To be angry with MIL over food hygiene?

[Shil0846]

MIL supposed to be helping me prepare family dinner. After putting Ds down for his nap, I discovered her with the raw chicken on my kitchen table (close to place mats and 1 of DS's toys) busy stuffing lemon up it's bottom. So I moved them away and went to the cupboard to get the veg.

When I turned round, I found she'd collected a bottle of oil, a knife from my cutlery drawer, onions and a tub of butter from the fridge - all without washing her hands. To get to the onions she'd have had to move the lettuce and tomato in the salad drawer of my fridge.

Am I over-reacting to think this is really disgusting and dangerous -particularly with a 1 YO in the house? She got very defensive when I asked her to wash her hands and said she's been cooking for over 50 years without any problem. She was also fuming when I insisted on scrubbing down the table where the chicken had been. Am I being too precious about this, or do I need to wash all cutlery/fridge door/bottles etc that may have come into contact?

Nooooooooo you are not being unreasonable. I am shocked at some of the responses on here. Does multi organ failure or a lifetime on dialysis mean nothing to some people? The stats on chicken carrying Campylobacter are worrying reading. You might be lucky and merely get Salmonella! The PP that wears latex gloves is right to. I am not knesh about food. I was brought up 'dirty'. I will eat tinned stuff two years out of date and fruit and veg that is rotting and jam with mould (also dangerous) but chicken I treat like nuclear waste. I think you are right to be worried and chuck the lettuce out (or fry it with the chicken). The govt are sometimes OTT in their nanny state advice but not with this one.

YANBU. I'm an ex-chef although I don't do it professionally any more (a nice cushy 9-5 office job paying twice as much was far more appealing) and used to have to have a current food hygiene certificate, check and record food temperatures etc, but one of the most important things and something the EHO was extremely strict on when doing his inspections was that raw meat/fish had to be kept separate from anything cooked or eaten raw, work surfaces had to be scrupulously clean, hands had to be washed etc. I haven't worked in a professional kitchen for over three years now but am very very picky about food hygiene and if I'd been in your MIL's kitchen I probably wouldn't have been able to eat anything, as a previous poster said above I would be horrified.

By the way in pro kitchens you learn to keep one "raw" hand and one clean hand, or if you're doing something messy like breadcrumbing chicken, one dirty hand and one clean hand, so you're not washing your hands every thirty seconds but still clean and safe so you can stir something, turn the gas off etc etc. Also chopping boards and knives that have been used for raw meat would be washed separately to anything cooked, or at least at the end of a load of washing up just before the water is changed, to avoid cross contamination.

YANBU, a very high percentage of raw chicken is contaminated with campylobacter and cross-contamination in the home is considered to be one of the main means of transmission.
I am always sceptical when people claim no one ever got sick from their poor food hygiene.
Unless no member of your household has ever had d&v then it is very difficult to claim this.

YANNNNNBU!!

I've had food poisoning from chicken that almost resulted in hospital admittance (and yes was proved to be the chicken).

Raw chicken then being spread around the kitchen would have me in a rage. I'm not OCD clean either.

YA def. NBU

I would have been furious too.

It would really bother me too, but I am a bit of a freak about these things and I realise that other people are more relaxed. Sometimes I wish I could be too :(

I would have raised it but very gently. Obviously she is trying to do a nice thing cooking a meal for you and I'm sure she didn't mean it.

I don't eat meat and am tempted to suggest that you maybe only give her lentils to play with in future!! :)

Yanbu. My MIL has similarly slack food hygiene practices, and I struggle to eat salad that I know has been prepared with hands that haven't been washed after handling raw meat.

The pork water was going straight over the salad

Ugh, that's horrible!

Thing is, some people really aren't that susceptible to food bugs, so they can get rather blase. I'm one of them. But DH certainly isn't. Two years ago food poisoning that just made me a bit ill and a a bit squitty for 24 hours made DH horribly, violently ill for three to four days. He lost almost a stone.

So by all means be blase on your own behalf, but not on behalf of others, especially if one of the others is only a year old.

That's useful advice, angel about a "raw" hand and a "clean" hand. I will try that.

My parents fridge is full of things past their sell by date, mouldy, in a variety of silver foil wrapped packages. I hated it as a child and as I grew up i made a promise to myself that I would always keep a clean fridge, and I have.

Obviously she is trying to do a nice thing cooking a meal for you and I'm sure she didn't mean it.

I'm not so sure about this. The OP told her MIL she would prep the chicken, but MIL started it when she was out of the room. Now that might have been to save her the bother, but it also might have been a bit of a defiant, "don't tell me how to cook, young lady!" action.

EW! YANBU! That's terrible!

yanbu
maybe you could have worded your concerns better but fact is what she did was eurgh at best and killing you all at worst and it needs pointing out to her before someone gets sick or worse.

I agree with Abbie above. My DH has a cast iron stomach ( probably because of MIL) but I don't . I have just come over from another thread about using meat one day over it's use by date and have done it and have been fine, but boy oh boy I was so violently sick from ingesting raw juice from poultry (by accident of course!) I seriously thought I was going to die!

I would also be very fussy about a baby too. YANBU!

YADNBU. I'm a pretty slatternly person, but meticulous about food hygiene. My otherwise houseproud MIL is just the same as the OP's, though, and would be baffled by any implied criticism.

Yanbu. I too wear latex gloves for poultry. I've had campylobacter and it was fxxxing miserable. Caused by raw meat contaminating fruit. 1 tiny droplet of liquid is enough to cause the disease. 50% of all chicken has it.

YANBU at all, the chicken at the table I wouldn't say is a problem (presumably it was in a dish or something) but handling raw chicken then opening fridges, drawers, handling other food is a disgusting habit. I use the one clean hand method if possible and all utensils that have touched raw poultry go straight in the DW.

I have had similar problems with my MIL.

It must be annoying to be accused of being OCD and hygiene-obsessed when we have such shadowy meat supply chains & livestock protocols in the UK.

I think it's pretty normal to prepare chicken with an eye towards not having to touch anything with raw-chicken hands.

Ugh at pork water running over salad. That is just downright dangerous, pork is the worst of all.

I really don't think YABU. I am not a clean freak - I was raised on a small farm where I ate unwashed fruit and veg straight off the plant and helped to hand-rear animals. I also have an iron-clad constitution and have never had food poisoning in my life.

There are some areas of domestic hygiene I think people can get a bit precious about but wiping raw chicken juice over oil bottles, lettuce and worksurfaces is not one of them. I really think that most people would see a problem with that.

YANBU, that is disgusting. I would clean everything she may have touched. Who puts a raw chicken on a table with nothing under it?!

Thank fuck this thread didn't go the way of madness with a whole load of people screaming YANBU to just be contrary and then other people feeling they needn't worry about good hygiene off the back of it.

OCD scrubbing every germ in your house away = bad. Not giving a shit about potentially life changing bacteria being spread about the kitchen = crazy.

I don't think your being OTT.
I wouldn't touch anything after handling raw meat without washing my hands first.

I'm no clean freak either, I'm actually really laid back but that is a little grim.