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Citing Allergies, Pasta Station No Longer Serves Pesto
The upper level of O’Donovan Hall is officially a nut-free zone.
In an effort to ensure the safety of students with nut allergies, foods such as pecan pie and peanut butter will be served only on the lower level. In addition, the pasta station has stopped serving pesto sauce, as it contains pine nuts.
“The elimination of nuts on the upper level was created to avoid cross-contamination when students dish additional food items onto their plate,” said Kristen Hamilton, registered dietitian at O’Donovan Hall.
“This compromise, however unpopular with some students, is the safest solution to ensure all students can enjoy their dining experience,” she said.
In response, Katie Cronen (COL ’11) created a Facebook group called “Bring Pesto Back to Leo’s!” which had attracted 93 members as of last night.
“I was kind of upset it was gone because it was so popular,” Cronen said. “I wanted to do something a little bit more proactive than sitting around and complaining. I found an online comment card through the Leo’s Web site and told all my friends to write a comment.”
Cronen suggested cooking pasta with pesto sauce in separate pans in order to protect students with allergies while continuing to offer the sauce.
In response to the comments of Cronen and others, Margie Bryant, associate vice president of auxiliary services, said in an e-mail to Cronen that she would be in contact with the Dining Services management team to review the removal of the pesto sauce.
“Peanut allergies are common food allergies and are definitely prevalent among the student body so it feels good to know that at least upstairs is peanut-free,” Elizabeth Ockerman (COL ’11), who is allergic to peanuts, said.
For those with sensitive allergies, minimal exposure to nuts can cause anaphylactic shock, in which the victim has difficulty breathing and could die in a few minutes if left untreated.
— Julia Cai
To Katie,
I'm very sorry you will be missing your choice of dinner.
Although I too enjoy Pesto (with pine nuts), I'd give it up (and have regular pasta/sauce), in an effort to possibly save a life of my fellow students.
Perhaps that choice is not acceptable, and you will get an appropriate response from dining services, and there could be a happy medium.
But I am sorry for your parents, really, who have raised their child this way - that their own selfishness trumps a fellow student's allergies.
Shame on them for not raising a more compassionate student.
Why not just have the pesto sauce available on the lower level?
Changes will be more common over the next five years, and dining services is wise to create a safe environment for food allergic students. My daughter came close to shock and death only last week after mistakenly pouring soy milk on her morning cereal. The soy milk dispenser was moved to where the regular milk dispenser had stood all year long. Although there was a label taped identifying the milk as soy milk....this did not stop my daughter from sleepily stepping up to what she thought was the plain milk dispenser and pouring soy milk on her cereal. Her allergies are anaphylaxis to both soy and peanut. Avoiding soy is very hard. Not understanding why she was reacting when eating her safe cereal and plain milk, she delayed using the epi pen and instead sought out the chef to have the cereal ingredients checked for any changes....meantimes she was getting sicker. Anaphylaxis takes over the system very quickly, but the symptoms are not always the same from one reaction to the next. This time she felt her first symptom as being an overwhelming feeilng on not being well and centered in her stomach. Another part of life threatening anaphylaxis is a sense of doom, panic and loss of judgment. The chef okayed the cereal and she discounted her symptoms heading for next class. The chef followed her and asked questions as to what else she might have eaten that day. They walked together to see where she got her milk when my daughter saw the sign "Soy Milk" on the dispenser she used. Panicked...she fled into the women's room and then threw up (another symptom of anaphylaxis). The Chef followed her and saw her injecting her outer thigh with the epinepherine. The chef called campus emergency, who called 911 before responding. My daughter also used her cell phone to call 911. This reaction was so strong that the first epinepherine shot had hardly any effect on her symptoms. She could not breath through her nose becaus she felt all stuffed up. Her throat was closing off because a hive was growing inside her throat. She was flushed. Her legs could not support her. The ambulance came and took her to emergency. Unfortunately, the EMT had trouble starting an IV. My daughter thought she would die. There are only two endings to an anaphylactic reaction: one is survival and the other is death. Unfortunately, there is no set way to avoid reactions....all the diligence we can muster cannot protect us completely. We need our community. If the chef had not followed my daughter...her symptoms could have and would have overwhelmed her as she left the dining hall and was alone on campus, or in the classroom of her next class. She never expected to consume soy milk that morning....and I would never have expected her to delay using her medication, plus who would have expected that an EMT ambulance responder would have trouble getting the IV started in the ambulances....all of those unexpected things may have ended in her death. Death comes in minutes....there is a point of no return in these reactions. Anaphylaxis leads to death by anaphylactic shock....shock and death in minutes.
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