Oh, nuts! Allergies prompt more schools to ban PB&J
Here’s the spread: About 18 percent of nearly 1,200 school districts surveyed by the School Nutrition Association have peanut bans – a 50 percent jump from two years earlier.
Not all parents are happy about not being able to pack their kids a PB&J sandwich.
Terri Mauro, who edits a web site for parents with special needs children, says that she has received a flood of angry comments about her support for school-wide peanut bans. A ban in Seymour, Conn. prompted one person to write on a message board that all the kids with peanut allergies should be put in one room and force-fed peanuts.
“People are a little unhinged about this,” said Mauro in an Associated Press story.
Some schools have a figured out a compromise. Cafeteria tables for children with allergies are marked with a red no-peanut sign on some campuses of the Carroll school district in suburban Dallas, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Kids whose lunches have peanut products have to sit at tables with green signs. Could these be this generation’s new lunchroom clichés?
For information on peanut allergies and recipe ideas with peanut alternatives, click here.
I was an elementary-school-child of the eighties. I remember sitting boy-girl or having to sit silently during lunch period because we were in trouble, and I now realize how insane that was, but banning peanuts goes too far. I completely understand that food allergies can be extremely serious, however, to restrict and ban what may be another child’s favorite food item (or the only thing the child will eat, for that matter), but more especially because it may be all the parents can afford to provide (yes, I’m aware of the free/reduced lunches available, but we don’t all qualify for government aid yet are still affected by the economy.), for the sake of protecting a child whose chance of coming in contact with said peanuts is likely slim indeed, seems ludicrous. I believe in education, and in this case educating both those with allergies and without will go a long way in eliminating the chance of peanut contamination without restricting the right of any person to eat whatever they damn well please or can afford.