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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Christmas cakes/biscuits hand-baked by neighbors..unreasonable to throw away?

128 replies

Feminine · 22/12/2011 00:34

I do not like eating hand-baked goodies from the neighbors...at all

Every year, masses and masses is given to our family for the Christmas season.

I haven't seen their kitchens nor do I know if they wash their hands etc, I would prefer to know they are clean before giving them to the children.

This is possibly totally irrational and un-kind, I just can't do it though.

Reading it back I look vile ...I know

Would you eat baked goods, not really knowing the source?

AIBU to just slide the whole lot in to the trash?

Actually, I would like to be told I am...there is so much, the children are eyeing it up even though I thought I had hidden it from them

OP posts:

gazzalw · 22/12/2011 07:25

Whatever happened to the mantra that germs actually help you build up immunity.....We always picked things up off the floor and ate them as children (living in the countryside) and have almost actively encouraged children to do likewise....We are a very hardy family and sickness bugs pass us by....!

Cooking kills germs and as Squeakytoy pointed out really you are more likely to be at risk in restaurants....

If you think about it, unless your neighbours have a grudge against you and want to purposefully make you ill, surely they are a lot more likely to adhere to hygiene standards when baking for people outside their families....? Be logical....

NinkyNonker · 22/12/2011 07:32

I would far rather dd ate home made stuff than shop bought, far less sweetener, additives, preservatives etc.

Llanarth · 22/12/2011 07:33

YABU, however having said that, we get a christmas cake each year from our elderly neighbour, which has been iced with an very small crescent motif all the way around the edge of the icing that can only have been made with a horny thumbnail...

I'm afraid we don't eat it, but 're-gift' it to a neighbour of my parents....

FlossieFromCrapstonVillas · 22/12/2011 07:36

Whoever said it's rubbish (or something) to have shop bought birthday cake in party bags; Nobody cares!

NinkyNonker · 22/12/2011 07:42

I wouldn't care, but I don't like shop bought cake on the whole unless it is chocolate cause I don't like buttercream, it's always really sweet. I'd rather not give it to dd either, but she is only wee.

HintofBream · 22/12/2011 07:57

Feminine how do you manage when friends invite you to a meal at their home? Anything in the finger-licking line could have befallen the food before it is served.

porcamiseria · 22/12/2011 08:12

you sound like a bitch

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 22/12/2011 08:20

I have a friend who has a home straight out of 'how clean is your house'

She is wonderful and I love her.

But her home is never cleaned. Her dogs and cats pee and crap all over the place, the fridge actually makes you dry retch when you open it, the toilet bowl is brown not white and everything is covered in dirt. Not dust. Dirt.

She makes stuff. She made me a cheese pie.

My stomach heaved as I thought of that home. But I thanked her, ate it and told her how lovely it was. Because she's my friend and I love her and she'd feel really awful if she knew how I felt.

It is unlikely that your neighbours have that sort of problem in their homes.

But if they do, just so you know, I'm still here and haven't had so much as a stomach bug after.

OneHandWrapping · 22/12/2011 08:24

I never buy those cakes from the school cake stall where the 3 year old has obviously "helped" with the icing. Nor those uncooked sweets made an unspecified time ago, and lovingly rolled in grubby little paws.

It doesn't help that I am both an emetophobe, and have an illness which makes stomach upsets dangerous for me.

Booboostoo · 22/12/2011 08:26

I have two friends who are food inspectors one inspecting slaughter houses, meat processing plants, etc, the other works inspecting bakeries, large food processing plants, etc. some of the stories they tell would leave you unable to touch food for years! Let's just say no one bats an eyelid at finding rats in the food and these places supply all the major supermarkets.

If you really want to gross yourself out google restaurant hygiene and look at secret CCTV footage from kitchens (I stll remember the chef who put the returned steak in his bum and sent it out again).

By the end of it I think you might be begging your neighbours for cookies!

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 22/12/2011 08:28

booboo - I had a friend who worked in food production and told me about it being really funny to spit into the pie filling. In the years since then, I have chosen to belive he was lying to me.

As was the person who told me that they take the prepackaged sandwiches and scrape the filling onto fresh bread and put it all back out for sale.

HairyNigel · 22/12/2011 08:32

YABU! It's free tasty food, what you chucking it for?!

Booboostoo · 22/12/2011 08:33

Google "disgusting restaurant hygiene videos" but be warned it may make you puke!

teatimesthree · 22/12/2011 08:37

YABU to be so hygiene obsessed.

But YANBU not to want to eat everything you are given. I wouldn't want to eat a whole load of homemade cookies from my neighbours either. I don't like biscuits that much, and there is so much food at Christmas that you have to draw the line somewhere. Nor would I particularly want DD to eat them all - there's already so much sugar from advent calendars etc.

If you give somebody a gift, you can't insist they eat it, no matter how much time and effort you've put into it. I am not sure I agree with the idea that handmade presents are the best presents - I'd much rather have a nice box of Lindt than some peppermint creams!

Of course I would thank the giver nicely, and pop the biscuits in the bin while DD wasn't around. But the idea that there is an OBLIGATION to eat them is wrong in my book.

stressheaderic · 22/12/2011 08:39

I'm a teacher and our staffroom falls into 2 camps - those who will gratefully accept and gobble up kind handmade offerings from the children, and those who decline for fear of catching some kind of child-lurgy. I think you're either one or the other. I know which I am . Never gotten ill yet. Germs are good.

annalovesmrbates · 22/12/2011 09:13

What about the shop bakery workers who go to work with stinking colds / coughs as they fear being disciplined for taking time off sick? Pretty sure their germs get near the nice hygenic shop bought stuff. A friend who works in Sainsbury's bakery tells really unappetising tales.

PeelThemWithTheirMithrasKnives · 22/12/2011 09:27

Just to mess with you Feminine, what about 2nd-hand magazines or books? People may have read those in the BATHROOM

Actually I think you sound nice but don't get too worried about hygiene. I'm never off work sick unlike lots of my colleagues and I never stress about stuff like this. Eat the cakes if they look nice, don't if they don't!

MollyTheMole · 22/12/2011 09:29

yabu, christ I should be dead by now if i listened to hygiene freaks - i never take notice of the 5 second rule, usually forget to wash my hands before eating, will eat anything anyone has made, eat food DS hands to me off their plate with his nose picking bum scratching willy fondling fingers

go on, risk it for a biscuit.... you know you want to

LadyClariceCannockMonty · 22/12/2011 11:09

Making food for people is a beautiful thing to do.

And you need a grip, OP. I'll send you one for Christmas.

LaurieFairyCake · 22/12/2011 11:18

I eat food other adults have made.

But not child food.

slavetofilofax · 22/12/2011 11:28

I feel the same way.

But I have been known to make fancy cupcakes or cookies for my children's teachers, package them up nicely, and hope that they will eat them. If they don't, I won't know about it anyway, and they will still have recieved a present that looks lovely from my child. Both times I have done it though, I have sent a sneaky message telling the teachers that the childrens only involvement was chosing what I was going to bake and writing the tags, just in case it makes a difference.

I wouldn't be offended if I found out they had been binned, because in all honesty, I would probably bin homemeade stuff that came from children in my class too. I definately would if they came from certain children, others, not so much.

I would appreciate the gesture just a much as I would do had I eaten them, and I would probably allow my children to eat them if I knew that it was the parents that had made them because I know I'm being irrational. But I just wouldn't enjoy eating something if I had suspicions about how or where it was made, so it's just not going to be worth the calories.

ScorpionQueen · 22/12/2011 11:34

This year we have been fortunate enough to receive many home-made food and drink gifts from friends and family.

Each gift has been accepted graciously and gratefully. So much effort and thought has been put into these gifts just for us. It makes us feel very lucky to have such kind, thoughtful people in our lives.

I would never dream of throwing these gifts away, that would be rude and insulting. So, OP, I'm afraid YABU.

characidae · 22/12/2011 11:38

ummm ... well you're probably being unreasonable, I am too though.

I'd only eat home cooked stuff from people I know really well - my mum, brother & SIL, a few friends. I don't eat stuff that children have 'helped' cook, I don't buy ready made or baked food, I don't eat out (my husband & kids aren't as ishoo-ey they'll happily do it). It isn't 'germs' that worry me but stuff you find in the food - plasters, finger nails, eggshell, hair of all types (including a hairball once), people who don't really understand/care what vegetarian means. Stuff that hasn't been stored properly after cooking, sweaty cakes, greasy icing, soggy biscuits. I accept anything offered graciously & give it to dh to take to work if it looks ok or bin if it looks vile.

I usually do the baking for gatherings & family & friends are happy with that :)

characidae · 22/12/2011 11:41

tbh I don't think that there's anything wrong with disposing of unwanted or unsuitable gifts regardless of whether they are home made or not. Once it's given it's given there's no need to be sentimental about stuff.

minciepie · 22/12/2011 11:43

YANBU to throw them away.

YABU to throw them away because you're worried the neighbours didn't wash their hands.

FGS, you and your DC will be exposed to billions of germs during their life, whether you like it or not, and the ones from the neighbours' hands will be some of the least harmful ones I'm sure.

Oh and exposure to a large variety of germs is good for developing the immune system anyway.

Are you one of those people who Dettols everything in sight?

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