Nut-Free Lunch Tables

Does your school have a peanut and tree nut-free lunch table? 

With the numbers of school children with food allergies increasing each year, perhaps it is time to rethink the peanut/tree nut-free lunch table.  What if schools set up the opposite table?  I.e. The peanut/tree nut table?  Specifically, if the non-allergic child who is eating a peanut butter sandwich or a granola bar containing tree nuts were to sit at the table designated for peanut and tree nuts it would contain or limit the allergen contaminants to that table, thus allowing the allergic children to sit with their classmates as they choose.

This shift in thinking could help children who have the allergies to these highly allergic foods to feel more integrated rather than segregated.  It would allow the children a chance to socialize with children who they normally wouldn't sit near, i.e. not just those classmates who have similar allergies. 

Perhaps suggesting this idea to school personnel will get the ball rolling in that direction so eventually this policy could be put in place.  

What do you think?

Comments

[D. Fernandez]

A friend of mine told me that is how it is done at her daughter's school (her daughter has no allergies). It seems to work fine.

[Moses]

Our school has a such a table, but the problem is my child has mild airborne anaphylaxis so that cannot work, When someone has such a thing, they handle it if it's during my child's lunch period. We have them wipe down all the tables with bleach before my child arrives at the lunch room and fans are going too to cut down the allergy. But I was told that by having a table labeled peanuts is actually against our children civil liberties so to have a table labeled for the peanut eating children is not (not sure how that possible) but it is. I guess you have chosen to bring the food in and therefore have to eat at that table, so only one table is contaminated rather than the whole cafeteria. Makes sense. One school in our district if you chose to eat a peanut/tree nut something you have to go to the nurse to do so and then are required to wash face hands and brush your teeth. I was hoping they would do the same at ours, but they say the discourage even bring it in, they say they call the parents when this occurs and explains the situation to them and they chose to not send it in again.