How common are no peanut zones? Or peanut bans?

37 comments

1. I have only known it to exist in a Mars factory where a friend’s husband works. And that’s because they manufactured foods that would be labeled as produced in a nut free facility.

2. In JUCO, we played a couple of baseball games in no sunflower zones. That’s the closest thing I can think of having never heard of peanut bans.

3. Sort of related question: Do people grow out of peanut allergies? I feel like there were a ton of kids in school that were allergic, but now I don’t know a single adult who is allergic to peanuts.

4. I’ve only experienced it in airplanes and its more of a voluntary basis and passive thing (e.g. no peanut snacks).

5. I’ve never heard of a no peanut zone or a no latex zone. Maybe they exist but I’ve never seen it, personally. My wife’s a teacher and she doesn’t hand out candy with nuts for allergy reasons just in case, but she isn’t forbidden from it.

6. Only ones I’m aware of is some schools if there is a student with a known allergy.

   Also some ballparks, especially in the minor leagues, will host peanut free nights.

7. I’m a teacher as well and I’ve never encountered a peanut ban. I’ve had students with peanut allergies, but their allergies seem to be at the level of those students not being able to eat peanuts, not peanuts in the environment being a threat. My guess is that if a student had that severe of an allergy some plan would have to be made, but that we don’t often encounter it. Of course, even if a school could ban peanuts it’s hard to see how you could prevent, say, a student from eating peanut butter at home and still having some on his hands or something. Or a person eating peanuts in the park near the school, or whatever else. So a student with that severe of an allergy would have some level of risk going out in the world in general.

8. I’ve never known of a place where peanuts weren’t allowed, but I’ve seen things on the internet about kids not being allowed to bring peanuts to school. This is also my first time hearing of a place where latex isn’t allowed.

9. I think it came up a few times when the kids were in school. I knew a few people who claimed that exposure to peanuts would kill them, so was very careful around them.

10. Never heard of it outside of elementary schools or airplanes.

11. My kids’ various preschools/daycares have for the most been peanut free. At the elementary level and higher, they are allowed peanuts, but with some limits. For example, certain classrooms have been nut-free with respect to snacks / party food. There is also a nut-free table in the cafeteria.

12. I’ve heard of them, primarily in some classrooms where a student has an allergy. But I’ve never experienced one outside an airplane.

13. I imagine some daycares or food processing plants but outside of that? Nope.

14. I don’t have kids but I feel that kids today are more aware of people who have different allergies.

    I was staying at my brothers house a few years ago and a local friend was coming to visit me. My niece was about 7 or 8 at the time. She was very concerned if my friend any allergies she should know about.

    She was so funny. She asked how I was so sure there my friend didn’t have any allergies. Even after telling her that we had been friends for over 30 years she didn’t quite believe me and wanted to remove possible allergens

15. Very common for schools and daycares.

16. If my kids have a kid with a peanut allergy in their class, then they are not allowed to have them in the classroom. I know some (most?) airlines stopped serving them.

17. I worked in a large office building years back and there was an entire section that was labeled as “no peanuts of any kind” everywhere. Evidently there wa sa lady working there that had a severe allergy.

    Other than that, I’ve only heard about it at elementary schools.

18. I’ve only heard of it in school cafeterias if they have a student with severe allergies

19. “Ban” is a pretty strong word. I remember there was a designated table for kids with food allergy (but I think it’s was peanuts in particular). It was usually empty so teachers and sometimes students who don’t have peanuts allergy sat there. I don’t remember anyone enforcing anything.

20. Never heard of it outside of a school.

21. I don’t think bans are terribly common. I have a niece who is allergic to peanuts. One time in elementary school, she sat at a desk in another classroom where, it turns out, another kid had eaten something with peanuts earlier. She had to go to the emergency room. Kids in her own class were pretty good about not having peanut products at school, but the school as a whole was a danger zone. She took a lot of precautions but still had reactions a few times. She’s since had immunotherapy so at least trace exposure won’t kill her.

22. My kindergarten is nut-free. Any food served or used in an activity/craft must be processed in a nut free facility (for clarification, all lunches/snacks are served through the school, kids only bring in food to share with class for birthdays or class parties.) In first grade and up, all food served or used by the school continues to be nut-free but kids can bring in their own lunches that may contain nuts. In high school the school sometimes serves nuts with a warning and always nut-free alternatives.

    By kindergarten kids with allergies are surprisingly good at knowing what they can and can’t eat, and asking/communicating if they’re unsure. Certainly it’s important that we’re checking and taking care of it and never putting them in the situation that their lives depend on thinking about it, but they are smarter and more aware than I think a lot of comments give credit for.

    The other factor is that the age range that severe allergies tend to present continues until 8 years old (obviously allergies can develop at any time, but they most commonly present before 8.) We approach it as any kindergartener could have a peanut allergy and just not know it yet. If a kid is going to have their first allergic reaction, better it happen at home than at school.

23. It used to be a thing on planes and preschools. Our preschool used to do it but doesn’t anymore.

    I think airlines just did away with peanuts. No one mentions it anymore.

24. Only in Elementary and middle school.

    Though, I have to be ask: does anyone know the origin of this particular cultural phenomenon? Because less than 1% of all Americans with food allergies have an allergy to peanuts. And only about 5% of children to adults in the U.S have food allergies to begin with so peanut allergies are exponentially rare so it makes little sense to have these.

    Has anyone here even met someone with a peanut allergy? I legitimately never have nor do I know anyone off the top of my head who does.

25. I’m a chef at a residential college. The entire campus is nut free, we cannot even have peanut butter in any of our facilities. We are also shellfish free. This the first place I’ve ever worked at that had these bans, but they are not just the policy of the school but of the company I actually work for. Any location my company has the contact at has these bans.

26. My elementary school was peanut-free in the classrooms (but it wasn’t like people were eating in there anyways) and had a specific table for people with peanut allergies. Other than that no not really.

27. There is a very large new science museum that just opened in my town and it and its very nice restaurant are peanut free.

28. I’ve never heard of this term ever

29. My kids have a nut-free zone in the cafeteria, and one classroom is peanut free, but it seems that with staggered lunch times other kids may be using the peanut free table. My daughter reports that she sees random different kids there every day and my son says that the girl with the allergy is in his grade (so the kids my daughter sees are not the girl with the allergy).

    I’ve never heard of a whole latex free campus. Can cross-contamination trigger a latex allergy? I thought it was direct contact.

    Also, my kids preschool has a mandatory parent meeting before the term starts every year and one of the things they do there is ask about allergies. I’ve been really lucky so far at not having any allergies in our group. My youngest son’s parent meeting is next month and I’ll be crossing my fingers. Mild allergies mean that particular group of students can’t have that allergen, but major allergies can cause the whole school to have to go allergen-free as it’s a very small private school and all the classes share one food storage and dining area that only seats 16.

30. I work for a school district and all of our campuses (99+) are peanut free completely.

31. I am an elementary teacher and have a preschooler with allergies. In my classroom, it’s frowned upon to give out food or treats in general. Both because of allergies and the healthy schools initiative. I am made aware of all health plans before the school year even starts so I have that in mind. I have done popsicles (Otter Pops) and popcorn if it’s a special occasion. For parties, I always make a rule to only bring snacks and treats that do not include peanuts just out of an abundance of caution. Kids also aren’t allowed to share food at lunch.

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    For my son’s preschool, they have the same rules. There’s no official ban, however, they alert the other parents that there is a peanut allergy and to be conscious of that. They have a health plan, benadryl, epipen, and we had a meeting about it. This is the protocol in elementary schools as well. I plan to check in at the beginning of the year with every teacher each year throughout elementary just to touch base. He’s never needed an epipen and usually just breaks out into just a few hives, but he’s still way too little to know what he can or cannot eat.

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    Other than that, I can’t think of a peanut free zone.

32. Our private preschool and public elementary school are both peanut free. One year the preschool was completely nut free due to one child’s super serious allergy.

33. An area high school where I subbed was designated the nut free high school for the county. Any student with a serious food allergy could choose to be assigned to that school.

34. My kids elementary school has had a peanut ban every year.

35. I have only heard of them at some elementary schools and some airlines.

36. As someone allergic to peanuts, it’s only common in elementary schools and on airplanes. Schools might opt to go peanut free just to avoid the hassle since it’s a pretty common allergy but it’s not big outside of that.

    My college dining hall is also peanut and mostly tree nut free which is convenient for me, but most aren’t like that

37. I mostly hear about peanut-free zones in schools, and even then, it’s often just an area of the cafeteria.

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    A no latex campus? That would have been awesome when I was younger. My latex allergy developed in middle school, and I ended up with a lot of reactions in both middle and high school, mostly because of teachers who just didn’t care. Plus, latex is in *so much stuff.*