Have we become so precious as a society we have to cut out age-old staples like peanuts at a ball game? The Lowell Spinners just announced that two games this year will go nut free. This is in response to all the fans who suffer from nut allergies, I suppose. When I was growing up, no one was allergic to the friendly peanut, no one. In fact we embraced the nut. Remember that zippy Planter's man? He was always kicking up his heels w/ a cane. It was because he was stuffing his face w/ peanuts and he was happy. Yes, peanuts make people looped on life. It's a solid protein, way more nutritious than popcorn and much better for the digestive track than the lowly hot dog filled w/ questionables. But that nitrite roll is still on the menu at LeLacheur Park all summer long. Looks like the PR brass has too much time on their hands to dedicate July 1 and Aug. 2 "peanut-less nights." Next thing you know they'll launch surgically safe bobble head day. Does this bother anyone, or am I just being cranky because spring is in hiding and I haven't had enough roughage this week?
This promo is nutz
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Well, GG, I can't speak to your roughage situation, but of course you know that it's the "Mom Brigade" who's behind the Spinners getting their nuts removed (OK, temporarily removed). As you say, when we were kids, if someone was allergic to something it was their own responsibility to deal with it. Now, esp. in schools, ALL the kids are tasked with not having nuts so that the one kid in class who's allergic won't feel bad. Awwwww. My son's elementary class was actually visited by an allergic kid's mom (NOT a medical professional, mind you) who "educated" the whole class about the allergy and elicited a pledge (NOT voluntary, mind you) from all the little chilluns not to kill her kid by breathing peanut fumes on him. It's nuts...er, I mean, it's crazy. Personal responsibility, anyone?
No pun intended... but this policy is nuts!
GG, I too am cranky in this gloomy weather. And I'll admit that I never understood the nut-free thing until a couple of small children in our extended family developed peanut allergies. My eyes were opened. So if this helps families with allergic kids to relax and enjoy a game, why not.
Of course, given how popular the Spinners are, being able to get tickets for the right evening could be another matter entirely.
Now that you have me thinking about peanuts, right now I'm going to enjoy a snack of roasted peanuts in the shell...and dream of a sunny summer day.
I realize that there are people who melodramatically complain that they are "allergic" to certain foods when in fact they just don't like them. Parents of children with mild peanut allergies should not have the right to make rules for entire classes and schools. But there ARE cases that require special accommodation. You couldn't pay me to attend a sporting event but if I knew an allergic kid I'd think it's great that s/he will have the chance to attend a couple of games. The other fans can survive a few hours with other snack options. Serious nut allergies were rare until recent decades and are virtually unknown in the third world. The doctors in Africa who've been using a peanut-based nutritional paste to save the lives of malnourished children say they have never encountered an allergic raction. In the Western world, a whiff of peanut can cause a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction in highly-allergic individuals. Experts blame increased allergy and asthma rates in large part on obsessive cleanliness. The immune system needs challenging by germs to keep it functioning properly. When it isn't kept busy doing what it evolved to do, it can start attacking the body with inappropriate responses like peanut allergy.
Chef Ming Tsai, whose own son has severe food allergies, has spearheaded the new Massachusetts program which will enable restaurants to become certified as capable of catering to food-allergic customers. Google Ming's Law for details. He spoke about the increasing food allergy problem on WGBH recently and mentioned hyper-cleanliness as a major culprit, also saying that the additives and artificial ingredients in much of what children eat may have unknown effects.
I absolutely can't understand the whole peanut thing either...and at a ball game. It's just wrong!
These days they have all these new rules about what you can and cannot feed kids and also about age appropriate foods. You have to wait until they're 3 years old to feed them peanut butter, well, that's just ridiculous. I've been making PB & J's for my nieces & nephews since they were itty bitty...not one has a peanut allergy. Maybe waiting until they're 3 years old does them more harm than good. Kids are no longer allowed to build up an immunity because parents today are so overprotective and obsessed with germs, and so they become hyper-sensitive. I'm not saying that allergies don't exist, I'm allergic to most shellfish, but I never had shellfish until I got older, had I been exposed early on, the allergy might not exist. Parents today go way overboard with EVERYTHING..and it's not just peanuts. Trying to make it a law that kids wear helmets & pads to ride their bike is just another example of people going way too far. If I want my kid to wear a helmet, I'll put a helmet on her, I don't want the law telling me that I have to. If I want my kid to take a PB & J to school, she should be able to. I don't need the school telling me what to make for lunch.
Well, you go ahead and sneak in some peanuts on those nights if it bothers you so much, and if some kid goes into anaphylactic shock, eh well. It's certainly your choice not to attend on those nights if peanuts mean that much to you.
Imagine you are the parent of a truly allergic child. Not upset tummy, minor rash, upset, but throat closing, can't breathe allergic. People act like your kid is a pariah who shouldn't be allowed to mingle with society. You get the stinkeye for being the one who gets PBJ banned.
Yet your child is otherwise healthy and has no other physical or learning impairments. What's appropriate? Solitary confinement in another classroom? Home education, ensuring you can't earn an income? Special education with children with potentially profound difficulties that your child does not share? We generally have to co-exist in society, and I'm fine with not sending PBJ to school rather than endanger a child's life or ostracize that child completely. It's a pretty tiny sacrifice for us "normal" folks. If 2 nights out of the summer mean some kid is going to be able to safely enjoy an American rite of passage, that's a good thing, right?
And this is generally new territory, I agree. I heard a theory that the peanut allergies here have to do with the crops being rotated with cotton crops, meaning they pick up the pesticides used to treat non-food crops. Then the body reacts to the foreign substance but also identifies the peanut protein present as a hostile invader. Some of it is probably overdiagnosed or imagined crap, but every now and then you hear those stories about, say, the girl who died after kissing her boyfriend after he ate a peanut butter candy bar. Eesh. Would not want that to be your kid, right?
BTW Ruby, now doctors are saying waiting til 3 makes no difference, and PB is safe to introduce around 12 months, just like when you'd introduce cow milk or eggs. It's just tough luck if a kid does happen to be allergic whether it's then or at 3, you know?
"but every now and then you hear those stories about, say, the girl who died after kissing her boyfriend after he ate a peanut butter candy bar. Eesh. "
Actually, she died from an asthma attack after smoking weed knowing she had severe respiratory problems. Take from that what you will:
http://www.calgaryallergy.ca/News.htm#teenpeanutkiss