Your Peanuts Are NOT More Important Than Someone Else’s Life

It’s time to ban nuts from flights

She was only 12 years old. She had her whole life ahead of her.

But now she’s been cruelly taken away by a culture that still doesn’t take nut allergies seriously.

Her family is broken into pieces that can never be fit back the same way again. All because education and legislation on nut allergies are appallingly bad (read: practically nonexistent).

In this case, it was a drink she enjoyed regularly that had somehow been contaminated by nuts. She knew immediately that something was wrong. But by then, it was too late.

And her story, like so many others, will probably never make front-page news. It will probably be ignored once again by those who could make change but choose not to.

And so the cycle continues, and people with severe nut allergies continue to live in fear that someone else’s incompetence will be the end.

To honour her memory, I’m writing this piece to highlight the real threats of nut allergies and to help fuel much-needed social change on the matter.

Here’s the thing…

Some people seem to be under the impression that if they are eating nuts in public, they can’t harm people with a nut allergy. After all, it’s not like they are shoving it down their throats, right?

The lack of education on cross-contamination and airborne food allergenics is not only shocking, it’s literally ending people’s lives.

In the last 10 years alone, there have been plenty of prolific deaths caused by allergen contamination.

Most notable was that of a young teenager who died after buying a baguette at an airport that, unbeknownst to her, contained sesame seeds — something she was highly allergic to. In the wake of the tragedy, a new law — Natasha’s Law — was passed in the U.K. requiring all pre-packaged foods to contain a full ingredients list. Something that before then was easily skipped due to a loophole.

This law was a great step forward for allergy sufferers. But it doesn’t scratch the surface of what is needed in the fight against avoidable allergy triggers in public.

Just do a quick search on Google News of “Nut allergy” and you’ll see thousands of stories of people who have been taken ill or killed due to their nut allergy.

Heck, on the set of “Under the Silver Lake,” actress Reilly Keough accidentally ate a Granola bar with nuts in that she picked up from craft services. A bar she ate right before a kissing scene with Andrew Garfield who is severely allergic to peanuts. Had the make-up artist not noticed before the scene, we could be having a completely different conversation right now.

If Andrew Garfield isn’t fully safe on the set of a multi-million dollar set, what chance does the average Joe have?

We need to do more.

So why flights specifically?

You might be wondering why I’m talking about banning nuts on flights when the girl I spoke about in the beginning was in a restaurant at the time.

But flights are one of the most dangerous places for nut allergy sufferers to be. You’re trapped in a box with nowhere to go. Planes don’t get cleaned as thoroughly as they should be for allergens. And for some inexplicable reason, eating nuts has become synonymous with airplane travel.

Managing nut consumption on flights is one of the easiest things to do…and yet airlines refuse to do it. And unlike when you’re at home or on the ground where you have more control of your food and surroundings, on a flight you are very much stuck.

Everyone has a right to travel safely. Everyone.

And no, your right to eat nuts is not equal to someone else’s right to live.

We all know that a-hole who…

I have a really close friend who has a severe nut allergy. Let’s call him Kev. If you eat them around him, he starts getting really itchy and has to leave the room.

Every time we go on a group trip together, Kev asks the airline to make an announcement asking people not to eat nuts on board and asks the crew not to sell them during the flight either.

And without fail, there will always be that one a-hole who thinks they’re hilarious and announces “Let’s all eat nuts and see if it’s actually that bad! It’ll be so funny!”

On one occasion, when we were all sitting in separate parts of the plane (because seat reservation prices are EXPENSIVE these days!) the usual announcement was made. Without fail, the woman who sat next to me pulled out a bag of peanut M&M’s and started chowing down. I was in dismay. Did you not just hear that message? How dare you put my friend in danger!?

Keeping my cool, I explained to the woman that the announcement was about my friend and that the vapour from her snack was enough to make my friend seriously ill. Thankfully she apologised and put the chocolates away. (Honestly, I was scared she would “Karen” out on me, but thankfully that wasn’t the case).

But perhaps the worst flight experience for Kev happened just recently. As usual, he got on his flight and sought a flight attendant to let them know about his allergy and ask them to make an announcement and not sell any nuts onboard.

Only this time, instead of a reassuring, “Yes, of course!” he was met with a simple “No.” The flight attendant explained that he had to declare it online first. When he explained he tried but there was no option to do this, the attendant told him that it didn’t matter. They already had the nuts ready to sell and since they were on the plane, they weren’t going to not sell them. After a lengthy discussion, they finally promised to make an announcement.

Spoiler alert: They never did.

Apparently, if it’s a choice between $100 in sales or protecting a person’s life, the money wins.

If you think the problem with nuts on flights is exaggerated…

I wish I could say that Kev’s recent plane experience was a rare occasion. But it’s not.

There’s:

The woman who had to buy £144 worth of nuts to stop the crew from selling them onboard
The student who was kicked off her flight because the crew thought it was more important to serve peanuts to business-class flyers
The teenager who was served cashew nuts after declaring his allergy and being assured there would be none on the flight
The family who was told to get off their flight if they were uncomfortable about the almond snacks onboard because a flight attendant decided almonds could not cause an airborne allergic reaction
The adventurer who had to abandon her flight after being laughed at by the crew and told they could not guarantee medical help if she went into anaphylactic shock.

And these all occurred in the last 12 months!

Despite decades of advocacy and warnings of the dangers of nut allergies, people are still discriminated against on flights.

So, why such a strong stance against nuts on planes?

It seems a little extreme to call for a blanket ban on nuts being consumed on planes. I can hear it now.

“We’ve survived all these years with nuts on flights, all these *snowflakes* are just looking to cause problems.”

To that, I say if you’ve never experienced someone having an anaphylactic shock or losing a loved one because of cross-contamination or airborne nut vapours, then it's hard to understand the severity of this issue.

And it’s more common than you’d think. In the U.K. alone, 1 in 50 children and 1 in 200 adults have a nut allergy. So the chances of getting on a flight with someone with an allergy to nuts is not that low.

And even if there’s no one on your flight, there might be someone on the next flight with a nut allergy sitting in your seat.

Here are just a few of the ways having nuts on board a plane can cause an allergic reaction:

Eating nuts near the allergy sufferer
Cross-contamination in food served
Traces of nut protein left on the tray table
Traces of nut protein left on the seat (especially the arms)
Traces of nut protein left on the in-flight magazine
Airborne nut vapors
Coughing/sneezing and spreading water particles with nut proteins in them

There’s an argument amongst airlines that while they can choose to stop the sale of nuts on your flight, they cannot prevent people from bringing nuts onto flights.

Perhaps they should start — with a fine for people who don’t oblige. Or they can allow people to bring unopened packets but issue a penalty for people who open them.

If they can regulate cigarette use on airplanes, they can at least make an effort to heavily reduce the possibility of bringing nuts onboard.

You can skip the nuts for a few hours to protect another person’s health

Prolific campaigner NoNutTraveller recently opened up about the abuse she received for advocating against nuts on planes. Amongst the hate she received were messages including:

“Just because your son suffers from a peanut allergy it’s no reason for other passengers to suffer when you fly… You should feel humiliated because you are a selfish person”

“If your son is that allergic, drive. Don’t take public transport and force the employees to babysit your son. Then your son would be safe and other passengers won’t be inconvenienced by your demands”

It breaks my heart to see so many selfish people who would think eating nuts on a plane is more important than a human being’s health.

Since when was a specific food more important than keeping everyone safe?

Sure, we can’t 100% prevent traces of nuts from getting into public spaces without completely banning nut consumption (which is never going to happen nor am I suggesting it should). But just because we can’t guarantee nut traces, it doesn’t mean we shouldn't try.

We can all take small, reasonable steps to ensure we don’t put other people in danger for the sake of a mid-flight snack. One that can easily be replaced by so many other, safer foods!

So if you care about the people around you. If you want to ensure Kev doesn’t fall ill on his next adventure. If you want to prevent another, innocent 12-year-old girl from being killed because someone decided they couldn’t be bothered to prevent cross-contamination, it’s time to take action.

Be more mindful about your nut consumption in public. Make sure you wash your hands before touching public things after eating nuts. Ask people around you if they have allergies before munching your nutty midday snack. Learn how nut allergy sufferers protect themselves so you can make the necessary adjustments to protect them, too.

And please, don’t eat nuts on a plane!

One minor inconvenience to you is a life-saving action to someone else.