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?

Yadnbu. I'm really shocked by some of the replies on here - I'd never eat in their filthy houses.

YADNBU. Current advice is not to even wash chicken for the risk of spreading campylobacter around the kitchen. I would also chuck the salad and antibac things she touched. Disgusting.

YANBU. We all wash hands scrupulously after touching raw meat and are very careful re: cross contamination. I thought everyone did that! What your MIL did is vile - how can anyone think that's okay?! My dad is a retired GP and quite relaxed about a lot of things, but always told us to be very careful when preparing raw meat, particularly now that we had a small child. Guess he must have seen lots of cases of nasty food poisoning.

YADNBU. Something like 96% of chickens have campylobactor, which is why you have to cook them thoroughly. Spreading that all about your kitchen - yuck! Would have thought it was pretty basic that you wash your hands after touching raw meat so am a bit shocked by all the people saying you overreacted!

No I'd feel exactly the same. Why risk a very nasty bout of food poisoning for no reason? I would never dream of treating raw meat in this way. And I'd been deep cleaning the whole kitchen and politely declining future offers to help with dinner! And not over keen to eat at hers again either!

YADNBU I'm shocked that others here also have a slapdash approach to handing raw chicken.
My mother used to do similar, I stopped her handling the meat in my house when she visited. and had a bit of a talk about it, she now does a much better job.

Yanbu. That sort of incident would have had me breathing into a paper bag for some minutes afterwards. Especially as regards the baby things.

Where did some people get the impression that the OP wasn't kind to her MIL? She said it was disgusting and dangerous on here (which is true), in the OP it only says she asked her to wash her hands and then the MIL got defensive. That seems fair enough.

I'd have thrown the lettuce (sounds like a euphemism) and wiped everything down. If she had got defensive I would have just asked her to please humour me and explained why, then offered to put the kettle on whilst she put her feet up and stopped trying to kill us all damn it.

That is good pig meat info duhgldiuhfdsli, I have to say "I'm more casual with pork" did make me . Pork is a chinos and loafers kind of meat. Chicken is full HAZMAT.

I wish I hadn't read this thread - I didn't give a fuck about any of this before. And I've had campy-thing (I remember having to send a shit sample off. Fun fun).

I wouldn't let my MIL loose in my kitchen- especially with a raw chicken. I wouldn't trust my own mother or OH for that matter to handle a raw chicken in a safe manner.

I am the only one who handles raww chicken in my kitchen. If my OH cooks a Sunday roast then I will escort the ( stuffed and seasoned) chicken into the pre-heated oven, and clean up any utensils. I don't mind others doing the veg or salad, but never meat.

YANBU!!!!!!!!!

Op, I totally feel your pain. My MIL is very lax on this. She thought it perfectly ok to have a summer party in the garden (food served mid afternoon), leave all remaining party food under foil overnight OUTSIDE then merrily serve it up again for lunch.
I was whispering to my DCs not to touch any of it and sneakily making fresh cheese sarnies in the kitchen.

My MIL cooks supper, then leaves all the leftovers sitting on the counter overnight and all the next day, then 24 hours later heats them up and eats them. She has a huge American-style fridge that is only half-full, but won't put her leftovers in it!

When we were staying with her I questioned it and she was quite firm that there was NOTHING WRONG with this at all, and as the kids and I weren't eating it, I decided to leave her to it. She had terrible D&V one night we were there after eating chicken she had left out, and called it "just a bug". I asked her how often she gets these "bugs" and she said once or twice a year. Is it a MIL thing?

Sorry, OP - meant to say YANBU.

Yanbu Op.
I'd be furious and I would definitely throw the lettuce away.

I'm a bit of a slob but handling raw meat is an area in which I'm very careful.

I like others put all utensils straight in the dishwasher and wash my own hands very thoroughly. I can't even bring myself to chop veg. for chicken casserole on the same board even though I know it is 1) going to be cooked and 2)going to be in the same pan so at risk.

I am very funny about chicken I would have gone crazy! I have a separate board and nothing else gets chopped on it I also spray the knife and board with detol antibacteria spray before it goes in the dishwasher.

I also have a washing up bowl for the sole purpose of washing meat

I think it was a bit silly to make such an issue about it. Anyway if you were so fussy what were toys even doing on the table. But I suppose you have got a point with raw chicken if we are to believe all we are told about it. Surprised it doesn't come with a health warning.

YADNBU! Urgh. I would have been washing down everything she'd touched. I'm not hysterical about cleaning, but I'm really careful with raw chicken... like PP have said, I wash my hands several times while preparing raw chicken to ensure I don't touch anything with chickeny hands, bag chicken separately at the supermarket, and put any utensils I've used to touch it plus the chopping board etc straight in the dishwasher.

After my mum died, my dad started having to do his own cooking. He was really blasé about raw meat - cutting it up on the bread board, then forgetting to wash it and cutting bread on there afterwards. He then got a really bad campylobacter infection which knocked him out for nearly two weeks after doing that with raw chicken, and now he's as careful as I am.

Thanks Tea - just curious as mine was traced to a sandwich making place that supplied motorway services.

Reading all the posts about the rigmarole you have to go through in order to ensure something that's meant for human consumption doesn't actually poison you makes me glad to be vegetarian

By no stretch of the imagination are you being unreasonable. My DH contracted campylobacter from his own mother's house. She would (and still does ) the same as your mil. It's not the ingesting of the actual raw meat or juices, but if in the process of dispatching the animals. If any contaminated body fluids or matter land on the meat we eat, and we do to wash out hand properly after between touching cooked/raw/etc foods. We could end up with serious food poisoning.

I'd probably wouldn't have been as polite as you. Having seen my DH in pain and weaken because of the "it strengthens your immune system" theory makes me cross.

I have had campylobacter (if that is how you spell it). It was awful. It kept coming back for about six months and I ended up having my appendix out unnecessarily due to a complication from the food poisoning mimicking the symptoms of appendicitis.

You cannot be too careful with raw chicken.

YANBU

I know it may seem OTT, but I totally agree with you.

YANBU, and I would also have been annoyed since you specifically asked her to leave the chicken to you.
I also have latex gloves for preparing chicken.

I'm with you OP, I'd have gone ballistic with what your MIL did. I'm probably more hygiene conscious than most as I treat raw meat and raw fish as 'contaminated' so for example I'd never put a pre-packed tray of raw meat or fish in my fridge, I'd put each tray in a food bag and seal it first.

This thread is weird. The number of folk up thread who think it is ok is rather high.

I felt like a right minger on a thread recently when I admitted I sometimes only change the bed once every three weeks. Apparently that is revolting...

To me, it is fine. I don't see the need to wash everything constantly and I am lazy. And it won't kill anyone.

But raw meat? I'm super cautious about that.

Maybe the ones chilled out about chicken are more worried about smelly sheets