Other people's cooking makes me feel sick

Via food? I think not.

YANBU! I’m ashamed to admit that this is the reason I don’t go round to my dad‘s house as I feel their personal hygiene around the house and in the kitchen is just not good enough so I wouldn’t want to sit in the house or eat or drink from their crockery and utensils. I also have OCD and ADHD.

@GlomOfNit

saliva can transmit diseases such as glandular fever

The vast, vast majority of food poisoning incidents are from commercial premises. I'll never understand the mentality of people who won't eat in friends/family homes, but will eat in restaurants.

There’s never been a food poisoning incident in my house either (hand washing is an absolute must before anyone goes near food), but there’s been several incidents of us having food poisoning when eating in professional eateries. 🫤

Exactly this. As I said above, I've probably got a more than averagely relaxed approach to food hygiene, up to obvious limits around raw meat etc. I'm almost never ill. I've had food-related issues once or twice in my fairly well travelled and sociable life. I was properly ill after some prawns in Mexico 25 years ago. And I also remember a rather dodgy stomach (though not full on food poisoning) in a hut in Tanzania in the 90s. I'd much rather relax and enjoy the home cooked food and ignore the negligibily small drop of saliva. We live alongside germs everywhere, all the time. They are a ubiquitous part of life.

If I lived with someone with a compromised immune system then I understand that would be different. But I don't.

No that’s not OCD.

dont eat out. The chef might have a sweaty forehead.

She won't eat food if someone talked near it!

I'm laughing at all the people suggesting therapy. OP doesn't need therapy for being grossed out over her friend licking her fingers while preparing sandwiches!

What are we missing out on? A few home made cakes, the odd meal. So what? Yeah I'm funny about food sometimes, it doesn't impact my life in any meaningful way. Certainly not to the extent I would need therapy!

I'm exactly the same. I don't even like to have a coffee in some friends/family houses unless I make it myself AFTER I've washed the cup . Had a coffee in friends house once and the cup was dirty, old stains 😬I usually just take my own bottle of water. I can only eat gluten free so I take my own food 😋 and get out of it that way.

So long as someone washes hands before prepping, cooking and serving food and doesn’t cough or sneeze over it , I’m fine .
One acquaintance house they offered me ice 🧊 with my drink but asked me to fetch it myself from the freezer which smelled odd to me .
i think they didn’t wash out the ice tray or clean and defrost the freezer so I didn’t have the ice 🧊
I dislike that and greasy sinks full of debris from washing up 😖 I have a dishwasher and when I do need to wash up I have a system 😂 with cleanest items first , dirty pots last .
then I drain and clean the sink

Whatever the aesthetics and ICK of licking a cooking spoon, talking over the food (horrors! clearly one should be wearing a face mask or keeping silent) or having the temerity to get a bit sweaty in a hot kitchen over the proverbial hot stove, none of these things are going to give you food poisoning. A trace amount of saliva in hot, cooked food will not transmit the plague. A less-than-pristine hand-washed plate will not make you ill. A drop of sweat (ok it's not a nice prospect) will not give you something nasty. Therefore, whatever you feel about it, it's irrational. It's not going to make you ill.

So I think OP has a fairly obvious MH issue about food prep and should probably try to address it. I assume she never eats out - you'd probably rather not know what goes on in commercial kitchens!

Food poisoning isn’t an every day occurrence, sure. But doesn’t it feel better to know your food has been prepared as carefully and hygienically as possible?

Not really, no. What feels good is kniwing I have an immune system that protects me without things needing to be sterile. In fact, it presumably works because it's used to things not being sterile.

'Not an everyday occurrence' is a very, VERY long way from 3 times in 53 years, which is how often I've had food poisoning (and never from my kitchen, or any other domestic kitchen, or even from school bake sales - only from shellfish which was probably dodgy to start with, rather than prepared unhygienically).

Food poisoning isn’t an every day occurrence, sure. But doesn’t it feel better to know your food has been prepared as carefully and hygienically as possible?

To a reasonable standard, but what you've said here seems unnecessarily pressurised. I love cooking and eating, I'm not going to get worked up about the highest hygiene standards possible. There's never been any food poisoning in my house.

I don't think you're being unreasonable but I know I can be a little obsessive. I caught a stomach bug a few years ago and it triggered a gluten, onion, and garlic intolerance and eating is so fraught nowadays, even though I try to be relaxed. I just can't help but think if everyone was as clean as me, I'd still be able to eat bread!!! I'm prone to post viral illness too and immune compromised, so I get sick even when nobody else does. It's difficult to toe the line between being careful and being obsessive. Thankfully my husband and I are good cooks and we hate spending money, so we love to cook together at home anyway.

Sweaty forehead and talking over food wouldn’t bother me.

Licking fingers? Is she then touching the food again? If so, that’s a bit gross.

Not washing hands also grim but I figure I wont die.

The washing up - again, quite grim but I would let it pass but maybe offer to do some washing up as they go along so I can refresh the bowl. Always prefer a kitchen with a dishwasher.

I absolutely loathe people who let cats get anywhere near food prep areas - bum holes on worktops gives me the boak. I wouldn’t eat there.

I also don’t approve of dogs licking human plates etc as most dishwashers only heat to around 65-70c which isn’t hot enough to kill their bacteria. And washing by hand certainly isn’t hot enough. I stopped having cuppas with a neighbour when she let her dog “finish” her cup of tea.

(I have a much loved dog by the way, but he doesn’t get near human dishes. He has his own bowl which needs washed daily).

I would never have been bothered when I was younger. I ate dodgy food in dodgy places and didn’t care. It’s only in the last few years I’ve got more twitchy about this kind of stuff.

I’m very well aware of that and I’m happy to take my chances with say the odd unwashed blackberry off a bush when I’m out for a walk or normal human activity around food!

It’s the complete lack of attention to basic food and utensil hygiene that bothers me. And a cavalier attitude with pets.

I’m veggie too, so if people don’t separate meat (or meat products), and the utensils, I find that slovenly. The amount of buffets or catering in hotels I see where they just bung ham and tuna on the same platter and dripping on to the supposed veggie stuff is unreal.

The level of defensiveness and incredulity on these threads leads me to think people just don’t know, and aren’t taught this stuff. Food poisoning isn’t an every day occurrence, sure. But doesn’t it feel better to know your food has been prepared as carefully and hygienically as possible? I mean someone up thread gloating about the big black dog hairs in her kitchen? Come on. That’s fucking gross by any standard.

My DS is like an inspector when I prepare his sandwiches, looking for finger prints.
He's food sensitive too.

I cannot eat spaghetti because it reminds me of worms, I cannot eat raisins as they look blue bottle flies, I cannot eat white rice as it reminds of fish bait, I'm sure there are other food items that my brain rejected.

DD recently commented on my breakfast, that the mushrooms looked like slugs. I couldn't finish my pub breakfast.

I stopped eating potatoes as a child because worms in the earth. I grew out of that one.

I can't eat sausage as i visualise the bits of penis in it.

You’re not being unreasonable at all! Food hygiene is important and I feel the ick- kitchen should be clean, hair tied up hands washed etc!

Yes but you wouldn’t want those fluids on your plate. A time and a place and all that.

My (late) mum was very hygienic and I could always eat her food without worry, except for one thing. When she cut a sandwich in two she would leave her finger indents in the sandwich and it would really put me off. 🫤

I think you might just have minging mates.

have you ever kissed anyone OP? Or had sex? Exchanging bodily fluids happens in life. It’s not “disgusting”.