Brickbat: I Can't Believe It's Not Peanut Butter

Wowbutter looks like peanut butter. Smells like it. Tastes like it. But it's made from soybeans. It has no actual peanuts in it. Yet the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District in Canada has warned schools that have peanut- and nut-free policies that those rules also bar peanut butter substitutes such as Wowbutter. Officials say that because these products are so similar to peanut butter in looks and smell allowing them would make it difficult for a school to enforce a peanut butter ban.

Comments

[Adans smith]

How many kids are allergic to peanuts.I'd think it's a very small amount.

[db]

It doesn't matter if it is one or one million. In the eyes of people who place following rules and procedures above achieving the stated goals of said rules, all that matters is compliance with the rules. Compliance supplants outcomes as the desired goal in their world.

[Adans smith]

yeah,typical,I think about when I was in school,recess on slides and monkey bars.Playing foot ball ,playing with toy guns.Eating what ever my mother packed.How did I survive?

[Swiss Servator, CH yeah!]

You didn't survive - you are a zombie.

[Adans smith]

i'm a Browns fan,so,yeah

[Trials and Trippelations]

Here is a good article about the sensationalism of the peanut allergy. I got the article from a posting of a fellow reasonoid quite a while ago.

It's worrisome how entrenched this "epidemic" is in people's minds. My normally libertarian wife goes nuts when I try to explain the peanut butter myth and the needless preventative procedures.

I recently started nursing school, and our last unit included shock. It was interesting to note that mortality percentages were given for septic (40-70, but maybe 90%), hypovolemic (10-31%) , and cardiogenic (80-100%) while anaphylactic (which includes neurogenic shock) was just given a number 500-1000 fatal cases. Hyperallergies simply do not kill beyond very small numbers.

[Florida Man]

Hyperallergies simply do not kill beyond very small numbers.

So you're saying the bans work?

[Trials and Trippelations]

Maybe Obamacare is the reason for low food allergy deaths?

[Florida Man]

What can't he do?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Kids with various intolerances and allergies make up anywhere from 10 to 15% of my daycare at any given time.

I get what you're saying but I would never take a chance; especially considering if on the odd chance something does happen guess who parents will hold accountable? So we have to be diligent - that and the fact it's the law, however, statistically improbable.

That all being said, WowButter is a God send for us.

[Trials and Trippelations]

Allergy is different from hyperallergy. Fatal anaphylaxis is still super low.

I get what you're saying but I would never take a chance; especially considering if on the odd chance something does happen guess who parents will hold accountable?

I do not understand if you are speaking from the perspective of a daycare owner or society.
A private daycare owner can do as he pleases with regulations and rules.

As for society, I think that is a poor argument there are plenty of dangerous and potential fatal things out there. Government can't prevent, ban, or regulate them away especially not without taking away freedom. This argument sounds too much like if it saves just one life we should do it.

[Suthenboy]

I think he is saying he doesn't want to get his balls sued off.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Suthenboy, exactly. It's a tricky line.

[TimothyZ]

Your argument sounds too much like if the private sector does what is abhorrent, it's no big deal so long as they aren't elected.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It's not what I'm saying.

I have no choice but to follow or else the government will close me down.

They hand out the permits.

[Invisible Finger]

I think government should close down all day care centers.

Then maybe someone will realize permits are totalitarian.

[Trials and Trippelations]

Ok Rufus, I understand you now.

Your argument sounds too much like if the private sector does what is abhorrent, it's no big deal so long as they aren't elected.

Abhorrent? By allowing children and parents to eat a food that causes a super tiny number of fatalities? One that hyperallergic people can easily avoid (don't touch or eat)?

Read the article I linked to. Peanuts are not even the major food allergy antigen, seafood is (and the article can't even separate out the dual or multi allergy sufferers). The whole peanut allergy thing is the result of sensationalism and helicopter parents (who help create a psychological response in their snowflake). The same people that brought you the anti-vaccination movement.
People that are merely allergic to a food can eat it. I have friends that do so on occasion. If a person has a hyperallergy they need to have an Epi-Pen no questions asked no ifs ands or buts.

The facts simply do not support the responses and bans of peanut butter, but facts never stop TOP.MEN or helicopter parents.

[Trials and Trippelations]

Needs MOAR SPAYCES!

Sorry I didn't mean for the second part of my response to look like it was related to Rufus' situation. Purely a response to Tim.

[DEG]

It's possible the allergy is to a by-product of the dry-roasting process and not peanuts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ord-study/

[Lady Bertrum]

2nd healthcare working in TX tests positive for Ebola.

[mr lizard]

Ruh roh...

[WTF]

Do we have an outbreak now? Or is it just ignorant ratbagging teafuckers who think there could be an outbreak here being paranoid?

[Gene]

I won't call it one until craiginmass gets it.

[Heroic Mulatto]

craig is too stupid to have been a nurse.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Maybe he'll start a business selling protective gear.

[An Innocent Man]

If his mom's basement is zoned for that.

[Tonio]

Since outbreak is not well-defined, then yes, we have an "outbreak." There, are you happy?

A massive outbreak of two people who were direct caregivers of an infected person and who have been closely monitored from the get-go.

Talk to me when this goes into tens of people who were infected by more casual contact with people not known to be infected and occurring outside a hospital setting.

[Zeb]

As long as they aren't hiding additional cases from the public, who the fuck cares what they call it? (This is more directed at the people who seem eager to call it an "outbreak" than at you, Tonio).

[Gray Ghost]

I'm still surprised that Duncan's girlfriend and her family, who were living with him for the few days pre-hospital he was shitting himself constantly, haven't caught the bug yet. Or they have, at their "undisclosed location", and TPTB haven't seen fit to reveal that tidbit yet.

[Ted S.]

The "close the borders" people are probably fapping to the news....

[PM]

Public health is only a libertarian concern when it's time to involuntarily vaccinate everybody's kids.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Public health is only a libertarian concern when it's time to involuntarily vaccinate everybody's kids.

Considering that many libertarians oppose involuntary vaccination*, wouldn't "public health" still not be a concern?

*Of course, if you choose not to vaccinate yourself or your children, (like choosing to avoid fluoride products) you're probably a moron. The difference between us and others is that a Christian Scientist decides to attempt to pray away his or her child's virulent bacterial infection, the Progressives loose their shit and will stomp all over the civil liberties of all involved "for the children". The Libertarians just shrug and say "don't be surprised when your kid dies, bro."

[PM]

I was thinking more of the irony that Reason's editorial position, and that of some of the commentariat at least, has been in favor of compulsory vaccination for public health reasons but in opposition to immigration control for the same reason.

[Invisible Finger]

Can you point to Reason articles that say immigrants shouldn't be checked for contagious diseases?

[Zeb]

Yeah, being able to check more immigrants for diseases is an argument for more open borders, not against it. Open borders means that people cross through official check points.

[Bardas Phocas]

I'll be in my plague bunker.

[Johnny Bravo]

2nd healthcare working in TX tests positive for Ebola.

I saw that. Looks like kbolino was right and someone needs to update their protocols.

[Tonio]

Or actually follow the damn protocols, more likely.

[Johnny Bravo]

Or actually follow the damn protocols, more likely.

That was actually my argument, that they didn't follow protocol strictly and got infected. But if it is mutating, they may need to update the protocols.

[kbolino]

What more incentive could there be to follow the protocol than "if you don't, you get a disease that is probably going to kill you horribly"?

The underlying assumption of "somebody got sick, therefore they didn't follow the protocol" is "the protocol always works when followed" but as yet nobody has identified how the protocol was violated in these cases. That may never be possible, but we live in the real world, not the bureaucrat's fantasy world, and the protocol has to adapt accordingly.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Obviously fake weapons are banned, even pictures of weapons. Why wouldn't not-obviously fake allergens be banned?

We need a new term because 'zero-tolerance' is not good enough. 'Less-than-zero tolerance?'. 'Negative tolerance?'. 'Intolerance?'

[Ted S.]

Wouldn't "less-than-zero tolerance" have the students on cocaine?

[Florida Man]

Cocaine substitute. Which is also banned.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Flour is banned because its presence makes it difficult to enforce the cocaine ban.

[Florida Man]

And spagettios because they look like meth

[Bill]

What about the color-challenged vision children? They might not be able to tell peanut butter
from mayonnaise or salad dressing or mustard, especially brown mustard. Need to ban those too.

Of course there might be the occasional kid who was allergic to peanuts but not so badly
to soybeans and this product would allow them to eat more normally. (did I just violate political correctness by using the word normal?)

[Matrix]

Ban children from schools. They spread infectious diseases.

IT'S FOR THE FREAKIN' CHILDREN!!!

[Invisible Finger]

As long as the teachers and administrators keep getting paid, I think you will have full union support for your plan.

[Spartacus]

It takes too much effort to make distinctions between harmful (as defined by bureaucrats) and harmless analogues, so just ban everything. See also: hemp, e-cigs.

[JD the elder]

Why doesn't anybody ever think about the kids who are allergic to soy? Come to think of it, since you could be allergic to just about anything, no? (I am not an allergist, clearly) - we'll just have to ban everything. It's for the kids.

[Robert]

I'm trying to imagine how this could possibly be a problem. The article says the complaint is that the resemblance between these products is such as to make it too difficult for the staff to "monitor" the distinction. Are they opening up children's sandwiches & inspecting them??!