<p>I’m curious how you envision students breaking this policy - smuggling peanuts into the dining hall?</p>
<p>Protein bar to go along with your meal. Those bars are common among folks working out and they are often made of peanuts or tree nuts. It isn’t uncommon for someone to eat a meal and boost it with a protein bar.</p>
<p>Not even just protein bars. Granola bars. Crackers. The Pack N’ Go nut bags. </p>
<p>So what is the college going to do if no peanuts are allowed in the dining hall? Search the bags of everyone who enters? Ensure that no one has peanut butter on their hands? Oh, I know! They could make everyone wash their hands before entering. Brush their teeth, too. Don’t want any peanut breath.</p>
<p>Don’t be stupid. They aren’t going to frisk everyone. But you guys don’t seem to understand legal liability – the legal liability is not if they fail to frisk everyone, the legal liability is that they knew there were peanut-allergic people and they failed to take reasonable precautions to ensure a reasonably safe environment. At a minimum, I can’t believe any college these days <em>doesn’t</em> have at least some peanut-free zone set aside someplace to be on the safe side. Even if it’s as simple as a few tables in the cafeteria or keeping the peanut butter separate from other foods.</p>
<p>Believe it, Pizzagirl. Some colleges really don’t have special peanut free tables and they keep peanut jars next to crackers in the stock room. :eek:</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>I am genuinely curious - why would you even try to locate a source of this junk? A Kit Kat bar is 50% sugar:</p>
<p><a href=“Hersheyland | Explore Hershey Products, Recipes, Crafts & More”>Hersheyland | Explore Hershey Products, Recipes, Crafts & More;
<p>21g/42g = 0.5 or 50%</p>
<p>If my kid could not eat some junk food, I’d be stirring her to towards better nutritional choices instead of trying to locate a supply of an allergen-free junk. Was there a reason your D had to eat it?</p>
<p>Read the entire thread last night, went to bed absolutely bummed about some of the responses here. We’ve dealt with the gamut of responses over the years to our daughters life threatening tree nut allergy, so this subject is very personal. I understand that it’s really not anyone’s problem that my daughter has to deal with this, but hearing how some are truly inconvenienced by eliminating this one item is a bit surprising to me.</p>
<p>Kudos to Pizzagirl, Hunt, Frugaldoc, and Emeraldkitty… and a few others as well, back farther in the thread…your responses made me feel better. Thank you.</p>
<p>My kid (and yes, even though she is a college senior I still think of her as my kid) had a few close calls in her 21 years, and although we never made a fuss about people adjusting to her needs (outside of asking folks to please label what they brought to pot lucks with a big NUTS sign), it is heartening to think that there are people and institutions that might just want keep someone from dying! (and in the case of the school, bringing a lawsuit. I know their actions were likely largely driven by the CYA routine). The good news is, we taught her to use very explicit verbage when out of our presence…“I am allergic to nuts. If I eat ANYTHING that has nuts I could die.” It served her well when she was young and there were parents who didn’t really understand the full ramifications of feeding her a cookie that they “thought” was safe. Trust but verify was and is the mantra. She is now at a school that has a nut free dining hall and even regular halls have ingredients posted. This, along with eternal vigilance has kept her safe…thus far. She is part of a food challenge study right now, so heres hoping she can someday develop a tolerance for her many tree nut allergies.</p>
<p>So, in short…is it reasonable to ban peanuts/tree nuts? In my VERY biased experience of course it is. Others are free to disagree, but I would just ask that perhaps they put themselves into the unenviable position of living in constant fear of anaphylaxis and death, all from eating a nut unwittingly. Talk about a heavy burden for a young person to bear. </p>
<p>No one ever died from lack of peanut butter/nuts. People have died from accidental exposure. If it’s your kid, even 1 incident a year is too many.</p>
<p>Just my .02</p>
<p>@Bunsen Burner…locating the nut free candy is a GOD SEND for little kids at Halloween!</p>
<p>shellz, teaching your kids about nutrition is a gift that will keep on giving years after they grow out of trick or treating. I am really puzzled as to why one would try hard to locate a source of specific junk food when there is plenty of junk that is nut-free and/or peanut-free? Cakes, ice cream, lollipos, etc. If my kids were mildly allergic to peanut- containing candy, I’d ask them to trade it for other junk (ice cream, e.g.) or money or a toy. If they were severely allergic to peanuts, they would not be going trick or treating since… well, you can’t really tell everyone on your block to give out peanut-free candies only, can you? And, no one ever died from lack of candy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sometimes feeling normal – or at least close to normal – is the highest priority, especially for a child who often has to feel that she is “different.”</p>
<p>Of course, teaching nutrition is paramount, but childhood IS filled with parties, events, etc that have food as a central component. Getting a treat that your child can enjoy, in moderation, seems like an ok thing to do once in awhile. These kids have to say no to so many things…cakes baked in bakeries and have no label, treats brought in by room moms (not so much anymore, thank goodness), the treat after the soccer game. The fear they feel when wanting to have the treat like everyone else, but knowing it could have huge consequences is just so sad to watch. I’ve watched my daughter go through this, and she was a trooper. But you can bet, that when we found out about the nut free facility in Canada, we realized she could safely enjoy a treat–the SAME treat her brothers were eating–and feel normal. It was worth it! And BTW, there were many times when we did do the “trade” thing, but it is just so refreshingly normal to be able to eat a Kit Kat bar when everyone else is too!</p>
<p>Marian, maybe the message should be that there is nothing normal about pounds of candy consumed during Halloween?</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know whether any college students have ever died, or come close to dying, from peanut/nut exposure in a cafeteria. It may be that by the time they reach age 18, the severely allergic are savvy enough and careful enough to take the necessary precautions and don’t need the university’s assistance at mealtimes.</p>
<p>
So glad I didn’t grow up in BunsenBurner’s house! I don’t see what’s wrong with candy as an occasional treat (and of course it’s half sugar–duh, it’s CANDY!), and I think it’s very nice that a parent would make an effort to enable an allergic kid to have her favorite. In my experience it was the kids who grew up with extremely stringent restrictions on their TV watching who went nuts at college and couldn’t pull themselves away from the screen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the kids who are never allowed sweets at home become the ones who empty the vending machines at college. Moderation in all things…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe it should be. But to deliver that message primarily to the kid with a food allergy and not her siblings seems cruel to me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then these colleges better be pretty damn sure every admitted student and his or her family knows about this policy. Parents need to understand completely that in choosing to go to a peanut-banned college, they are choosing to place risk of legal liability for another student’s accidental exposure (even death) onto their 18-year-old.</p>
<p>Better yet, families should know about this before their child applies to the college. There will be no PB&J, no trail mix, no granola bars or peanut-butter cookies in care packages, and if they bring in “contraband” and something bad happens to another student they will suffer financial and/or legal consequences that may change the course of their lives. Of course living without nut-containing products is survivable, but I would want to know up front just as I would want to know that the dining hall was only vegetarian or never served dairy or something else most people would consider unusual.</p>
<p>MommaJ…I am sure by the time most really allergic kids get to college they have developed some highly evolved survival strategies. BUT, remember, that most of them have been living in homes where their allergy needs were of paramount importance and the environment clean and safe.</p>
<p>The transition to self-sufficiency can be bumpy, and the learning curve steep for all college kids. As the parent of one of these highly allergic (aka has gone into anaphylactic shock twice due to an accidental exposure) kids, I like to think that her life means more than a jar of peanut butter to a “normal” kid. I understand not everyone agrees, but in my perfect world, that’s how it would work!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And after college (or when they move off-campus), they’ll move into their own homes, where their allergy needs will again be of paramount importance. </p>
<p>College, for those who live on-campus, is a unique experience in that your principal source of food is a restaurant-like environment. You don’t shop for food or prepare it yourself. In almost all other situations in life, you do these things yourself or a family member who understands your needs does them for you. College students with food allergies are vulnerable in a way that they never have been before and never will be again.</p>
<p>“So glad I didn’t grow up in BunsenBurner’s house!”</p>
<p>And I’m so glad that my kids can walk past a candy dish and not be tempted by it… 
At least a bowl of ice cream has protein and calcium in addition to sugar. There were no shortages of Haagen Dazs in my fridge when the kids were little Surprise, surprise, kiddos ate their beets and cabbages, too, because they knew they would not be forced to… eat only veggies. ;)</p>
<p>
Yes. </p>
<p>
In a perfect world, it’d be great. But your daughter is a stranger to a “normal” kid and her well-being is not on their mind when they want a PB&J sandwich.</p>
<p>
Can’t the college student take their allergy into their own hands and provide alternatives to their lifestyle to allows them to minimize their risk and maximize their enjoyment?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why would anyone do something as unhealthful as forcing a child to eat only vegetables? </p>
<p>A diet that consists only of vegetables is nutritionally deficient.</p>