Is this gross?

[Rainbows89]

Last night I was in the kitchen and DH was clearing out some leftovers that didn’t get eaten. He was scraping the food into the bin using his hand. I found this fairly gross.

I have previously seen him put pasta onto someone’s plate using his hand which I also find pretty gross and he has stopped doing.

He thinks I am a big old nag.

I said that I thought most people would be surprised to see someone scraping leftovers into a bin using their hand.

Would this surprise you?! Or is it totally fine and normal?

It would surprise me, but as long as he washes his hands straight after, wouldn't bother me overly. Also depends on the food - spare rib bones picked clean, a bit of dry bread, rice and peas, or something in a lot of sauce?

I'd use cutlery myself, though.

I wouldn't like hands to be used for pasta, but I've probably done some plate adjustment with bare fingers in my time.

I do sometimes but wash hands after.

He thinks I am a big old nag

Agreed. No harm done as long as he washes his hands, leave him alone!

Scraping into the bin - not an issue, wash hands afterwards.

Scooping pasta to serve on someone's plate - have you seen how much chefs handle the food they serve? So long as he's washed his hands first I guess there's nothing wrong with it but it would make me pause if I'd seen it!

If I was literally about to carry the dish over and wash it, immersing my hands in suds, I might use my hand to scrape into the food waste caddy first. It might get more off the plate, more effectively, than a fork or whatever. Depends what the food is.

I wouldn't normally use hands to serve food. Although if they're newly washed, no harm done I guess.

I remember being asked by a Mauritian colleague why British people use cutlery for everything. She thinks food tastes less good if you don't use your hand to eat it.

We don't tend to touch food unless it's very unmessy like sandwiches and crisps, but it's only a cultural thing. If we were talking about food we normally eat with our fingers, like carrot sticks, it wouldn't seem odd at all. It's just we have developed a cultural aversion to touching "wet" food with our hands, even though we are happy to put it in our mouths. (I have to say I always use cutlery to scrape.)

It’s a bit odd.

The using hands for serving pasta is however, gross.

Scraping food into the bin with hands wouldn't bother me, I do the same. It's food. You were recently putting it in your mouth, why not touch it with your hands?

Plating pasta with hands would be a bit of a surprise though. Was it saucy or just plain pasta? I suppose if his hands are clean it's fine, just odd 😂

I use cutlery to scrape if it is easily available, but if it isn’t to hand (might all be piled in another part of the kitchen) then I would scrape it off with my hand. I’ll be washing my hands anyway so makes no difference.

I do this when I'm wearing my washing up gloves. Say if I've already threw the cutlery in the bowel. I wouldn't do it without my gloves on though. If someone served me some pasta onto my plate using their fucking hands though.. I would probably would be sick

well one time with the pasta serving (no sauce!) he had been out and hadn’t washed his hands. So maybe I am a bit over sensitive to these things!

anyway I will leave him to his hand bin scraping activities in future!! Thank you 😊

It was leftover spaghetti in sauce that he was scraping into the bin. So it wasn’t like bread or something.

this is a man who will eat pizza and burgers with a knife and fork!!!

so maybe my brain just can’t compute!!

I genuinely think there's no issue touching food, so long as you have clean hands.

And I am a bit funny about germs etc, so if I think it's ok, it must be!

If you're squeamish about people touching your food, never eat in a restaurant!

I quite often scrape plates with my hand while washing up / loading the dishwasher, my hands are going to get washed. Likewise I touch food with clean hands when preparing it, although I probably wouldn't pick up a handful of hot pasta in case I burnt myself. I would pick up a bread roll with my hands though which isn't really any different. The issue seems to be your dh isn't great at hand washing though!