St Bernadette’s, like any other community, has staff and students that have food allergies and anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction, to a range of different allergens.
We would like families to understand the importance of supporting students with food allergies and encourage members of our community to become Allergy Aware.
A food allergy is an immune system response to a food protein that the body (mistakenly) believes is harmful when the person eats food containing that protein. In an individual with a food allergy, the body sees a particular food as an enemy and releases something called “histamine” and other chemicals to fight the enemy. Any food can trigger an allergic reaction, however there are 9 foods that cause 90% of food triggered reactions.
The top 9 foods are:
Egg, milk, peanut, tree nuts (e.g. cashews, almond), fish, shellfish (such as prawn and lobster), sesame, soy and wheat, rye, barley and oats.
I encourage you to talk to your child/ren about being allergy aware. It is important that children maintain vigilance when eating their food during the day and do not share food items with other children. We are an allergy aware school and do not ban specific foods.