Crusade against peanut butter is a sign of the times

By Rachel Kamins

Grape jelly. Marshmallow fluff. White bread. Where would these foods bewithout peanut butter? A staple in American households, peanut butter is the ultimate in good taste, convenience, and value; a mother's helper and a child's safety blanket.

Suddenly, peanut butter is no longer safe. Medical paranoia's latest craze has brought us a rash of protest against peanut butter, which has since its invention enjoyed widespread praise and nutritional immunity. As reported in a Wed., Sept. 23 New York Times article, some researchers have found that nut allergies are becoming more common among American children. In reaction, many fanatically vigilant parents are charging into schools, demanding that peanut butter be banned from cafeterias. Several institutions, including a number of private schools in New England and New York, have submitted to these parents' demands and removed the offending food from their menus.

While this decision is good news for children with nut allergies, it rightfully seem preposterous to everyone else. Granted, food allergies can be horribly dangerous. People with the most severe reactions can stop breathing and die shortly after any kind of contact with certain substances. But for the vast majority of cases, allergies are much less severe, and dangerous reactions can be averted quickly and easily with shots or pills. And almost everyone with allergies receives the appropriate medications to carry at all times and very thorough instructions to avert possible complications.

To avoid unwarranted encounters with peanut butter, cafeteria managers need only take certain reasonable precautions. Some of the schools that have refused to ban the food have instead taken safety measures such as wrapping peanut butter sandwiches in cellophane, indicating menu items that contain nuts, posting emergency procedures, and enforcing hand-washing among students. These actions, combined with an understanding of the problem and available medication, are clearly enough to stave off most accidents.

This is so logical that one is forced to wonder about the motivations of the parents behind the anti-peanut butter crusade. When the allergic reaction can be avoided so easily and treated so quickly, it is purely melodramatic to consider the situation fatal, or even particularly volatile. It seems more likely that these parents are caught up in the self-absorbed American attitude, that arrogantly righteous indignation that sends us flying into the courtroom flanked by silver-tongued mercenaries at the slightest provocation.

As a nation, we are slow to take responsibility for our own problems, but we will blame them on someone else in the blink of an eye. So rather than accept the fact that it is their duty (albeit also their misfortune) to teach themselves and their children how to deal with nut allergies, these parents are forming coalitions and dragging their local schools into lawsuits and newspaper articles.

What about the administrators who have bowed to the wishes of the special-interest groups? Is their primary concern the safety of the children? The wish to avoid legal struggles is understandable, but these schools need to recognize that solutions other than banning peanut butter are eminently more sensible. Moreover, what is there about the nature of this situation, other than the threat of litigation, that distinguishes it from dangers like monkey bars and gym class activities? A child allergic to peanut butter may now be safe in the cafeteria, but the possibility of breaking an arm during recess or banging a head playing dodgeball remains. Were these administrators as scrupulously solicitous as this case would show them to be, they would be protecting their students from safety risks such as these.

The children who make up the overwhelming majority of all student bodies are being deprived of peanut butter, that most benign and basic of foods. And although special-interest groups and administrators may invoke the children as the reason for this ridiculous move, they are clearly operating with their own concerns in mind.

It is frightening to think that the crusaders' agendas are succeeding. What will they take on next? The New York Times reports that even public schools are now drawing fire on this issue. What cause will they champion tomorrow? We have already witnessed a court battle over the fact that some woman's coffee was served hot. Before such people turn our country's politics into a mindless, self-serving, unproductive legal game, they should take off their blinders and take a look at common sense.

Rachel Kamins is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards.

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