Other people's cooking makes me feel sick

You have a mental health condition. You’re not “crazy”, but your behaviour is not normal. I’m sure it’s very common and easily treated by a professional.

Unfortunately most people who post on MN are either ignorant or unsympathetic of neurodivergent people and will blame them: “snap out of it”, etc. Particularly if the person exhibiting the strange behaviour is a man.

I can relate to this. Any time people have made cakes at work, i’ll politely take one and then bin it when no one is looking. They’ve also had pot luck lunches when everyone makes a dish and brings it in. I was literally retching at the thought of eating 22 year old who lived in a shared house with 4 other lads re-heated lasagne. I have to know and have seen the house it’s come from, some people just don’t seem to care though.

I eat pretty much anything, anywhere - restaurants, food trucks, BBQs, dinner parties, sandwich shops…… If it looks clean, I’ll eat it. During my very long life I’ve been ill as a result of contaminated food precisely 3 times, 2 of which were unexpected: a high end restaurant, and a family-style restaurant that came recommended by friends. The only one I could kick myself for was the doner kebab from a food truck in Germany.

In my own kitchen I am very clean, but not obsessively so. No one has ever been ill after eating my food, AFAIK.

All these people who throw away gifted food - I just think it’s a bit sad. Someone has gone to some effort to make something which they think you will like - I mean, what are the risks, realistically…

You can't eliminate germs. It's simply not possible. Even if you lived in a hermetically sealed bubble, washed everything at 100 degrees and bleached the hell out of everything every day. You still wouldn't come close to keeping things sterile.

There are certain things which are important in food hygiene: handwashing is one. The temperature at which food (particularly meat) is stored. Keeping meat and vegetable surfaces separate. Properly cleaning utensils and using food which has been left out overnight. Failing to do this really can make you sick.

I'm mega cautious about preparing meat and seafood and will chuck stuff out if I think there's even a hint its past sell-by. These can give you bacteria which will make you really ill.

But expecting people not to talk when preparing food because a micro-droplet of saliva might make its way into a dish serves no purpose at all. You're just as likely to get sick from droplets in the air.

A lot of this hyper anxiety is not based in scientific reality but it's making people more unwell worrying about it. Why not try to treat the root problem rather than creating additional layers of neurosis which you don't have a hope of trying to fix?

@AlpacaMittens

it is absolutely disgusting though, who wants her spitty fingers touching their food??

The competitive cleanliness obsession on here is super weird,

Food poisoning from home cooking is pretty rare and when it happens, it's associated with very specific foods and practices (undercooking chicken for example).

I can't imagine living like this, how joyless. I'd advise some therapy.

I know someone who is germphobic and
I thought they were a minority ...until I joined MN...then I question whether I am a minority that I never give a thought to people's kitchen when presented with a home made cake (I'm more likely to refuse thinking about calories than for any hygeine reasons) Home made food (especially cakes) is 100 times nicer than shop bought.

I think I'm pretty hygienic I wash hands when I come inside, before and during preparing food, I wipe surfaces before food prep, know how to store food correctly etc....but I do wash up in a washing up bowl (I didn't realise this was problematic until MN) and I use our own cutlery to serve the cats food...so....maybe not...

But I do notice that it happens a lot on MN that people think they are different to others eg school mums couldn't be like me, baby group mums won't be like me, everyone else must have disgusting kitchens...apart from me etc etc

I’m like you op and I don’t regard it as problematic. It’s just other people are mingers.

Unwashed hands, poorly washed up stuff or animals around the kitchen ugh. I hate the thought that people have dried their hands or plates on unsanitary towels or drying up cloths. Lots of people wash at low temperatures that don't kill bacteria or fungus spores and use those rank smelling laundry things to hide smells.

It’s all disgusting. Unfortunately the friends I know who are scrupulous, and I’d be happy to eat at their house, aren’t very good at cooking. So I just don’t bother. Stick to my own standards.

I know I have a problem.
I eat to live.
I don't like to think that there is body fluid in my food.
I like to prepare my own food, or to eat food prepared in places with hygiene standards, restaurants etc.

All the "high alert" posters who stress over and desire unrealistic sterile conditions and think they don't have a problem realise that

stress kills too.

You know that right?? Spending a lifetime getting stressed with OCD tendencies will make you sicker than someone who washed a dish in 49 degree water not 50.

That’s a bit different tho… to a long curly hair in ya food. I love dogs. I also have two dogs.

No one tell the OP about how it's necessary for a good chef to taste their food as they cook.
They don't dunk the spoon back in after tasting, I learned that in home economics, basic kitchen hygiene.

I'm easily put off food too, when the host isn't the cleanest person.
There is only person that I'm 💯 comfortable with, is one of my Dsis. Her home is gleaming.
My own home isn't gleaming, the kitchen and bathroom are deep cleaned weekly.

I had chemo years ago so I don’t know if it’s connected but I have to wear head covering when I cook because my hair sheds. I try to be as careful as I can be but I could never work in a professional kitchen as even a hair net or apron doesn’t guarantee no rogue loose hair.

I feel the same.
I was in Greggs the other day getting a coffee and the woman behind the till and disgustingly dirty nails
Just awful

I get you OP, I’m quite similar. I went to a work colleague’s house for dinner once. Lovely lady, quite posh, pretty high up professionally, nice house in London but bloody hell her cats were wandering around the kitchen worktops while she was cooking. I didn’t say anything but I just kept thinking, shit those cats are everywhere while she’s cooking what I’ve got to eat (I’m not a cat person at the best of times).

I went out to lunch once with my sil and before we went in she petted some animals (it was a country pub) and I thought, she’ll wash her hands before we sit down (nope). I even said, I’m going to wash my hands as they feel a bit grubby (I didn’t even pet the animals), and she didn’t take my cue. 🤦‍♀️

I get quite angsty if I don’t know if someone has washed their hands when food is involved.

@gannett

The hygiene neurosis (and it is a neurosis, this is not normal and not reasonable and not something I encounter in every day life) is the weirdest part of MN for me. When my friends had kids they all seemed to suddenly become completely OK with talking about their babies' poo, vomit, piss etc even when it seemed inappropriate (when eating, for example). And yet this parenting site is full of women who are disgusted by even thinking about the bodies of their fellow human beings. I wonder what they think about their own sweat, spit and shit? I wonder how they can even bear to leave the house and if they do, do they wear hazmat suits?

I completely agree: I am bemused by it. Particularly, as you say, because this is often the same people who change a dozen nappies a day and clean the toilet etc. Why should the risk of a few microscopic microbes of saliva in hot food be worse than the risk of particles of baby faeces on your hands? Its all extremely irrational.

See also the stuff about "outdoor clothes" not being worn while sitting on beds, or putting towels down before sex. No logic whatsoever to these things.

I found it a real eye-opener when I first joined this site to realise that a lot of people consider any close interaction with other people outside of their own families to pose some sort of biohazard risk.

No one tell the OP about how it's necessary for a good chef to taste their food as they cook.

The hygiene neurosis (and it is a neurosis, this is not normal and not reasonable and not something I encounter in every day life) is the weirdest part of MN for me. When my friends had kids they all seemed to suddenly become completely OK with talking about their babies' poo, vomit, piss etc even when it seemed inappropriate (when eating, for example). And yet this parenting site is full of women who are disgusted by even thinking about the bodies of their fellow human beings. I wonder what they think about their own sweat, spit and shit? I wonder how they can even bear to leave the house and if they do, do they wear hazmat suits?

Yeah sorry I agree with this. I see this sort of thing a lot on here but, with all kindness, this is irrational, neurotic and unhealthy.

It's not possible to live in a sterile bubble. There is always some risk with respect to hygiene inherent in food prep, whether its you doing the prep or someone else.

Most of the examples you've cited here sound unreasonable to me. You can't reasonably believe that someone having a sweaty forehead is going to pose a food hygiene risk: this just doesn't stand up if you think this through: he would have to sweat absolutely buckets for any of it to go into the food and if it did the heat would rapidly kill any harmful bacteria. There are as many (probably more) microbes on your clean fingers when you are cooking than there are on your brother's sweaty forehead. Do you not think people sweat in restaurant kitchens? What do you expect your brother to do in practice about having a sweaty forehead?

You can't, and you shouldn't seek to, eliminate all microbes from your environment. Not only is it a physical impossibility: there are millions of them in even the most sterile environments and they multiply so rapidly that you can't eliminating them. Also your immune system needs exposure to these microbes to develop the resilience it needs to identify and eliminating them.

I think you're missing out on good food, cooked by people who you trust, because of a neurosis and I think counselling would help.

Thinking like this limits the quality of your life massively and prevents you from doing all kinds of fun things. Most of the things you mention wouldn’t even make you ill.

Those charity cake sales at work… I’ll put money in but you can keep your cake, thanks.
Can’t believe how trusting people are of near strangers’ kitchens.
And no, you can’t tell what someone’s hygiene standards are like based solely on appearance. At uni I lived with a very well put-together girl… who didn’t wash her hands after using the toilet. She’d say “but it was just a wee”. Still don’t want your urine in my food thank you.

" I often stay with my friend who licks her fingers when preparing food. She lives a distance away so it’s the only way I can see her. Or stay at a hotel, but this would be hurtful to her. It’s absolutely disgusting and I can’t understand why her family members don’t say anything to her about it"

Because, objectively, it's not absolutely disgusting. You find it absolutely disgusting and that's fair enough.

Of course food hygiene is important but being bothered by somebody talking while preparing food is a little extreme! How do you get on eating out? Having worked in hospitality for most of my life I can guarantee you will never come across a silent kitchen. Chefs have to communicate constantly with other staff. Plus it's just sociable to talk to people while you're getting food ready.