PSA: Please be considerate of allergies

seeker

Mon, Feb 16 2015, 2:17 am

As a wife and mom of people with food allergies, Purim is one of my most stressful times because of the way people are so "hefker" with food. Of course you may not be able to avoid every single thing that anyone may be allergic to - allergies can be so random sometimes. But here are some common sense tips that I wish everyone would follow:

1. Only hand food to adults. Don't give anything to a child without permission from their parent/guardian.
2. In mishloach manos, package each food item separately. People may separate the contents of your package without keeping track of the fact that the lollipop was snuggled up against the peanut-butter muffin - so put the muffin in its own wrapper. Or they might not remember that the jellybeans came in the same container as the cashews - AAAAAHHH! Little baggies within your main container, saran wrap around baked goods, etc. This also provides an extra layer of protection if something accidentally gets into the wrong house, at least it's not exposed.
3. Put your name on [the individual wrapper of] EACH homemade item. Again, things get separated, if questions come up we want to know whom to ask. Either that or throw out the item and anything that touched it, which would be a disappointing waste of your effort in making and sending it.
4. Cook and bake with clean utensils. You may be able to tell people what the ingredients in your hamentaschen were, but if you didn't wash the measuring cups/spoons/bowls/mixer well after the last thing you made, there could be mystery ingredients tagging along. Dangerous ones.
5. The most common allergens include peanuts, tree nuts, milk, sesame, wheat/gluten. It would be extra kind if you can label the outside of your package or homemade item with a warning if you've included any of these. Of course those who need to know will probably be checking more carefully anyway, but it would be nice. If you want to be extra, extra kind you might even try to avoid some of these items altogether in your plans. (It amazes me with nut and peanut allergies so common and often airborne, how are nuts still such a staple item in so many mishloach manos? it's not even like they're cheap! But I was reading the pre-purim magazines and their mishloach manos ideas and recipes are FULL of nuts! It's not helping my pre-purim anxiety at all... These are the kind of things that people snack with their hands and then touch stuff and they make this dust all over that really spreads and can really be dangerous!!!)

Again, you can't be responsible for everyone else's food restrictions, but there are some little things you can do that would go a long way towards making this yom tov safer and calmer for others. Especially if you are going out of your way to cook or bake homemade items, just go one little step farther to make sure it can be enjoyed by the right people and not C"V the wrong ones.

And please PLEASE don't give anything to kids without their parents' supervision. Don't even offer it and then say "but we need to ask Mommy first" because then you set them up for disappointment. Go straight to the parent or person in charge and be subtle about it. You don't want to give a kid a sad Purim.

Signed,
The only time we've had to use an epi-pen was Purim, and I'm so not over it.

amother

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 11:32 am

I have to agree with what Causemommysaid said- and we have an egg allergy here, which wasn't on your list of common allergens though it isn't that rare. I'm always surprised at how many people have never even heard of an egg allergy.

Never hand mishloach manot to a child- I very much agree. That should be true regardless of allergies. But you might be better off putting up a sign clearly visible from your front porch reminding people what allergens you can't have than hoping that everyone will cook and bake with absolutely clean utensils. For us, dairy is dairy, pareve is pareve. No meat, fish, or eggs in the house, so nothing to worry about as far as bacterial cross-contamination in the kitchen. I will bli neder start writing "may contain traces of peanuts or sesame", thanks- I wouldn't trust my kitchen's cleanness from those products except for Pesach.

seeker

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 5:29 pm

You're right of course. I'm still a little new to this... but if a friend sent a homemade cake and said it was nut free, I'd let it into the house and probably enjoy it very much myself even while sneaking it past the kids to be on the safe side. Whereas if a friend made me a cake and put their "from" label on a bag of chips attached to it and the chips got eaten, I wouldn't even risk opening the cake in the house.

I also sincerely wish nuts would stop being standard MM fare. I wouldn't want or expect the whole world to stop using them altogether, but they seem to be extra popular, featured in all the magazines' mishloach manos suggestions and recipes and pictures, in pre-made mishloach manos packages/platters, etc. It basically means we can't socialize at all on Purim because nuts are finger food and my child (and most nut-allergic children I know) is sensitive on contact. There's always (Purim and always always) the chance that someone somewhere will have nuts on their hands, but it freaks me out that there is a day when it's so ubiquitous.

JAWSCIENCE

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 5:35 pm

I think anyone who wants to make sure their food does not go into the trash is well served by advice to label it. Otherwise how do we know if a cake is dairy or pareve etc.? People used to tease me for putting little "I'm dairy"! flags onto things but then I see them throwing away lots of stuff and keeping mine - because it shows a little caring and attention. Last year we only gave to family so that was pretty simple but I'm planning on whipping out the labels again this year.

I generally don't give my allergic kid home baked goods from anyone other than family or if we are at someones house for a meal and can ask about ingredients. But if I don't know meat/dairy I can't even keep it for myself. And I love home baked MM!

seeker

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 9:10 pm

Raisin wrote:

Why are nuts popular? I often put nuts in my MM. They are healthy, yummy, and shelf stable. Not everyone wants to give sugary treats and fruit can go bad quickly.

I have several times had severely allergic guests in my house and bh no one has ever suffered a reaction. I am very careful to wash things in between use because of allergies/intolerances.

Sorry to put a damper on your healthy, yummy, shelf stable mishloach manos... I love nuts too... but on a day when EVERYONE is walking around with their hands in their snacks and then handling other snacks and objects and people and part of the spirit of the day is togetherness and being happy together but some people need to hide in their homes because everyone's hands are in their snacks and then all over everything else...

OK you can call me paranoid if you want. But my child has had an anaphylaxis reaction to eating something containing nuts, and has also reacted to being touched by someone who had eaten nuts hours earlier and to being in a room where nut cake was being baked (had already been placed in oven and all utensils and surfaces cleaned before her arrival), so yes the idea of nuts flying around everyone's homes while the people therein flit about to other homes is really really scary for me. It is NOT the same as well anyone can eat anything every day, because purim is a time when people tend to be especially hefker about food since there are many different packages coming and going all day in most homes, and people coming and going all day, and being busy and noshing from the packages instead of eating normally, so this is not the same as most of the time when your snacks tend to stay with you, or when you can more easily control whom you come in contact with (anyone who comes to our home or works with DD's class in school knows not to bring nuts and to wash up well if they've recently eaten any. But on Purim they don't necessarily know whose nutty hands touched things before them... and the odds are greatly increased that someone did.) On a day when the mitzvos focus on friendship and kindness, it would be nice to extend oneself a little in consideration of these things. Again, I don't actually expect or demand that everyone will, I'm just trying to raise awareness a little in case anyone does want to do the world a favor. And I WISH that the companies making pre-made mishloach manos (and the idea columns in publications) would be more allergy friendly! That alone would make a big difference!

amother

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 10:46 pm

Seeker, I feel terrible for you, I can imagine it must be so scary. But, I want to give you the other perspective. I work in a candy store, we sell prepackaged MM and we help people figure out what to put in their own MM. If everyone would be careful about everyone else's allergies there would be nothing left to put in the MM. They would have to be nut free, gluten free, egg free, dairy free, sugar free (and I'm sure I'm leaving some things out). We would pretty much be left with only water to put in. Maybe the natural dreid fruit which is sugar free. I can hear that nut allergies are scarier, because most of those other allergies are not air borne. But a lot of people want nuts. Peanuts are very cheap. The other nuts - cashews, almonds, pistachios etc. are considered very "choshuv".

I helped a woman today who was purchasing nuts for her own MM, and she said to me "I can't believe I'm giving out nuts, my own daughter is allergic. But, I really like to give nuts". (I guess for her dd it's only a problem if she eats it)

seeker

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 11:06 pm

If you are gluten free or sugar free, you can choose not to eat the goodies that are given to you but you will not need to spend a day in the hospital (at best) because someone touched you after eating sugar with their fingers. I am not sure about the nature of egg and dairy allergies. I do know that nuts, peanuts, and fish allergies are VERY commonly contact sensitive and it is not uncommon to be airborne. And of course you can't account for all the less common allergies and people with less common allergies will have to figure out how to do their own due diligence (we have a couple of those in our family too, but fortunately the foods are only a little more popular than the allergies. And they also are on the level that I or another non-allergic person could have it without affecting the allergic person) but since nut and peanut allergies affect hundreds if not thousands of members of our community, I don't think it's that far-fetched to think about it before sending out multitudes of shelled, unwrapped, ready-to-eat nuts on a day when people are snacking and mixing and snacking and mixing. It's sad that some people will still have to basically seal themselves off all Purim because their allergy is rare and severe, but surely we can attempt to make the holiday more compatible for hundreds more kids.

imamazing

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 11:18 pm

Thanks for posting this seeker.
I have two severely allergic children and Purim can be so stressful because of this.

I find it very helpful to do advance planning
.- I stock up on treats my children like so they don't get upset when we have to put away/throw away./give away problematic or unlabeled items.
- I also split all the goodies in 2 baskets - 1 for what anyone could eat, 1 for items that maybe/do contain allergens. the second box goes out of reach to be handed out only at my discretion to those for whom its ok.
- I train my children to tell me what theyre eating befre they eat it - so we are all aware and no one just eats s/t harmful by mistake.
- I make the purim seuda and only ask those I can trust to contribute
- I feed my kids a full solid breakfast and lunch so they aren't drooling over the forbidden foods all day...

And I keep a constant prayer on my lips," please H-shem keep those I loved safe today in every way!"

seeker

Wed, Feb 25 2015, 11:50 pm

I also want to add (sorry for the ongoing, lengthening diatribe!) that "it takes a village" - even someone who loves and cares for a child very vigilantly can make a mistake. So why make it easier for mistakes to happen? Why not be on the helping side making things a little easier or less dangerous for people instead of saying "oh well, their problem not mine, they need to keep a close watch on their kids anyway so what does it matter if I spread my lethal pistachio dust all over the neighborhood." (don't get me started; those are the worst because the shells are usually not closed by nature so they are unsafe in any form)

My kids are not allergic to peanuts and since we can't have real nuts you bet we max out on peanut butter at home. BUT my kids know that after eating a peanut butter sandwich they have to wash their hands, and we don't bring PB snacks to public places like playgrounds or the doctor's office or the supermarket etc (which surprisingly does not have a sign requesting no nuts; our OT's office does). The kids know that we do this because many children may be allergic to peanuts/PB and we don't want to accidentally spread our peanut butter around where it could pose a hazard to someone (and they wouldn't even know). This is something I do out of consideration for the general public. I do not have anyone in my immediate circles at this time with a peanut allergy so I'm not super careful at home, but the one time I did have a peanut-allergic guest I practically disinfected the house.

So I do know whereof I speak regarding the feasibility of being thoughtful of others in this regard even when the offending foods are a staple of your diet. And I will not be including anything that's touched peanuts in my mishloach manos. And by the way, I have also done a MM consisting entirely of fresh fruits and vegetables (including an apple and carrot actually, lol. But when I was a kid, "That Lady" gave a tangerine and almonds - raw, in their shells - on a white paper plate) and I hope it didn't make me nebby. It was arranged nicely.

amother

Thu, Feb 26 2015, 12:14 am

Anon because my comment could reveal who I am IRL.

I have several friends allergic to many things including fruits/vegetables. Some that no one would consider to be allergens like spices. Rare, I know.
The problem I have is there is no way to prevent all allergens and I really cannot drive myself crazy finding something that no one in my close circle was allergic too. I will try not to eat nuts before handing out MM but to those with allergies I just send store bought stuff in the same basket and label it "for XYZ family" so they don't get the ones with homemade goodies.
Parents should make sure to warn others (a sign on their door or fence) but you can't expect every person to be considerate. I think I am considerate with allergies when I know and they come to my house. But outside? My toddler some days will only eat PB sandwiches and you know how hungry their hair gets.