Peanut Butter Sandwiches Banned from Schools

[Peppergirl]

Perhaps we should start looking at why there are so many more allergies now?

That's exactly what I was getting at with my poorly worded post earlier. How the hell did we survive?

[guywithashovel]

The number of peanut allergies has gone up in recent years, though as of right now it isn't clear as to why that is.

I'm still trying to work out how I feel about these types of bans. Initially, I thought, "Gee, why ban something just because of a few kids who might be allergic?" Then I read some more and started to sympathize with people who support the bans, but I'm still not too sure I agree with them.

I guess I can understand why a school would be tempted to implement a ban. Let's say the school allowed peanut butter, and then some kid allergic to it somehow came into contact with another kid's peanut butter and had a reaction. That might be a potential lawsuit for the school, especially if someone had proposed a ban in the recent past and the school turned it down.

[fireheart17]

...Vegemite!!
Seriously though, there are a lot of picky eaters out there (I have one of them) and a lot of parents that don't have or don't make the time to find easy alternatives. I'm lucky enough that I can stay at home and experiment with lunches. I'm so happy that Jazzy understands about allergies and not sharing food at school, because it means that there's no arguments about why she can't take certain foods.

I was a picky eater as well. While Vegemite handles fine at room temperature (mmm....Vegemite...*drool*), Vegemite and cheese does not. I had lunch orders for the rest of my primary school year.

1. Cost? PB is cheap. Some people may have trouble affording other foods.
2. Convenience? PB keeps well at room temperature, something other foods don't.
3. Picky Eater? Some kids go through phases where they only want to eat certain foods, and sometimes parents have enough on their plate to deal with than spend an hour trying to get a kid to eat.

So why are you not jumping up and down about banning cars? Have you seen the statistics of yearly children deaths on the roads? It puts the PB allergy "problem" into perspective. You can carry an epi-pen or two to stave off an anaphylactic attack, but no pocket-device will stop a car from turning you into a pink smear.

Kids can forget their epi-pens, someone else may not be around who knows how to administer said epi-pen (usually down here at least, teachers need to know how to administer one in case) and so on. Also comparing nut allergy deaths to car accidents is a poor choice. You can prevent you or your child being in a car accident by driving safe and encouraging good behaviour on the road. You can't prevent a child from developing a nut allergy.

But having people seriously consider a blanket ban that would affect the choices of millions of people just so a handful don't have to inconvenience themselves by taking personal responsibility is, to put it bluntly, so fucked up you couldn't get it more fucked up if you buggered it with a wire brush.

There's another factor into it as well: teachers can't always be watching kids every step of the way, especially if they buy their lunch at the canteen. So it's not so much about kids being responsible as well, it's also regarding the fact that teachers PHYSICALLY cannot stand there while kids are buying things and go "Now remember, you can't give that to little Timmy, he's got a nut allergy."

Perhaps we should start looking at why there are so many more allergies now?

Some of the theories I've heard have been related towards genetics (i.e. allergic parent has allergic child), environmental factors, being exposed to dirt and other pathogens and so on.

I'm going to go with the lack of dirt/pathogen exposure.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm going to go with the lack of dirt/pathogen exposure.

One potential trigger is exposing kids to new foods that aren't part of the our natural diet at too young an age. They're still looking into that one.

^-.-^

[Seifer]

Cost? PB is cheap. Some people may have trouble affording other foods.
Convenience? PB keeps well at room temperature, something other foods don't.
Picky Eater? Some kids go through phases where they only want to eat certain foods, and sometimes parents have enough on their plate to deal with than spend an hour trying to get a kid to eat.

The thing is, PB is freaking *legal*, and getting pissy about it and trying to ban it because it *could* kill someone is the epitome of fucked up.

It's not banning PB from the children's homes, just from SCHOOL. Not being able to eat peanut butter for one meal out of the day isn't going to kill anyone. A child with a peanut allergy coming in contact with it, can.

Kids might be picky eaters, but most children, if you explain that their classmate WILL SUFFOCATE AND DIE if they come into contact with peanut butter, will understand. "I'm sorry, [child], but we can't have peanut butter or any kind of peanuts in our classroom/lunchroom. Some of your classmates can die if they touch or eat peanuts or peanut butter, so we want to keep them safe." Kids can and will understand that, and I honestly don't see why that is such a huge deal.

So why are you not jumping up and down about banning cars? Have you seen the statistics of yearly children deaths on the roads? It puts the PB allergy "problem" into perspective. You can carry an epi-pen or two to stave off an anaphylactic attack, but no pocket-device will stop a car from turning you into a pink smear.

Uh, because cars are hard to miss? You're seriously trying to compare two things that have nothing to do with one another. Car accidents may claim more lives per year than peanut-related allergies, but that really doesn't matter in this equation. Probably because there are many, many, many, many, MANY more cars in the United States than there are children with peanut allergies. Comparing their death rates is absurd.

How about, because I don't want someone as willfully blind as that making decisions for me that impact my life

I didn't realize anyone could be so attached to peanut butter or peanut products. Shouldn't you be in some sort of rehab?

But having people seriously consider a blanket ban that would affect the choices of millions of people just so a handful don't have to inconvenience themselves by taking personal responsibility is, to put it bluntly, so fucked up you couldn't get it more fucked up if you buggered it with a wire brush.

Considering how many young children can't dress themselves in the morning, you seem to be asking a lot of them.

Personal responsibility? Who has to take personal responsibility if a death occurs? Is it the child with allergies, who accidentally came into contact with peanut butter or another peanut-product? Is it the child who accidentally smeared peanut butter on their table/desk/counter? Is it the teacher or lunchroom staff who have to watch over every child in the room and happened to miss the accidental ingestion?

Who? Who is personally responsible for that death?

Is it the parents, because they were too lazy/poor/stupid to home-school their child? What if they couldn't afford to do that? Are they responsible?

What if the child tried to use their epi-pen but it either wasn't effective (THIS CAN HAPPEN) or it was used too late? Who takes responsibility in that case? Is the child at fault for their own death? Or is it someone else?

What if a child doesn't know they have a peanut allergy? What then? Is it their fault for not being diagnosed sooner? Their parent's fault for not taking them to an allergist to get tested?

You can harp about personal responsibility all you want, but the fact is that accidents can happen no matter how careful you are. I think a child's life takes precedence over a fucking peanut-butter sandwich any day.

[bara]

You can harp about personal responsibility all you want, but the fact is that accidents can happen no matter how careful you are. I think a child's life takes precedence over a fucking peanut-butter sandwich any day.

Okay, so lets say there is a kid allergic to ANY grain based product. Do we ban bread from school?

By this reasoning we do.
Allergic to eggs, we ban anything egg related.
OOO and milk.. can we then ban anything with milk in it? (Not intolerance, big difference)

Yep.. lets just ban eating at school. Only way to be sure.

[Seifer]

Okay, so lets say there is a kid allergic to ANY grain based product. Do we ban bread from school?

By this reasoning we do.
Allergic to eggs, we ban anything egg related.
OOO and milk.. can we then ban anything with milk in it? (Not intolerance, big difference)

Yep.. lets just ban eating at school. Only way to be sure.

^ This is what we call a "slippery slope" in debate circles. Here is another example of a slippery slope:

"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"

One does not immediately lead to the other.

Banning peanut butter and peanut-products from schools will not eventually lead to the banning of all food.

As for the milk, eggs, and other food allergies, I'm not sure of the severity of those allergies. Obviously ingesting them is an issue, but I'm not sure how easy it is for the food-proteins to stick to surfaces or be passed by skin-to-skin contact.

To be clear, I want to say that I understand that banning a food is a very serious move. It should only be done if there is literally no other option that can be used to limit the danger of contamination or ingestion by a child with a severe allergy. However, my point is that if it came down to it, I wouldn't be against banning a food if it meant creating a safe environment for children in the school. The severity of the ban can take into account how many children have an allergy, how severe that allergy is, and the actual risk the children face if the food item is introduced in the school.

[Greenday]

Banning peanut butter and peanut-products from schools will not eventually lead to the banning of all food.

Clearly you guys think a small enough minority is enough to ban all peanut products from school. We are now attempting to define how small a minority can be before you start to ignore them. Personally, I say we ban milk. More kids are allergic to milk than peanuts. Same thing with seafood. No seafood allowed in schools. More people are allergic to seafood than peanuts. Both are possibly deadly allergies and since 0.6%-1.3% of the population is enough for you guys to want to ban something, surely foods that 1-2% among children and up to 2.8% among adults (milk and seafood respectively) should also be removed.

http://www.foodallergy.org/page/facts-and-stats

[Duelist925]

So pointing out how ridiculous it is to pander to a very small minority by using an even smaller minority group means you are a moron? Got it.

Clearly you guys think a small enough minority is enough to ban all peanut products from school. We are now attempting to define how small a minority can be before you start to ignore them. Personally, I say we ban milk. More kids are allergic to milk than peanuts. Same thing with seafood. No seafood allowed in schools. More people are allergic to seafood than peanuts. Both are possibly deadly allergies and since 0.6%-1.3% of the population is enough for you guys to want to ban something, surely foods that 1-2% among children and up to 2.8% among adults (milk and seafood respectively) should also be removed.

http://www.foodallergy.org/page/facts-and-stats

MIlk and seafood cannot contaminate in area in the same way as peanuts can. The dust, tiny particles, or smears of peanut butter, can be left in such a way as to escape notice. Both milk and seafood give off specific odors after thawing to room temperature, allerting anyone with a working nose that they are there, and besides which, neither of them have a dust component that can set off an allergic attack in the way that peanuts do.

[Seifer]

So pointing out how ridiculous it is to pander to a very small minority by using an even smaller minority group means you are a moron? Got it.

No, saying one thing will absolutely, positively, 100% lead to another without offering any argument as to why the hell that would happen makes you sound like a moron. I say the same thing about gay-hating blowhards when they make this argument: "Allowing boys to wear eye-liner will eventually lead to boys wanting to wear dresses to school!11!eleventy"

Eye-liner =/= Dressing in drag, but people use that slippery slope argument to try and scare others into agreeing with them.

(My mother used the above argument on me, once. I haven't rolled my eyes that hard in awhile.)

Clearly you guys think a small enough minority is enough to ban all peanut products from school. We are now attempting to define how small a minority can be before you start to ignore them. Personally, I say we ban milk. More kids are allergic to milk than peanuts. Same thing with seafood. No seafood allowed in schools. More people are allergic to seafood than peanuts. Both are possibly deadly allergies and since 0.6%-1.3% of the population is enough for you guys to want to ban something, surely foods that 1-2% among children and up to 2.8% among adults (milk and seafood respectively) should also be removed.

While I don't think seafood is widely used in school lunches (I don't believe that schools serve fish anymore, possibly due to seafood allergies - and I doubt seafood holds well in a lunchbox), I can see how milk would be an issue. It would be hard to out-right ban milk, because it's a staple of young children's diets (strong bones and whatnot). Schools could help by offering other alternatives in the lunch line, and milk spills are easy to spot and clean up quickly. I'm not sure how someone with a milk allergy would be affected if milk came in contact with their skin (due to a splash or spill). I'm assuming just a rash, though.

For me, it all comes down to risk. What's the best way to lower the risk of illness or death for kids with severe allergies. Banning a food item would be the last resort, and even if a school were to ban a certain type of food, they would need to take the actual risk into consideration. If there is only one student with that food allergy in a classroom (or the entire school), then obviously the risk is rather low and precautions or bans can center around specific areas - like the classroom or lunch table.

[Sleepwalker]

Give up your damn crack butter for one meal. Christ, personal food liberties in school are in danger, onoes.

[fireheart17]

Give up your damn crack butter for one meal. Christ, personal food liberties in school are in danger, onoes.

Thank you! Someone who actually gets it!

Also, someone else pointed it out earlier but I didn't answer it in my original post....as far as picky eaters go, there are lined lunchbox coolers and ice bricks that you can stick in your childs lunchbox. So unless you live in the Sahara, there ARE alternatives to peanut butter for lunch.

[SongsOfDragons]

You guys are making me crave peanut-butter-on-toast. XD *goes to make some*

I got another query from someone who has the fence post wodged where it shouldn't be!! *waves hand* I remember earlier on someone mentioned the concept of someone eating it then kissing their SO, and the SO getting into serious difficulty. How long does that effect last? Could it happen if the someone had had PB for breakfast and met the SO just after school started?

[AdminAssistant]

Also, someone else pointed it out earlier but I didn't answer it in my original post....as far as picky eaters go, there are lined lunchbox coolers and ice bricks that you can stick in your childs lunchbox. So unless you live in the Sahara, there ARE alternatives to peanut butter for lunch.

Lunch meat still costs more than peanut butter, and protein is just as vital as calcium to a growing child.

I'm not just thinking about lunches brought from home. There's also the cafeteria to consider. And since the parents of kids with peanut allergies have been successful, I don't think it's a slippery slope to think that the parents of kids with milk, gluten, whatever allergies might be next. This adds more guidelines to cafeterias that are already struggling to feed kids 1-2 meals a day. And when you add to that the fact that there are kids who are going hungry, who only get a decent meal at school, I'm concerned. I don't have the figures at my fingertips, but I'm pretty sure there are more under-nourished children in this country than there are with peanut allergies.

I would support an 'allergen-free' table that kids could sit at, supervised by an aide or a teacher (who already have to do lunch duty anyway). That takes care of the safety issue. School parties/field trips would have to be handled on a class-by-class basis. I just think there are ways to guarantee the safety of children without banning foods completely.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The school my oldest nephew goes to has an allergy table; it seems to work perfectly well.

Wow, a solution that works without having to impose a blanket ban! Who'd have thought it?