Hi, leahmullen. My daughter's school has the same policy. They actually eat lunch in their classroom 3 days a week, eat in the cafeteria 1 day a week and only go to school half days on Fridays, so they don't have lunch at school.
On the days they eat in the cafeteria they're allowed to bring nuts to school because they have a special table for nut allergy people. I don't really understand that because it's still in the cafeteria and nut allergies are supposed to be so extreme that even smelling nuts can make an allergic person have a reaction.
There are zero food allergies in my daughter's class, but the other 3 days a week that they eat lunch in their classroom, they're not allowed to have nuts. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Maybe it’s because the room is smaller? I have no idea and I’ve asked at the school and nobody can really tell me anything other than that’s just the policy.
I have been trying to get my daughter to eat gluten-free and I'm trying to eat completely grain-free. I don't know if my daughter has issues with gluten, but she has a lot of stomach problems so I'm doing an elimination diet. I would LIKE to be able to make her grain-free breads and snacks, but that mostly requires using nut flours (almond and coconut are the two I mainly use), which she can't take to school. It is frustrating. There are people with Celiac disease who can't go to bakeries and restaurants that bake their own bread and other flour-based foods because there's gluten in the air. Are we going to ban gluten from schools, too? I don't know that the reaction is as extreme as a nut allergy reaction and that may be the difference.
I know it's concerning and frustrating for parents of kids who have the allergies and I don't at all fault them for wanting to make sure their kids are safe. I do think, though, that if there aren't any allergies to whatever is banned, then the ban should be lifted.
There are plenty of other things to pack in a kid’s lunch and I’ve had to get a little creative, but it hasn’t really been a big deal. I think the bigger concern is WHY has there been such an explosion of food allergies and intolerances in the last 20 years? We should be dealing with the ways our foods are grown/made and fix the problem, but that’s an entirely different discussion.
Sorry for the long-winded post.