Pedalheads B.C. offers a series of bike day camps in the Lower Mainland for kids aged two to 12 from the beginning of July through end of August. Part of its mandate to keep kids safe is a reminder to parents that children should bring snacks without nuts.
“It’s one more safety mechanism,” said Claudia Sjoberg, owner of Atlantic Programs and Pedalheads Inc.
One of the major steps camps do to ensure food safety is make sure instructors don’t share food with the kids — and that kids don’t share with each other.
“The kids eat their own snacks and that’s the biggest way that we can control what goes on,” said Sjoberg. “That way we can keep kids from going, ‘Hey that looks good, can I try some of yours?’ We absolutely don’t allow that.”
She said the camp has had the rule for years but hesitates to call it a full-on policy.
“It’s not like we can absolutely have an iron fist about who’s bringing stuff in,” said Sjoberg.
The nut-free snack rule is a good way to remind everyone to be conscious of the fact that some children are allergic to nuts and to be careful, said Sjoberg. And even though it’s not a strict rule, Sjoberg said Pedalheads has never had any problems relating to allergies. She added it can help parents whose kids don’t have nut allergies to empathize with those do.
“Sometimes you forget or you just don’t even know what other parents have to go through and how stressful it is for parents who do have these issues,” she said. “It’s a really good way to remind other parents to think, ‘I’ve got to be aware of this — if I’m careless it could affect another child.’”
Camp Shalom of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver also has a nut-free rule as well as a vegetarian rule — the first because of allergies and the second due to religion.
Kids from preschool age to Grade 8 attending day camps bring nut and meat-free meals to keep kids with nut allergies safe, as well as to abide by some of the rules of Judaism.
In Jewish religion, for example, Kosher meat is prepared in a certain way and so the camp avoids any traditional rule-breaking by banning meat altogether, though they can bring fish.
“Nobody brings any meat from outside, so there’s no risk of mixing dairy and meat,” said director Shirly Goldstein. “Everyone’s more on the same side of the diet.”
But you don’t have to be Jewish to attend, as Goldstein explained, about 30 per cent of campers are not.
For parents wondering what kinds of foods their kids can bring, Goldstein said the camp offers suggestions such as egg and tuna salad sandwiches, hummus and carrots and other healthy options.
Goldstein said that to accommodate children with allergies besides nuts, Camp Shalom notifies everyone in the two-week-long session that has a child with a severe allergy, for example to gluten, and tells only kids in that session to also bring gluten-free food, but not the whole camp.
“We always keep the peanut-free environment, but now it’s different — a whole array of new things,” she said. “So we have to be very careful.”
She noted the camp is always open to input and suggestions from parents as well.
Activities at Camp Shalom include a daily swim, theme days, arts and crafts and some programs based on traditional Jewish values. The camps run from June 29 to Aug. 21.
Visit jccgv.com for more information.
@shannon1726
