What Nut Butters are Allowed at School?

Have you received a letter from your child's school about peanut butter being banned? Does your child only eat peanut butter sandwiches and you're wondering what to pack for school lunches or snacks? Don't worry, there are many tasty alternatives that you can try and all are healthier than peanut butter.

Can seeds (like hemp seeds) be brought to school?

Seeds such as hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds or pepitos can be brought to school. The only nuts that cannot be brought to school are peanuts and tree-nuts such as walnuts, almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts, pine nuts, and macadamia nuts.

Hemp seed butter is made from ground, blended hulled hemp seeds and hemp seed oil. That's it. Nothing but simple, non-GMO, organic, natural ingredients making it the best nut butter alternative. Hemp Seed Butter does NOT contain trans fats, hydrogenated oils, cholesterol, added sugar, gluten, preservatives, or artificial colors or flavors. The hemp is grown from North American, non-GMO hemp seed, without any pesticides, or herbicides.

There are many peanut butter substitutes not made of nuts including, Hemp Seed Butter (made from hemp seeds), Biscoff spread (made from biscoff cookies), I.M. Healthy SoyNut Butter (made from soybeans), and Sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds). These nut-butters can safely be brought to school. They can be found in the peanut butter section of virtually any grocery store including, Albertsons, Kroger, Tom Thumb, Target, Central Market, and HEB. When combined with jelly, most kids can’t tell it’s not peanut butter. All tree-nut butter spreads should stay at home. These include, cashew butter, almond butter and Nutella.

What about a label that says, “manufactured in a facility with nuts"?

Only items that actually contain nuts or are labeled, “may contain nuts' should be left at home. To be clear, allergic children cannot actually eat items with the “manufactured in a facility with nuts' or “processed on shared equipment with nuts" labels, but these foods can safely be consumed by other children nearby.