OT-allergy friendly snacks, need help

[mrs.beast]

hello all. i am a kindergarten teacher and i am working on our acceptable snack list for school. at our school all kids bring in a snack on a designated day to share with the class. we have allergies to: nuts, soy, eggs, dairy. suggestions for our list of things other than fruits and veggies that all can eat?

 

[lunalibre]

Talk to the parents of the kids with food allergies. Have each of the give you a LONG list of acceptable snack foods for their children. Then you go through and compare the lists, hoping to find a few things like Rice Chex or something that all the kids can eat. I agree that it's a challenge finding snacks that will accommodate all the allergies. No kids in DD's or DS's classes last year had allergies, but there was one child in DD's grade that had serious allergies. All of the activities that involved the whole grade had to take that child's allergies into account. We made sure the child's parents okayed all foods before we bought/served anything. Also, does your school have a nurse? If you pass on the list of "bad" foods, maybe that person can make some suggestions.

Once you come up with a list of a few snack foods, send the information home with the children that the ONLY acceptable snack foods for class are on that list. That's how the teacher of that highly-allergic child handled it. It worked great all year.

Good luck!

 

[MSSANDRA]

We have peanut allegies at our school and it is hard enough finding products with out peanuts. i really think you are going to be hard pressed to find products without any of those foods. The really bad part is that kindergarten is often the first time that these children have been out of a contained food world and might not always be alert to what they can and can not have. SACRY. Fruit and Veggies might be pretty much the limit which is sad for all the fun food projects but maybe necessary. The child at our school went into antiphylatic shock when he took a bite of a cheese sandwich that his grandma had made for him after making his cousin a peanut butter one. First reaction ever.

Lunch room rules might need to be looiked at too. Not much help but good luck and thanks for looking out for these chidlren. i have had some teachers that just do not "get it".

 

[thepeach80]

Anything from Enjoy Life foods. Yum-o! These were always my treats when I needed allergy free foods b/c of the kids.

Definitely talk to the parents. As a parent I would probably not trust other people to feed my child a snack in most cases. We used to bring snacks to church for AJ to have during snack time and we took a carton of rice milk to pre-school last year in case they had regular milk for a snack. I would also plan ahead what snacks you're going to have each day so one of those moms can ask in the morning and you'll know and they can know whether they want their child to have that snack or not. It's hard to be an allergy parent so don't be offended if they don't trust you or the other parents.

 

[hildarumpole]

With that mix of allergies, there's probably very few snack foods, aside from fruits and veggies, that will satisfy everyone's requirements. Soy is particularly difficult. Some can tolerate soy lecithin, an extremely common ingredient, while others cannot. Ingredient lists and warnings change frequently on packaged foods, so it's not easy to come up with a good list. What's o.k. today, may not be o.k. tomorrow, due to manufacturing changes. My best advice is to skip the sharing and have children bring their own snacks, or at least the kids with allergies. If anyone has a contact or serious allergy, ask the parents to avoid packing snacks with those particular allergens, especially peanuts. This is still not going to guarantee safety, since most people tend not to read food labels carefully, if at all. Also, many ingredients go by a variety of names that someone who lives with allergies would be aware of, but not the average person. My DS5's kindergarten is doing the sharing thing, but he's the only one in the class with allergies, so we're just going to send a safe snack for him everyday, while having nuts banned from the classroom.

 

[mrs.beast]

thanks for you input. well i wanted to not have group snack, but it has been a group snack for ages and the teachers did not want to change. also snack had to be something everyone could eat. so, we found 2 things that were not fruits and veggies. a type of organic cheerios and pretzles. still we had many worries. i was especially worried with cross contamination (even with fruit and veggies-knives and cutting boards may have residue) in all, my team finally relented and each kid is now bringing his/her own snack. much easier. now we can have the kids eat outside and have a nut free table. (told by district we cannot legally say no nuts, it can only be a suggestion)