost and I’ll buy your argument. Remember that peanuts contain (these figures are per 100g) 25 g of protein, 9 g of fibre, B series vitamins in ranges from 20% to 86% (the 86% is niacin which is important in brain development) of daily intake, and keep in mind 1kg of PB is about 4.99.
I’d like to remind our bitches peanut oil can be found in almost ALL whole grain products including multi-grained breads and granola bars. If 4 children out of a 300-500 student population have a severe allergy WHY should all 296-496 students have to change their midday diets to match that of a rare allergy sufferer? Shouldn’t blanketing policy like “mandatory face/hand-washing”, “no food in classes and labs” and (maybe) supporting a small “nut-free lunchroom” (hehe) be enough to protect these children (who are also highly cognitive of their allergy)? Add composting/recycling/waste or leftover food handling practices to lunch room policy (likely matches at-home-kitchen policy) so food is never not in a container outside the lunchroom (which, I’ve realized, could no longer double a gymnasium for the 4 allergy sufferers). Add awareness education to the health class curriculum in and… doesn’t this make sense?
We’ll take a few steps in public schools to ward off incidents complicating food allergies and then have the children graduate into a business world where they must fend for themselves. Let’s not leave the allergy sufferers unprepared for the big bad world by teaching them how to cope in public rather than trying to change the world.
Kay, did you take a common-sense pill or something? I actually agree with you.
And HH, we’re not saying that if you choose to send your kids with peanut free lunches that you are wrong, we’re just saying that it should be a choice, like in your case, not a requirement.
Darwin…
I don’t have an issue with banning peanuts from schools where there is a child with peanut allergies. I know that shit can be deadly even if you’re in the same room as a peanut butter cookie, for example.
What I DON’T agree with is how schools have sweeping bans when there may or may not be a kid in the school with a peanut allergy. If your kid has this deadly allergy I’m pretty sure the parents would disclose this allergy to the school and THEN they can send a note home with the kids saying “no more peanuts, yo”….they used to do it when someone in the school got pink eye when I was little, and they did it when someone got meningitis at another high school at a party to warn that if any of us were at that party we should get tested. If they can do that WHY can’t they just do it when they have a kid with such an allergy instead of ALL the time. THIS is where I think the schools are lazy. I mean the percentage of kids with allergies such as this is pretty damn low, so it makes more sense to place a ban on a case-by-case basis than a sweeping ban.
And I’m pretty sure that by age 5 a kid’s peanut allergy would be figured out by their parents. So I doubt there’d be any chance of someone just having a reaction when they didn’t know they were allergic…and if they DID, well these kids had to find out they were allergic SOMEHOW. Isn’t that how most people find out they have an allergy?
As for trying to ban peanuts from people’s homes because they are concerned that some kid might not wash their face/hands before coming to school, well the schools can suck it. THe school environment is one thing, but trying to dictate people’s lives and how they raise their kids? Fuck you. If the school is so concerned about that, then provide wipes before the kids come into the school and make them wipe their faces and hands.
There are a lot of paragraphs on here… Ill make a mental note to come back and read them sometime thats not right now.
Just wanted to add – my pet peeve of the day is that my seven year old brother has started asking my mother to buy him pea-butter (a peanut butter substitute). The kid has an allergy to penicillin! Thats it!! Jesus maria!
And also, the term “pussification” fits perfectly Pretty Kitty.
Fever, I was going to ask you the same thing
100 grams is a HUGE serving of peanut butter. That’s over six tablespoons. So while your nutritional information may sound impressive, I can’t imagine a small child consuming that much peanut butter (and therefore that many nutrients) in one serving. That much peanut butter would have 588 calories and 50 grams of fat – more than half the day’s recommended fate intake. Yeah – that sounds healthy. FYI, 2 tablespoons is considered a serving of peanut butter.
B vitamins are important – you’re right. Most enriched cereals, breads, and pastas have plenty of it.
It seems really, really selfish to me to make a fuss about no peanut butter for your child between the hours of 8:00 and 3:00, 5 days a week, when another child’s life could potentially be in danger.
The amount suggested wasn’t what you’d feed a child, but a way for you to find something with equivalent nutritional values at a similar cost. So how about you do that.
A lot of kids are also becoming vegetarian these days, or are brought up that way because of vegetarian parents, so your item would have to be veggie friendly as well.
Not to mention that you don’t have to refridgerate PB, so kids can take it to school or outside and don’t have to worry about it being in their backpacks all morning.
I don’t have the time on my hands to do nurtitional analysis for all these suggestions, but what about:
1. A cheese sandwhich on whole grain bread. High fibre, good source of protein, good source of calcium, and you can even squeeze in some omega-3 fatty acids if there’s flax seed in the bread.
2. Veggie sticks with hummus. Again, a ton of fibre, not to mention vitamins and minerals, and hummus is an excellent source of protein.
3. Egg salad sandwich on whole grain bread. You’ve got your fibre, you’ve got your minerals. Throw some greens on there for good measure.
4. Veggie pizza on a whole-wheat crust. Calcium? Check. Fibre? Check. Full serving of veggies? Check.
I could go on and on, but I won’t. Like I said, I don’t have the time (or desire) to compare these exactly to the nutritional value of peanut butter. Regardless, these are all healthy, peanut free lunch options, and there are countless more ideas.
P.S. When I was going to school, in the 80s, my mom put an ice pack in my lunch box every day to keep the food cold and safe. It wasn’t an issue to do so 20 years ago, so I can’t imagine why it would be an issue now.
P.P.S. B-vitamin deficiencies are very rare, beacause most of our grain products are enriched (bread, cereal). So I don’t think we need to rely on peanut butter to get our daily allowance of Niacin.
B vitamin deficiencies are about as rare as fatal peanut allergies… just thought I’d mention that. However, you need to see that most whole grain products contain peanut or have been manufactured in areas with peanuts on the machinery. So, you can’t use whole-grain bread, due to peanut allergies. Not to mention one loaf of whole grain bread costs at least 1.50 more a loaf. I see your point, but eliminating something as elementary (heh a pun) as peanut from a child’s diet only reinforces that children that aren’t privileged don’t get to eat healthy, because most of the examples you used, cost a lot more than a PB sandwich. Pizza on a whole grain crust? Good luck finding that for less than 5 bucks at a grocery store. Even fresh veggies are out of reach for most poor families as eating healthy has become something for the upper-middle class yuppies to be marketed to (thereby increasing prices). It’s really a simple fix. The child who has the allergy needs to be aware they have it and the steps to take if they have a reaction (equip the child with an epi-pen, failing that, the teacher. Children are smarter than we give them credit for, just ask any kid who has epilepsy) and the teachers need to be aware of the allergy, and the steps to help the child (I’m not sure if all teachers have first-aid training or not, but it seems to me that they should, emergency level at least). Finally, if the child has an allergy that is that fatal, hate to say it, but separate them from the general population and have a room set aside, that is cleaned and sanitized regularly. The child is going to be an outcast anyways (kids will identify and ostracize because they get special treatment, one way or the other) Educate the children to wash face and hands after all meals, and there we go.
There are far more children these days being diagnosed as diabetics, yet there are still pop machines in schools, cookies in the cafeteria, kids can bring as many sugary snacks as they want, and I imagine they still have cake for birthdays and the like. But diabetic children are taught that they need to keep an eye on their glucose levels (I witnessed a child at the age of 9 checking his sugars this summer) and to take insulin if need be. Surely allergy sufferers can take as much care for their own health.
“but eliminating something as elementary (heh a pun) as peanut from a child’s diet”
You make it sound like peanuts are the sole building blocks of a healthy diet. Anyone in the field of nutrition will tell you the most basic principle of healthy eating is consuming a wide variety of healthy foods – i.e. not eating peanut butter sandwiches day in and day out.
Before my kids went to a peanut-free school, I packed a PB sandwich once every couple of weeks. We are certainly not a wealthy family, not by any means, but we did, and continue to find healthy lunches for our kids.
FYI – our schools no longer have pop machines. You can only buy milk, water, and 100% natural fruit juice in the vending machines at our schools.
1. fruit juice is just as much fructose as sucrose in pop.
2. 1/2 can tuna on whole wheat wrap with slice of fat free cheese and honey-mustard (or mayo if you want some fat or don’t like honey-mustard). all the protein, carbs, fiber and omega 3’s with very little fat and a lot of taste.
Avoid the mercurious albacore tuna though. Go for the chunk/flaked white.
3. I have a b-vitamin deficiency and you’ll be happy to know that, yes, both it and I are rare.
Obviously there ARE other things kida can eat for lunch, and some of them are just as healthy. The point is though that kids shouldn’t have to cut peanuts out of their diets because of a super rare possibility that another child has an allergy.
This is the only allergy that gets such special treatment, yet it’s one of the rarest. If you want to go peanut free for your own piece of mind, sure, go nuts (ha), but don’t force everyone to, because some people and kids would prefer to have peanuts, and don’t have the time, energy or money to prepare special meals because of super rare other children, that probably don’t even exist in their schools.
If only we had the balls to say “Your allergy is not my problem!!”
It’s not unreasonable to take a few steps to protect the kids but obesity also revolves largely around the eating habits we develop as a child. White bread is a real problem… no whole grains (no peanut oil) and a shit load of sugar. Forcing all the kids to eat white breaded sandwiches to save the few who might die over a micron of peanut oil… come on! When are they to develop a taste for high-grain products in their diet? White bread is like cake to a child when imposing whole grain BECAUSE of all the dam sugar.
What’s more unreasonable?
Make children responsibile for the survival of one or two others by imposing a certain diet on every student
OR
Pretend these kids don’t matter by growing balls (yup. sure. thank you, Buck)
OR (see my previous post)
Implement school policy that would see not only food allergy sufferers protected but also hygiene and overall health improvements (avoid the flu, colds, bugs, etc) over the entire student population
Seems a no brainer to me. How ’bout you?
I definitely agree that education is key here. Let everyone know that its as rare as it is, not this global issue like the media and peanut free product manufacturers would have you believe. But teach the kids that because of this issue, it’s important to wash your hands, keep your school clean, and eat properly. Healthy eating is important, but so is safety. We can have both if people are willing to calm down and teach proper behaviour.