Julie Kudrna ate peanut butter sandwiches daily in grade school. She ate peanut butter during her pregnancies and while she was nursing her children. But she worries it could prove deadly for them now.

Kudrna, of Minot, wants the public school system to take peanuts and peanut butter off the school lunch menu to protect her children and others who are allergic to them.

"This is a life-threatening allergy," she said.

Kudrna said she knows of schools in Washington, Canada and along the East Coast that have banned peanut butter, and she thinks the Minot Public Schools also should take some precautions.

Kudrna doesn't want to ban peanut butter from schools altogether. She said she just doesn't want it on the school lunch menu. When peanut butter is served in the cafeteria, the chance of children having an allergic reaction to it is much greater than when a few kids bring peanut butter from home, she said.

In North Carolina, after a child died of a peanut allergy in a mall, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Schools decided something should be done to protect students, said Amy Harkey, assistant director of child nutrition for the school district. It includes 150 schools and about 126,000 students.

A panel of parents, legal officials, allergists, school administrators and others came up with the school's no-peanut policy in March last year, she said. It outlines not only what can be served in the lunchroom, but also what kind of snacks can be given out in classes and what must be done to protect students who have reactions, she said.

Kudrna said she wants that kind of environment for her children, two of whom are allergic to peanuts.

The Minot School Board, in a meeting earlier this month, declined to take action on her request to take peanuts and peanut butter out of the school cafeterias.

"They just didn't seem to understand the risk it posed for so many families in the community," Kudrna said.

Nancy Langseth, the Minot School Board president, said the board sympathizes with Kudrna but thinks the schools are doing enough to protect the 17 students in the Minot district who are allergic to peanuts.

"To me, it's humanly impossible to remove everything that people are possibly allergic to," Langseth said. "And who knows? Maybe it will come to that, someday."

Kudrna's daughter, Olivia, had her first reaction to peanuts when she was 18 months old. Kudrna fed the toddler a piece of a peanut butter cookie, and Olivia's face swelled up, she had hives and her eyes got red, her mother said.

Kudrna thought it was just a case of too many ingredients. But Olivia's next reaction, when she was 2, sent her to the pediatrician.

Kudrna said she had been holding her daughter while eating peanut-butter toast. When she looked down, she noticed Olivia was irritable and covered in hives, she said.

The pediatrician gave her a warning: When a child that young has that strong of a reaction without actually eating or touching peanut butter, eating a peanut product could cause death within 3 minutes.

Kudrna's 5-year-old son, Sam, also is allergic to peanuts.

When Olivia entered first grade this year, it became harder to shield her from exposure to peanuts because the school cafeteria serves peanuts several times a week, Kudrna said.

She said she formed a food-allergy support group with other parents in October, and they discussed how to keep their children safe. While Kudrna can take Olivia out of the cafeteria for lunch every time peanut products are on the menu, other parents aren't able to do that, she said. She feels responsible for those families, too.

"I'm looking out for not only my children," she said.

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network says about approximately 11 million Americans have food allergies - with about 3 million of them allergic to peanuts or tree nuts.

Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder and chief executive officer of the group, said most schools work with parents to come up with individual plans to protect students with allergies.

"You need to look at the bigger picture," said Munoz-Furlong, who started the group because of a lack of information available when her daughter was diagnosed with a milk and egg allergy. "Children have died from reactions with peanuts, but also from milk and fish."

Educating students and school staff on how to avoid a reaction and what to do if a child has a reaction are most important in keeping students with allergies safe, she said.

"A policy of not trading food with other kids …. would do a great service in protecting all students," she said.

The extent of the school's responsibility will depend on how bad a student's allergies are, she said.

"The key here is to remember that there are millions of children who go to school everyday with food allergies who have no problems," she said. "Schools need to balance caution with a sense of normality."

Legal experts advised the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools not to try to bar students from eating peanut butter at school, Harkey said. "It's not a peanut-free environment," she said.

Deb Egeland, nutrition program manager for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, says it's not a good idea to totally ban a particular food.

"Nobody wants their kid to be the one … who caused the other kids to not eat what they want," she said.

Egeland said she was not aware of any North Dakota school where peanuts and peanut butter were barred from lunch menus. The state has never taken such action, she said.

"It's left up to every school," she said. "We don't mandate anything."

The lack of peanut products in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools hasn't bothered parents, Harkey said.

"They've reacted very positively," she said. "We have a lot of kids with allergies, and that's what prompted us to put a policy in writing."

Jill Bruce, the food service director for Minot Public Schools, said she understands why Kudrna wants peanut products out of schools. But Bruce said she doesn't think eliminating peanut butter from schools is the answer.

Peanuts and peanut butter are excellent sources of protein, Bruce said. When children don't want to eat anything else served in the cafeteria, many will eat peanut butter sandwiches, she said. Peanut butter is a federal commodity, so schools can get it for free, she said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Schools offer SunButter, a peanut butter-like product made in North Dakota from sunflower seeds, instead of peanut butter, Harkey said. SunButter is also a federal commodity, Egeland said. But it has not been popular with Minot students.

"We sampled it, and they just didn't like it," Bruce said. Some students are allergic to sunflower seeds, she said.

Bruce also said some parents who have children with allergies do not support a ban on peanuts or other substances, because they want their children to get used to being on the prowl for dangers.

Kudrna said the school cafeteria has a peanut-free table, and the lunch ladies watch out for Olivia. The school has allowed her to train staff on how to deal with allergic reactions.

"I am so blessed with the people at her school, because they are fantastic and have handled this fantastic," Kudrna said. "But I know that there are so many children out there that are dealing with this, and I just feel a responsibility to lend what I have learned to them."

"We'll just continue to educate people and protect the people that are living with this," she said.