Perhaps your child or one (or more) of your child’s classmates suffers from peanut allergies and you are trying to find what some people have taken to calling “peanut safe foods” to take in to the classroom when birthdays are being celebrated and on any other special occasions that children celebrate at school.

These days, at least one child in almost any classroom (and often more than one) will have been diagnosed with mild, moderate or even severe allergies to peanuts and/or tree nuts, as well as any foods that contain even traces of such nuts (or their oils). Teachers and school administrators are growing increasingly knowledgeable about what foods are considered peanut safe. After all, teachers and administrators want all children to feel included and safe during classroom celebrations.

Peanut and tree nut allergies, it should be noted, can be very dangerous if they are severe because they can cause life threatening respiratory problems in children and adults who suffer from these allergies. (EpiPens can be life savers if an individual suffers from such an attack on school property, at home or anywhere at all.)

For starters, if children who do not suffer from such allergies happen to eat anything at all containing peanuts (such as peanut butter) before going to school, it is important for them to brush their teeth and to wash their hands and faces thoroughly before going to school. That way, if they come near a classmate who suffers from peanut allergies and/or tree nut allergies, they will not pose any kind of risk to that classmate.

In other words, keeping children with peanut allergies safe all day long at school (and beyond) really is a team effort. (It takes a village to raise a child, as the old saying goes, and on a related note, it also takes a village to keep a child safe with regard to food allergies.)

With that said, here is a list of snack foods that have officially been deemed “peanut safe foods,” at the present time, meaning that they are not manufactured in the presence of peanuts or tree nuts, and therefore they do not have even a trace of such foods (or the oils from such foods) in them:

All fresh fruit
Betty Crocker or Nabisco Fruit snacks including:
Dole Fruit Bowls
Fruit roll-ups
Gushers
Shark Bites
Applesauce cups
Fruit by the Foot
Fun fruits
Trix fruit snacks
All fresh vegetables
Regular Oreos
Cheese
Yogurt (but not soy brands of yogurt)
Teddy Grahams
Rice Krispie Treats
Pepperidge Farm Milanos, Chessman, Shortbread and Sugar Cookies ..
Goldfish (original only)
Keebler Butter cookies and Grasshopper cookies
Nabisco Barnum Animal Crackers, Oatmeal, Iced Oatmeal, Fig Newtons
Hostess Ho Hos
Rold Gold Pretzels
Ruffles Potato Chips
Fritos
Cheetos
Tostitos
Pringles (original only)
Popcorn (Pop Secret, Orville Redenbacher , Healthy Choice)
Hershey Chocolate Pudding Tubes
Hunts Juicy Gels, Vanilla and Chocolate Pudding
Good Humor Fudgesicles, Popsicles, Fire Crackers, Micro Pops and Scibblers
Tropicana Fruit Juice Bars
Welch’s Fruit Juice Popsicles
Starbursts
Skittles
Twizzlers
Milk Duds
Dots
Tootsie Rolls
Sour Patch Kids

Although these foods are all considered peanut safe foods and therefore safe to give to children with peanut allergies at the time of this Hub’s publication, please note that it is ALWAYS necessary to read the ingredients of all snacks prior to allowing your child to bring them to school to eat (or to have the teachers serve to other children) because manufacturers do make production changes from time to time, meaning that a food that is considered peanut safe at the present time might not always be safe in the future.