# Is peanut butter banned at your child's school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 12, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136 "2011-02-12T16:28:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/101 "2011-02-14T22:31:34Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. And I have the feeling that all the schools that haven’t banned peanut products from the schools, tend to lean towards my point of view, of more individual responsibility. Unless you expect people whose children have serious allergies to isolate them on subsistence farms in order to ensure a reasonable degree of safety for them, your concept of “individual responsibility” means that you are willing to suffer a certain number of deaths per year. Are you willing to accept that? It seems to be completely irrational, when the burden placed on others by imposing reasonable restrictions on peanut butter in schools is very light compared to the burden your “individual responsibility” doctrine places on people with allergies. And I think you’ll find that school that have not chosen to institute such policies have _not_ done so with such “individual responsibility” dogma in mind. More likely they have: (1) Not encountered sufficient incidents of health problems arising from the presence of peanut butter in schools to prompt consideration of such policy, or (2) Have found that the actual risk of health problems is sufficiently small such that no policy is reasonably required. In other words, these are the results of rational decision-making (reinforced by the tort system), not the result of application of any “individual responsibility” dogma. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/102 "2011-02-14T22:43:43Z")
You may be correct. But, my one experience of dealing with this subject was at my son’s elementary school. Another child in my his kindergarten class had peanut allergies. They sent home a note asking parents to not bring any snacks for parties, etc. with peanuts or peanut products in them. All of the parents were happy to oblige. When they moved up to 1st grade and their child was going to be eating lunch in the cafeteria, the parents of the kid with the allergy requested that the school institute a schoolwide ban of peanut products. The school said no, that their daughter should learn that she couldn’t eat from her classmates lunches and that it would be too burdensome on the other parents to impose such a ban. The parent’s pulled their kid out of the school, only to return a few years later. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/103 "2011-02-14T22:50:34Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > The school said no, that their daughter should learn that she couldn’t eat from her classmates lunches and that it would be too burdensome on the other parents to impose such a ban. > > The parent’s pulled their kid out of the school, only to return a few years later. So they applied the “screw you; we got ours” principle. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/104 "2011-02-14T22:55:58Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > So they applied the “screw you; we got ours” principle. I guess that’s one way to describe it. Since the kid returned there has not been an incidence of a exposure that I’m aware of, and that was 7 years ago. Seems like she was able to mainstream in the lunchroom pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/105 "2011-02-14T23:24:25Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. And I have the feeling that all the schools that haven’t banned peanut products from the schools, tend to lean towards my point of view, of more individual responsibility. WTF a kid can die easily from a small amount of PB. Personal responsibility is all and good for the kids with the allergy but what about little johnny who drops is PB sandwich on a bench and doesn’t tell anyone? What if that little johnny was yours and a kid ended up in hospital or worse? Personal responsibility goes two ways and when people on both sides don’t respect that, that is when legislation comes in. FFS people a kid can go without a PB & J sandwich, it’s not even healthy!!:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/106 "2011-02-14T23:27:33Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I guess that’s one way to describe it. > > Since the kid returned there has not been an incidence of a exposure that I’m aware of, and that was 7 years ago. Seems like she was able to mainstream in the lunchroom pretty well. Only after several years during which they were denied the benefit of public education. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/107 "2011-02-14T23:28:42Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > WTF a kid can die easily from a small amount of PB. Personal responsibility is all and good for the kids with the allergy but what about little johnny who drops is PB sandwich on a bench and doesn’t tell anyone? > > What if that little johnny was yours and a kid ended up in hospital or worse? > > Personal responsibility goes two ways and when people on both sides don’t respect that, that is when legislation comes in. > > FFS people a kid can go without a PB & J sandwich, it’s not even healthy!!:smack: WTF yourself!!! :rolleyes: Good luck getting legislation on the banning of peanut butter in all schools. Your talking about an institution that has a hard enough problem keeping guns and knives out. And on top of that your bonus rationale is that peanut butter isn’t even healthy for you. How about you start on getting ketchup declassified as a vegetable in our schools first. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/108 "2011-02-14T23:29:43Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Only after several years during which they were denied the benefit of public education. This was a private school, in my anecdote. And even if it was a public school. They weren’t denied the benefit of the school. They just weren’t going to be able to dictate the conditions of the school that were satisfactory to them. It was their choice. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/109 "2011-02-14T23:46:29Z")
A choice, eh? More like a Hobson’s choice. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/110 "2011-02-14T23:52:34Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > A choice, eh? More like a Hobson’s choice. A lot of choices we make in life could be characterized that way. And this one the parents reversed their decision after a couple of years. I guess they decided that their child’s education was more important. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/111 "2011-02-14T23:57:10Z")
No it’s more likely that the child had reached an age at which the likelihood of accidental exposure was less. If the probability had remained the same, no rational parent would have simply changed his or her mind simply because education was suddenly more important than health. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/112 "2011-02-15T14:47:55Z")
I think restricting kids with peanut products to a single table is a bad solution at the elementary school level for a few reasons: 1. It’s harder to enforce. School kids can barely be trusted to wipe their own ass, let alone inspect their lunches for nuts. Especially given the range of items that “may contain trace amounts of nuts”. So you’ve got to have teachers & lunch ladies walking around searching for contraband peanuts. 2. It, like a total ban, engenders resentment from parents of non-allergic kids, and the kids themselves. This can lead to parents trying to “sneak in” food that’s restricted, but not obviously so. 3. It doesn’t teach the peanut allergic kids that they are becoming responsible for their own safety. Yes, my daughter is sad that she’s different from the other kids, and sometimes feels isolated. That’s preferable to anaphylaxis. Unfortunately, for at least the next 12 years and possibly for her entire life, she’s going to have to be aware of her allergies every single time she sits down to eat. Of course school should be a safe place for her, but it doesn’t have to be done by restricting everyone else’s diet. Much better to have one or a few peanut free tables. The way my daughter’s school works is that the peanut allergic kids must sit at the peanut free tables, and can buy or bring lunch (since presumably their parents can be trusted to pack them a safe lunch). Other kids can sit with them, but only if they buy a school lunch. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/113 "2011-02-15T14:58:14Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > WTF a kid can die easily from a small amount of PB. You know actually this isn’t true. There are only 200 deaths a year from ALL food allergies of people of ALL ages. There are 49 MILLION students enrolled in public school. 200 is about double the deaths from bumblebee stings. Do you suggest that 49 million children should no longer be allowed out of doors, in case someone should encounter the remote chance of death by bumblebee sting? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/114 "2011-02-15T15:00:12Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Do you suggest that 49 million children should no longer be allowed out of doors, in case someone should encounter the remote chance of death by bumblebee sting? It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that such legislation would be introduced. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/115 "2011-02-15T18:21:45Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > You know actually this isn’t true. There are only 200 deaths a year from ALL food allergies of people of ALL ages. There are 49 MILLION students enrolled in public school. 200 is about double the deaths from bumblebee stings. Do you suggest that 49 million children should no longer be allowed out of doors, in case someone should encounter the remote chance of death by bumblebee sting? While I have never had an allergic reaction that killed me (obviously) I have had some severe ones, including a couple that put me in the ER and were genuinely dangerous. For every one of those fatal reactions are many more that are painful, even agonizing, frightening, and can take weeks to fully recover from. That’s not trivial. Personally, I am all for teaching children self responsibility. We also have to remember that six year olds aren’t miniature adults. Young children DO need adults to help keep them safe. I think it’s debatable how best to go about it, but just as schools are held responsible for preventing students from being injured from preventable accidents it seems reasonable that they would be held responsible for preventing avoidable exposure to food that is dangerous for a child to consume. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/116 "2011-02-15T18:46:27Z")
In my kid’s elementary school, those kids who wish to eat peanut butter are treated like lepers and sequestered on table far from the rest of the kids. Seems to me that the allergic kids are the ones that ought to be separated out. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/117 "2011-02-15T18:51:34Z")
> [@perfectparanoia](#): > > (Right now, I am sending them with all bran bars which aren’t marked as nut-free but don’t have the warning either. Teachers haven’t sent them home…yet.) > > ETA: If anyone has suggestions for good high fibre snacks, bring em on. I’m guessing you’re not required to send your kids with only pre-packaged snacks, right? If that’s not an issue, you could just [make your own granola bars](http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/granola-bars-recipe/index.html). You could omit the nuts and, if permitted, use seeds instead. Or you could omit all seeds and nuts and just use dried fruit. You can google for chewy granola bars, too, to get additional recipes. ---
**Author:** ![Sudo\_Intellectual](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sudo\_Intellectual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudo_Intellectual)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/118 "2011-02-15T19:53:05Z")
My Nephews are in elementary school and there is a complete ban on peanuts, almonds and any product that may contain trace elements of nuts. They actually routinely get their lunches inspected (although they call it something else) to make sure they are not in violation of the ban. I sympathize for the parents of children with nut allergies, I do. And I understand it’s easier to just ban them then take the chance of contamination. However, at their school there are two children that have this nut allergy. Both are part of the Special education program at the school and so do not eat lunch, play or interact with the children in any way. I am confused as to why the school felt the need to implement such strict rules. When I was a kid, PB&J was a staple of my daily lunch. It wasn’t cause I was a picky eater or because I didn’t like certain foods. It was because it was cheap and we had NO money growing up. Even now, when I’m broke, Peanut butter is what I reach for to get me through. I guess for that reason I do find it somewhat unfair that two unaffected students can dictate the shopping choices for the other 600 students at the school. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/119 "2011-02-15T20:46:00Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > You know actually this isn’t true. There are only 200 deaths a year from ALL food allergies of people of ALL ages. There are 49 MILLION students enrolled in public school. 200 is about double the deaths from bumblebee stings. Do you suggest that 49 million children should no longer be allowed out of doors, in case someone should encounter the remote chance of death by bumblebee sting? And its been a while since I did the search, but its almost never elementary age schoolkids - who even in peanut possessing schools are watched with epipen equipped staff on alert. It tends to be teenagers and adults. Also, it tends to be shellfish that is the killer despite peanut allergies being (IIRC) more common (not sure why). Also, last time I did the search, there was no record of anything greater than a rash from contact with nuts. Ingesting=bad. Peanut dust=bad. I could not find any case of “Jimmie touched Johnny’s peanut butter smeared pencil and all hell broke loose.” If anyone can find a cite for such a thing, I’d be very grateful. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136/120 "2011-02-15T20:48:00Z")
> [@Sudo\_Intellectual](#): > > I sympathize for the parents of children with nut allergies, I do. And I understand it’s easier to just ban them then take the chance of contamination. However, at their school there are two children that have this nut allergy. Both are part of the Special education program at the school and so do not eat lunch, play or interact with the children in any way. I am confused as to why the school felt the need to implement such strict rules. It’s a lazy way to avoid lawsuits. There ARE other ways to keep allergic kids safe. When I was in elementary school we had a girl who was both an insulin dependent diabetic and severely allergic to milk. Somehow, she survived despite a lack of a complete ban on dairy products at the school. How? Well, it was noticed that the lunch room monitors did keep a closer eye on her than other kids. The teachers seemed to have been trained somehow to note when she was showing signs of low blood sugar or whatever so she’d be told to go to the nurses’ office (this was especially true in gym class). Other kids with “special needs” (it wasn’t called that back then) were likewise observed more closely than the regular kids but it was managed. But all that requires a little more effort and the use of brains, the latter of which seems especially in short supply in today’s world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-peanut-butter-banned-at-your-childs-school/571136.md?page=5)