<p>In the real world, the PAs have choices of where to eat or just eat meals they prepared for themselves. They can choose to fly on airlines that do not serve peanuts. In fact, they just continue making the adjustments they’ve done all of their lives but can’t do on an enclosed campus with limited dinig options.</p>
<p>Apparently rice krispie treats are called “scotcheroos” when made with peanut butter and chocolate. </p>
<p>[Chocolate</a> Scotcheroos Recipe | Kellogg?s® Rice Krispies®](<a href=“http://www.ricekrispies.com/recipes/chocolate-scotcheroos]Chocolate”>http://www.ricekrispies.com/recipes/chocolate-scotcheroos)</p>
<p>I think peanut allergies are common enough that most people will label treats at a picnic or potluck to indicate that they contain nuts. My kids are so accustomed to their friends having food allergies that they know to suggest things we can make that are safe. I’ll never forget the day my son came home distraught in first grade because one of his new friends was allergic to dairy and one of the kids spilled milk on his jeans. (He was fine, but my son was really worried.) Now this friend is 19 and I still think of him as the kid who is allergic to dairy and bees.</p>
<p>I still don’t understand what happened at the Sacramento camp, or why the family of the girl who died seem to have let their guard down UNLESS they had been told there would be nothing served that contained peanuts. (If this is the case I would expect a lawsuit to be forthcoming.) It looks like there is a health form in which guests are asked to identify food or other allergies.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S37/46/79G28/index.xml[/url]”>https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S37/46/79G28/index.xml</a></p>
<p>@frugal They could cook their own food in their room.</p>
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<p>Many dorms…especially in traditionally residential colleges like mine don’t have kitchen facilities in the rooms themselves. Moreover, it’s a violation of dorm rules in many schools to do any cooking in one’s room anyways. Even having a microwave/hotplate was a violation in the dorms I’ve lived in though students found ways to conceal them. </p>
<p>As for dorm kitchens…not all dorms have them, access may not always be guaranteed(TA of my dorm would lock it some of the time), and since it’s open to other students preparing food…risks of peanut contamination may be the same/higher…especially considering some dorm kitchens are in more confined spaces and undergrad hygiene is highly variable.</p>
<p>Get an apartment style room. If your college doesn’t offer one, get an off campus apartment. Or if the college of interest doesn’t offer them look at another college or look at the dining options and allowed appliances. And covrat, I didn’t mean the actual room itself, although this can be done if your college permits it. My fault for not saying what I meant. </p>
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Disinfect the appliances before hand and use your own cooking utensils and tools.</p>
<p>Niquii77, some colleges require freshmen to live on campus and if a scholarship is involved, it will limit choices even further. Again, it is so much easier to ban the peanuts.</p>
<p>^Just because it’a easier doesn’t make it right.
I like the idea that PA Is a disability as another poster mentioned and the school would have to make accommodations which might mean apartment style dorms.</p>
<p>Apparently a similar % of people are affected by peanut allergy as young adults ( including college students) who required medical attention after consumption of alcohol.</p>
<p><a href=“Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386496/[/url]”>Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386496/</a></p>
<p>@frugal Yes, I am aware that some college require freshman to live on campus. I go to one. </p>
<p>And it wouldn’t be “easier”. You’d have to ensure all your products do not come in contact with peanuts. Do you know the vast amount of products that are made in factories that come in contact with peanuts although the product itself does not contain peanuts? </p>
<p>PA should ge treated as a disability where special accommodations will provided. These accommodations could include a housing waiver, a special dining hall, etc.</p>
<p>I, personally, would not appreciate it if my college put a ban on peanut butter in dining halls and I know one group on campus for sure would speak out on it.</p>
<p>In the case of the family camp, the camp was run by the city & sounds like an " event" rather than a bonafide camp which would have regular inspections by accrediting organizations to insure safety.
Our propensity for hygiene seems to have contributed to increased incidence of allergies.
[Expert</a> sees peanut allergy solution within 5 years | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/02/us-peanut-allergy-idUSN0140180420080502]Expert”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/02/us-peanut-allergy-idUSN0140180420080502)
Her father was a Dr so I am not going to second guess her parents actions in the tragedy, but it is a good reminder to take allergies seriously.
( which means I better start carrying my epi pen with me)
[Years</a> of caution about peanut allergy fails to save teen who died at Camp Sacramento - Health and Medicine - The Sacramento Bee](<a href=“http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/30/5607195/years-of-caution-about-peanut.html]Years”>http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/30/5607195/years-of-caution-about-peanut.html)
Epi pens are not a replacement for treatment, but intended to keep you alive until you can get treatment.</p>
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<p>It’s not as hard as all that. We’ve managed to prepare food in our home for 20 years.</p>
<p>Also, I have noticed a reduction, not an increase, in the number of foods with a “may contain peanuts” warning on the label over the years. First, some foods which used to say “may contain peanuts,” now say “made in a facility that also processes peanuts.” This is distinct from the language which reads, “made on shared equipment with products that contain peanuts.” My daughter doesn’t eat things made on shared equipment but is fine with “shared facility” items. I don’t know if that’s true of every peanut-allergic student, but it works for her. </p>
<p>Some food manufacturers have also changed their procedures so that they can remove the warning. Kit-Kats used to be off-limits for our daughter. We had source that kept us supplied with Kit-Kats from Canada, which are made in a peanut-free facility. However, recently we noticed that Kit-Kats no longer are labeled with a warning. Because the labeling rules in the US are very clear, we feel fairly confident that this means there isn’t a risk of cross-contamination of Kit-Kats.</p>
<p>Baked goods and chocolate candies are very frequently an issue, but if the college dining services decided not to use peanut products in the on-premises kitchens, and baked their own items, this would be a boon for peanut-allergic students. It isn’t hard at all to source flour, sugar, eggs, oil, oatmeal, raisins, chocolate chips, etc that have no peanut warning. It isn’t even hard to source brownie, cake or cookie MIXES without a peanut warning. (Slice and bake is another story–Pillsbury is ok in some varieties; Nestle is not.)</p>
<p>It is not an issue at all to source meat products, canned or frozen vegetables, pastas, or other ingredients for main dishes that are not labeled with a peanut warning. I have literally never seen a product in those categories that carries such a warning.</p>
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It’s great that has worked for your home.</p>
<p>It’ll be a dark day in the dining halls when the PB&J station is removed.</p>
<p>Oh, the drama. I’m sure people can get over it. My daughter’s dorm complex dining hall doesn’t have peanut butter as it is designated peanut-free and offers gluten-free options along with regular options. No one has died from not having peanut butter.</p>
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It’s great that your daughter’s college offers a dorming options that facilitates their students’ lifestyle needs. </p>
<p>Pizza, of course no one is going to die from not having peanut butter, silly! It’s just the removal of peanut butter will ruffle some feathers is all.</p>
<p>Ive never seen a college with a pb& j station, & in any case, its easy to keep peanut butter and crackers in your room.
I dont have any problem with restricting a substance if it might cause serious health problems for someone else.
I mean * seriously* whats more important?
Someones life, or my need to have whatever I want 24/7?</p>
<p>If the dining hall created a PB&J station away from the other food stations (which is actually what it sounded like they are doing at Swarthmore), that would already be a huge improvement over the status quo in many places. My daughter has had to deal with situations where just to get a piece of bread, she had to negotiate a serving station where the bags of bread were placed adjacent to jars of peanut butter and potentially had PB on the outside of the package. And forget putting jam on her bread–every jar had PB in it from using the same knife for both. How hard would it have been to place the bread and jam in one location and the PB somewhere else? It would have been mildly inconvenient for some students but it would have meant my daughter could actually have something to eat. </p>
<p>The prospect of a food service venue where nothing in the hot food service line contained peanuts AND the PB jar was off on a station of its own somewhere away from other food would be NIRVANA for my daughter.</p>
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It’s really great! A club on campus got it placed in one of the dining halls. </p>
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I don’t think the question, in my situation that is, is "What is more important. It’s more “What is more appropriate.” Moving a person with an allergen to an apartment style dorm where they are able to cook their food or removing something in which over 13,000 of your students had fought for?</p>
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When students pay large amounts of money for their dining services, they expect something to be there.</p>
<p>^^^agree! In addition, I would think that a dining hall that guarantees no peanut products in order to accommodate 1or 2 students is opening the school up to a huge liability issue. It just takes one employee to make a mistake in ordering supplies before they accidentally serve something that contains peanuts.</p>
<p>Those dining halls are already liable if they don’t label these products or if they fail to provide adequate emergency care. By banning peanuts, they can minimize the liability and shift them to the students who break school policy.</p>