Allergies

For some people, food allergies can be very serious. For those people with a peanut allergy, one bite of a cookie with a few peanuts in it can cause a life threatening emergency. This year Corner Brook Regional High is introducing a peanut aware policy as there are some students in the school with peanut allergies.

This policy will affect everyone at the school, even for those without an allergy. Everyone is asked to not bring in food items that contain peanuts or peanut butter. Sometimes this may be a challenge but here are a few tips when considering what foods are okay to bring into school.

- Read lists of ingredients every before you bring it to school. Note  ingredients often change - a product that was free of an ingredient last week may be in it this week.

- Words on a list of ingredients that could indicate the presence of peanut    protein include: peanuts, mixed nuts, ground nuts, mandelonas, peanut butter, peanut oil, goober nuts, goober peas, beer nuts, peanut flour, artificial nuts and hydrolyzed peanut protein.

- Avoid imported foods with a foreign language lists. If you can’t read the list you don’t know what’s in it.

- When bringing in homemade foods ensure the ingredients are free of peanuts and peanut butter. To avoid cross contamination between foods use separate cooking equipment and utensils. For example if you have peanut butter toast for breakfast make sure you use a different knife to prepare the sandwich you’re bringing to school for lunch.

Just taking these few extra steps will help improve the safety of students at risk of anaphylaxis at our school.

If you would like some further information on allergies or anaphylaxis visit

www.aaia.ca
www.anaphylaxis.ca

This article was submitted by Julia Young RN BN, the public health nurse for Corner Brook Regional High School.