How to Find Peanut Free Food and Pack a Peanut Free Lunch

Your child's school may soon adopt a peanut free policy which will require you to pack only peanut free food in a peanut free lunch in order to protect children who suffer from a peanut allergy from suffering an allergic reaction. As inconvenient as it may seem, it is a policy that more schools are adopting due to the seriousness of a peanut allergy as well as the increase in students receiving a peanut allergy diagnosis. Those who suffer from a peanut allergy are prone to severe and often life threatening allergic reactions to even the smallest amount of peanut protein causing school administrators to require you to pack peanut free food in a peanut free lunch for your school aged child.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Pack peanut free food in a peanut free lunch by understanding what peanut free means. Each district will have their own guidelines and these guidelines should be available to all parents. Check with the school office for information. Generally, to pack peanut free food in a peanut free lunch you will need to avoid anything that contains peanuts (such as snack mix or granola bars) or peanut butter (such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a peanut butter cookie.)

2. Clarify any confusion you have about how the school would like you to pack a peanut free lunch. Some things are obvious (no peanut butter) but other areas are less clear (a cookie with a label that says it may contain peanuts.)

3. Check this list for ideas on how to pack peanut free food in a peanut free lunch if you don't know what to put in your child's lunch:
   
   cheese and jelly sandwich
   lunchmeat
   sandwich made with other nutbutter such as almond butter or soynut butter
   hummus and pita sandwich
   soup in a thermos
   macaroni and cheese in a thermos
   cheese and crackers
   whole fruit
   snack crackers without peanuts in the ingredients
   breadsticks and pizza sauce
   cheese stick
   cereal and milk (put the milk in a thermos until lunch)
   cereal bars

Tips & Warnings

• Health food stores are an excellent resource for finding peanut free food to use in a peanut free lunch. Most health food stores are very in tune to various food allergies and should be able to provide many peanut free choices.
• Try the organic food section at your local grocery store for various nut butters such as almond butter and soynut butter. Sunflower butter is another well liked peanut butter alternative.