MIL doesn't understand basic food safety

[Anonymous]

Boomers seem to think a lot of rules do not apply to them.

[Anonymous]

My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

What is the problem if you wash your hands with and hot water? Do you think people make homemade bread without touching the dough?

[Anonymous]

I posted around Thanksgiving. My MIL is bad as well. She will make a pan of sloppy joes in the morning and just leave it on the stove all day while we do things and then reheat at dinner. If she buys fried chicken, it just is stored in the oven (that is off) as people eat it for a couple days. She made all the Thanksgiving sides the morning of Thanksgiving and put them in the garage as though it was refrigerator temperature out there. It was 70 degrees. She always defrosts meat on the counter overnight. I got REALLY sick one time that we visited. Like a whole week of diarrhea every half hour. We all try to eat as little as possible. But then she tries to just feed us leftovers which is even worse. We go for very short trips and offer to do as much of the cooking and cleaning up as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My in-laws are like this too. I eat food right when it comes out of the oven or fridge. I stick to chips or crackers or cookies after a few hours have passed and the mayo based salads, dips, meat, etc. have been sitting out. And I definitely don't eat it the next day when they haul it out again. They don't seem to get sick from it. I have a more sensitive stomach (ibs with family history of ibd) so I am more careful. So for example today they had grape leaves and pita and hummus that was all out for about 6 hours yesterday. I had the pita that had been in the fridge yesterday plus an apple and some peanut butter i brought with me.

You haven't built up any immunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

The Germans tend to think store and restaurant bought foods are subpar.
I'll bet your MIL washes her hands often while cooking, and probably washes dishes by hand so her hands and rings are probably clean.
Cooked stews and rice on stove with the lid on is OK. Foods should cool before putting in fridge as it is bad for the appliance.

Before refrigerators and factory food, people made stuff with their hands. And vacuum sealed pickling jars and pots using a ring of water with a lid over it to prevent air passage. Also stored their foods underground where it was cooler in summer.
Somehow humanity managed to get on without appliances for most of human history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

The Germans tend to think store and restaurant bought foods are subpar.
I'll bet your MIL washes her hands often while cooking, and probably washes dishes by hand so her hands and rings are probably clean.
Cooked stews and rice on stove with the lid on is OK. Foods should cool before putting in fridge as it is bad for the appliance.

Before refrigerators and factory food, people made stuff with their hands. And vacuum sealed pickling jars and pots using a ring of water with a lid over it to prevent air passage. Also stored their foods underground where it was cooler in summer.
Somehow humanity managed to get on without appliances for most of human history.

People also used to die younger and had more diseases in general.

I mean, there is probably a happy medium, but let's not pretend that health hasn't improved over time through things like food hygiene.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom is so bad with this. She will use the same cutting board for raw meat and other stuff, or the same knife. She will serve a roast that looks barely cooked through or a chili that never came to a simmer on the crockpot. It grosses me out to the point that I do not eat her food anymore. But to have to say, she has been like this a lonnnng time and to my knowledge, has never had food poisoning. So, maybe the jokes on me being so anal about food safety!

My MIL is nowhere near as bad, but she will do stuff like thaw meat on the counter for hours, or leave cold cuts out all morning to be bred at lunch. I can’t eat it when know it’s been out! Again, maybe I am the crazy one but I am a total stickler for anything related to food prep and storage.

My kids, my spouse, and I use the same cutting board for meats and vegetables. We also use a cleaver for all of those. However, we rise off and clean the cutting board and cleaver after meat has touched them though.
We have never gotten sick from that practice.
I thaw meat on the counter for hours. We have never gotten sick from that either.

[Anonymous]

Family member would take raw meat out on plate, BBQ it and return it to original raw meat plate.

Another used hands to put raw burgers on BBQ and then prep the bread.

Roommate would prep raw chicken with bare hands, then rinse hands under cold water (no soap) and dry raw chicken hands on kitchen towel.

I have had a lot of food poisoning and am very wary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

The Germans tend to think store and restaurant bought foods are subpar.
I'll bet your MIL washes her hands often while cooking, and probably washes dishes by hand so her hands and rings are probably clean.
Cooked stews and rice on stove with the lid on is OK. Foods should cool before putting in fridge as it is bad for the appliance.

Before refrigerators and factory food, people made stuff with their hands. And vacuum sealed pickling jars and pots using a ring of water with a lid over it to prevent air passage. Also stored their foods underground where it was cooler in summer.
Somehow humanity managed to get on without appliances for most of human history.

People also used to die younger and had more diseases in general.

I mean, there is probably a happy medium, but let's not pretend that health hasn't improved over time through things like food hygiene.

Well, yeah, people died younger and had diseases.
But not from eating food.
Health has improved from hygiene in general.
Not specifically from food hygiene.

Most shelf stable foods in our giant supermarkets are products of military food science. They produced a "bread like product", as described in their internal literature. 20 minutes from raw dough to bagging. It became marketed as Wonderbread.
I'd rather have freshly baked bread by human hands and I don't mind it sitting out for a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

The Germans tend to think store and restaurant bought foods are subpar.
I'll bet your MIL washes her hands often while cooking, and probably washes dishes by hand so her hands and rings are probably clean.
Cooked stews and rice on stove with the lid on is OK. Foods should cool before putting in fridge as it is bad for the appliance.

Before refrigerators and factory food, people made stuff with their hands. And vacuum sealed pickling jars and pots using a ring of water with a lid over it to prevent air passage. Also stored their foods underground where it was cooler in summer.
Somehow humanity managed to get on without appliances for most of human history.

People also used to die younger and had more diseases in general.

I mean, there is probably a happy medium, but let's not pretend that health hasn't improved over time through things like food hygiene.

Well, yeah, people died younger and had diseases.
But not from eating food.
Health has improved from hygiene in general.
Not specifically from food hygiene.

Most shelf stable foods in our giant supermarkets are products of military food science. They produced a "bread like product", as described in their internal literature. 20 minutes from raw dough to bagging. It became marketed as Wonderbread.
I'd rather have freshly baked bread by human hands and I don't mind it sitting out for a day.

No. People were often sick from poor food hygiene in the past, which led to stricter food regulation. Have you heard of The Jungle?! Typhoid Mary?!

I also prefer everything homemade. We can do both now— make our own food and employ our knowledge of food safety and hygiene, which is fairly recent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

The Germans tend to think store and restaurant bought foods are subpar.
I'll bet your MIL washes her hands often while cooking, and probably washes dishes by hand so her hands and rings are probably clean.
Cooked stews and rice on stove with the lid on is OK. Foods should cool before putting in fridge as it is bad for the appliance.

Before refrigerators and factory food, people made stuff with their hands. And vacuum sealed pickling jars and pots using a ring of water with a lid over it to prevent air passage. Also stored their foods underground where it was cooler in summer.
Somehow humanity managed to get on without appliances for most of human history.

People also used to die younger and had more diseases in general.

I mean, there is probably a happy medium, but let's not pretend that health hasn't improved over time through things like food hygiene.

Well, yeah, people died younger and had diseases.
But not from eating food.
Health has improved from hygiene in general.
Not specifically from food hygiene.

Most shelf stable foods in our giant supermarkets are products of military food science. They produced a "bread like product", as described in their internal literature. 20 minutes from raw dough to bagging. It became marketed as Wonderbread.
I'd rather have freshly baked bread by human hands and I don't mind it sitting out for a day.

I'd rather have that too. But time and money are real constraints people are working with since post-industrialization and the rise of two-income households. We need much bigger public policy changes before elimination of highly processed food is realistic on a population level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

[/quote wrote:

We have a relative by marriage that creates problems. Eat prepackaged/takeout and food like roasted veggies or mashed potatoes straight from the cooking pot or tray. Skip fresh produce if they rinse berries and leave in colander in sink used for handwashing and dirty dishes. ie washes raw egg hands in the sink over the berries. Cuts cantelope with a knife that was out for hours sitting on a cutting board that also was used including for charcuterie.

People got sick one year from large undercooked turkey - followed time frames - thermometer. Most passed on eating it - saw pink etc.

In all seriousness, if berries are in colander on one side of sink, and you wash hands on other side of sink with a faucet that swivels, what’s the problem?

In general, nothing, but if you're rinsing raw chicken off of your hands, it sprays microscopic raw chicken germs EVERYWHERE in that sink. Do a test- make sure your sink is totally dry, then swivel the faucet to one side, and wash your hands with soap and water on that side, then turn off the faucet. Look around your sink. Did tiny water sprays end up on the opposite side of the sink? That's raw chicken on top of your berries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My MIL mixes meatballs, meatloaf, and bread dough with her hands and wears several rings while doing it. It grosses me out. I guess the bacteria gets cooked off. I’ve never been sick. Also keeps cooked stews and pots of rice on the stove (burner off) all day long. Also gross to me. She isn’t American though. I think a lot of her habits that I consider unhygienic are cultural

What is the problem if you wash your hands with and hot water? Do you think people make homemade bread without touching the dough?

It’s not the hands- it’s the jewelry. A lot of gross bacteria hides under (and in crevices) of rings and bracelets. They really should be removed before mixing food with bare hands- and before washing hands so you can actually clean the areas under the jewelry.

[Anonymous]

People, we have immune systems that have been protecting us since the dawn of time. You know, humans were not sick all the time before the invention of Purell.