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?

Salmonella is a killer.
YANBU or OTT.
It's basic hygiene rules.

Surprised so many are saying you're being unreasonable. Raw chicken of all things! So people would be happy to eat their dinner at the unwashed table the MIL had dressed the raw chicken?

YANBU OP.

YANBU. I had campylobacter and it nearly saw me off - I was a healthy 34 year old. I got it from chicken, although not from my home. There is no way ANY raw meat would get near my kitchen table.

Quite, NewEra. (Assuming you meant 'YABU' in that first sentence )

My fil was often ill with stomach bugs, squits, sickness etc. He had crones and pil always said thats what caused it.

I believe that a lot of the time it was down to food hygiene. Cooked chicken left in the oven overnight to be eaten the next day, same smelly cloth used for washing dishes, worktops, floor.

I know mil thinks I am precious. I do my best to limit potential illness when visiting each other but have come to expect illness after visits. It has got better in the last 6 years as I made dh aware.

Yanbu

I am stunned at lots of the responses. Touching raw chicken and not washing your hands before touching other things??? Manky, skanky, germ-spreading idiots. YANBU at all.

TeaandCake did you get campylobacter from chicken? Or did you never find out?

Well I think you are being OTT, but in a way that's irrelevant. You can't ask a family member to help you cook something, then start criticising them because they do things differently from yourself - for that YABU.
If you want to bring restaurant style food hygiene into your cooking, that's fine, but, as MiL has managed to cope these last 50 years or so, I doubt her practice is anything other than normal in regards to standards of that generation.

YANBU at all. Not with Chicken. The side effects of campylobacter poisoning can be horrendous and easily avoided by not washing chicken under a tap and being very careful to avoid cross-contamination.

YASooooooooNBU!!!! Can't believe people are saying you are being OTT and precious! People die from food poisoning! Gov stats show that "Poultry meat was the food linked to the most cases of food poisoning, with an estimated 244,000 cases every year."

www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2014/6097/foodpoisoning

You're probably not being unreasonable, but if I was your MIL I would smile sweetly at you,. down tools and say "well off you go and do it your way dear" and buy you a shit present for Christmas

'as MiL has managed to cope these last 50 years or so, I doubt her practice is anything other than normal in regards to standards of that generation.'

My mother would be horrified by this and my grandmother would have been too.

How is this overreacting!

Raw chicken on table, raw chicken hands moving fresh food, touching cutlery etc.

Not U at all to ask her to wash her hands.

YANBU. In our house if you have touched raw meat (especially chicken) you wash your hands before you touch anything else. Also raw meat gets prepared on a chopping board and that and any utensils used get put straight in the dishwasher so they don't get used for anything else. I was bought up that way and DH had food hygiene training as part of a job he had as a teenager so that's probably why.

restaurant style food hygiene

That made me laugh. Even my grandma (born before First World War, left school aged 11, couldn't tell you what a bacterium was if you bribed her with Everton toffees) knew this one.

Urgh, YADNBU! That's fowl

Seriously, really not acceptable to be so cavalier about salmonella and other nasties caused by raw chicken, people can and do die from food poisoning.

You can if what they're doing is dangerous, backforgood.

Sounds like she muscled in on the chicken prep unasked - and forewarned that OP was hot on hygiene - too. Sounds a bit like she was trying to 'show' OP there was no need to make such a fuss. Irksome behaviour.

I'd have had no qualms about saying that we prepare this food in a certain way, in my home, for the following reasons. I'm afraid I'd rather offend a guest than risk food poisoning, for myself, never mind a baby!

YANBU. I always wash my hands after touching raw meat, I would never go touching the fridge or other food without doing so. It's just asking for food poisoning to occur.

My mil has a similarly blasé attitude to food hygiene, even chicken. I've seen her prepare a raw chicken, stuff it and then lick her finger! Gag. Last year she had food poisoning from eating a chicken breast that she admitted was out of date and smelt a bit funny!!!

Back in the day when chickens were less intensively reared then the risk of catching nasty bugs was probably lower. It's not the same now.

I'd be cross too - if you hadn't seen it, you might not have known to scrub the table. The baby could have got very poorly as a result. I can't understand the previous posters taking pride in taking risks with their family's health - I know we are not all perfect but keeping raw chicken away from other stuff is hardly OCD territory

So did she actually plonk a raw chicken directly onto the table that you eat at?

Yuk yuk yuk!

And rootling in the salad drawer & cutlery drawer with hands that have just been up an uncooked chicken's arse!

Bleurgh!

I wonder if some people on this thread have never had food poisoning. It's not nice!

I'm not a germ a phobe at all and I think YANBU.

Raw meat - especially chicken - is a real bug bear of mine and I pour boiling water on the plate it's been stuffed in and scrub my hands. I'm a minger in many many other ways. But campylobacter is not something you want.

Yuk!

Nellee - no I've never had food poisoning - nor has anyone living here.