Food Allergy Blog Carnival for March 2012

Welcome to the latest edition of the Food Allergy Blog Carnival! 

This carnival starts out with a humorous look at parenting a child with food allergies. Check out one mom's hilarious rendition of  Hello Muddah- Food Allergy Version (yup, she's a singer too!). You may also want to take a look at a few of her other blog posts like, A Prayer to St. Patrick and Why Cupcakes Trump Children.

The Food Allergy Living Team brings us two posts, Helping Families Manage Food Allergies at School and Taking a Leap to Try New Foods.

  
Safety un-Limited shares, "Anaphylaxis: What it is and What to do About it".

Stacy Molter offers her recipe for Food Allergy Friendly Chocolate Banana Parfait with Sugar Cookie Crumble. Yum!

Food Allergy Buzz wonders Does Heat Kill Allergens? 

Suzanne Cullens brings us Ten Things You Might Not Know Have Peanuts.

That wraps up this edition. Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

 

 

Food Allergy Resources for Schools

I just sent these links to the school nurse director in our school district:

Schools@Allergy Home

Allergy Ready Care Course

Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network School Guidelines

Managing Students with Food Allergies During a Shelter-In-Place Emergency

National Association of School Nurses Food Allergy Toolkit

Managing Food Allergies in the Cafeteria

The above was accompanied by a short note acknowledging my awareness that the district was re-evaluating its food allergy policy in the coming months and my offer to assist during this process. I also pointed out that the first two resources offer free online courses for schools.

Feel free to copy the above information and send it to your school. The ideas of staff training and epinephrine availability for any student or staff member should be universal at any school. Help spread the word!

Food Allergy Friendly PTO

As a PTO president, I really appreciated, and loved, this article showing an Ohio school offering allergy-friendly food at their annual PTO Pancake Breakfast.

The PTO noted that over 175 children in their schools deal with food allergies, and that these children, and their families, are often excluded from food events. They will have a pre-sale for allergy meals and will offer a separate menu and designated food preparation area.

Great idea, Hudson PTO!

I hope you raise tons of money at your Pancake Breakfast and that other schools follow your lead!

Update Food Allergy Bill

Below is a note I received about Pennsylvania's efforts to make schools safer for food allergic children. Thank you to all of you who wrote letters on behalf of this bill. I hope it continues forward through the PA House Appropriations committee and becomes law providing a model for other states and countries. We need to make schools everywhere safe for all children!


Please forward to your membership and friends who assisted with our efforts on HB 1148.
The bill was unanimously passed by the Education Committee.

Thank you one and all for your support of HB 1148!!

The bill will now move to the PA House Appropriations Committee. As the legislature is now engaged in producing a budget, we will wait for the budget to be passed before we begin our communications with the Appropriations Committee members.

I will communicate with you soon about our next steps to obtain support

Happy Fourth of July!

Bill Dixon
Legislative Aide
PA State Representative Thomas Murt's District Office
(215)674-3755

Help is Needed Again for Food Allergy Bill in PA

I wrote about house Bill 1148 last Monday. The bill was sent to PA Education Committee members Weds. June 24. It was tabled. Here's the latest information from Rep. Murt's office about the future of this important bill:

The PA House Education Committee met on 6/24/09 and discussed HB 1148 - Food Allergy Guidelines. This bill directs the Pennsylvania Department of Education to research and publish guidelines for the successful management of food allergies in our schools. The committee raised questions regarding how the legislation would impact existing laws and no bill vote was taken. Since last Wednesday, the legislation was re-written. We choose to clarify the impact on exiting school code by clearly illustrating the changes to the existing code. Changes to the Local Wellness Policy clause 1422.1 allowed us to identify Food Allergy Management as being as important as child health, nutrition, and physical education. Adding an additional dictate to Section 1422.3 allow us to outline the need for Food Allergy Guidelines and what they must accomplish.

The next meeting of the PA Education Committee where they will vote on HB 1148 is now this Wednesday, 7/01/09. Please forward this message to your membership and friends asking them to re-edit it to their liking and forward it to the following list of Education Committee members.

JRoebuck@pahouse.net, ksmith@pahouse.net, LCurry@pahouse.net, JYudicha@pahouse.net, bsmith@pahouse.net, mcarroll@pahouse.net, sconklin@pahouse.net, RGrucela@pahouse.net, pharkins@pahouse.net, mlongietti@pahouse.net, MOBrien@pahouse.net, JPallone@pahouse.net, cwagner@pahouse.net, JWheatle@pahouse.net, RYoungbl@pahouse.net, Pclymer@pahousegop.com, mfleck@pahousegop.com, Dmetcalf@pahousegop.com, dmilne@pahousegop.com, Boneill@pahousegop.com, Tquigley@pahousegop.com, Klrapp@pahousegop.com, MReese@pahousegop.com, trock@pahousegop.com, WTallman@pahousegop.com

Thank you again for your continued support.

Bill Dixon
Legislative Aide
PA State Representative Thomas Murt's District Office
(215)674-3755

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I have the document that will be presented to the committee. If you're interested in reading it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you.

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Help is needed- even if you don't live in PA. Please consider copying and pasting the e-mail addresses and letter into an e-mail and send it to our PA Reps. There is power in numbers and if all of us band together, no matter where we live, we can make all of our schools safer for those with food allergies.

Here's the letter I re-sent:

Dear Representative,

House Bill 1148 is a public health necessity. We have young students hiding their life-saving medications in backpacks because some schools require medications to be kept locked in the nurse's office. We have students exposed to potentially dangerous allergens because schools are reluctant to engage in dialogue with parents about food allergies. School buses and after-school activities are, at minimum challenging and sometimes not possible, for children with food allergies.

The incidence of food allergies has been growing exponentially in recent years and about seven percent of the student population is affected by food allergies. At present, many schools are managing these students on a case by case basis, and the results are mixed. As a result, families are forced to seek private or home schooling for their food allergic children to keep them safe.

Accommodations for food allergic students can be made easily and effectively in the classrooms and school communities. By law, all children are guaranteed an appropriate and free public education, and students with food allergies are legally entitled to appropriate protections. We just want to have the opportunity to talk with our schools about what is best for all children.

I am asking you to vote yes to HB 1148 on July 1, 2009.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS HERE

School Carnivals, Picnics and Parties, Oh My!

The school carnival is this week. I'm in charge of food this year, because I figured if I organized it, I'd be in the know. Yeah, not so fast. "We must have popcorn", I was told because the smell of the popcorn popping is "so carnival-like". Okay, I rented the machine and got the popcorn. Does artificial butter flavor contain any dairy? "No" says the popcorn company representative. Of course I have no way of knowing what else has been put in the rented machine and no idea how well it's been cleaned. Confidence level on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being totally confident?- a 2. I'll bring safe popcorn.

We're also serving water ice which is basically sugar, high fructose corn syrup and dyes. Our school has started distributing, via e-mail, ingredient lists of foods served to students at these special events. Interesting responses. Some parents who don't need to look at food labels on a regular basis are surprised about what's in some of these foods (ie: long chemical names, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) One mother of a diabetic son asked if carbohydrate and sugar content could be included in the lists going to parents.

I think our school needs to develop a form that captures all food concerns that families have. That information then goes out to all families so they can plan appropriately.

How do your schools handle this? Is it working?