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?

chandon Ah, yes, I should qualify that I don't wash my wood boards - and salad bowls, other implements - with soap. Water and a scrub, rinse, and then a regular oiling with olive or food cupboard linseed oils. I always forget that most people wash wood with soap, so I probably needn't have mentioned the whole wood/plastic thing. :)

*wooden. Wooden boards and bowls and implements. Or can I say wood, not wooden? My grammar has failed me.

Whoever it was upthread who said pork is "the worst" - it really isn't. Chicken is far and away "the worst" in terms of food poisoning, followed by shell fish. The days of pork being contaminated with worm eggs are mostly gone, thankfully.

Moxon I am interested in you procedure for washing wooden boards. Water and a scrub?

Meats are oily. How do you get rid of the grease dirt on your boards?

Rice is also very high risk. Although that doesn't go on chopping boards unless you buy the minging glutinous mess from our local Chinese takeaway.

Yes, but not raw rice, Angels - and (being serious now) not home-cooked rice either, only rice from restaurants/takeaways where they keep large vats of it at "warm" temps, which allow the sporulating bacterium, Bacillus cereus, to grow comfortably.

thumbscre- I agree. As long as basic principles are kept to rice is a very safe food.

I deliberately cook more rice than I need for a meal so I can use later. I cool then refrigerate or freeze.

Not RTFT, but YANBU. My mil thinks nothing of handling raw chicken, then wiping her hands straight on he the dish cloth, so last time I turned in tap and held out the soap and spent the evening putting 3 tea towels in the wash. This was at my house

I don't get why women allow their MILs such free access to the kitchen.

whatever5 - some of us have never actually been sick either. I am not fussy about food hygiene, I am, however, fussy about washing my hands after being on a bus....

Can't vouch for my infancy - because I don't remember an awful lot from under 5... but since then I have never been sick - as in vomit.... I do not think it is that unusual.

I don't care. I just want the chicken with lemon, onion and olive oil. Yum. When is it ready?

mmmmm me too!

This isn't a generational thing as the high risks of food poisoning from raw chicken has been known about for many years. My DM would never, ever have prepared chicken directly on the kitchen table or touched other ingredients without first washing her hands.

I am extremely relaxed about hygiene and housework in general but raw meat needs proper care taken. YADNBU

whatever5 believes that we have been sick, due to our poor food hygiene, without realising the cause.

errr no. actually that hasn't happened to me. I'm not sick.
so it can't be due to my poor food hygiene, can it?

I am far from a food hygiene expert...I'm a bit lax with some things and will happily eat things far past their use by date if they look and smell ok for instance.

But you don't touch anything when you've handled raw meat. That is absolutely basic, rule number 1 surely.

To go rummaging through cutlery and through the salad drawer with raw chicken on your hands is just rank. I'm astonished at the number of idiots on page 1 who see no problem with this tbh. Scary.

My local butcher handles raw chicken and then slices ham without washing his hands, I have to watch out the order in which I ask for things

whatever5 - some of us have never actually been sick either.

So you have never had nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach cramps, muscle pains or a high temperature in your life?

Can't vouch for my infancy - because I don't remember an awful lot from under 5... but since then I have never been sick - as in vomit.... I do not think it is that unusual.

When I said "sick" I meant ill, not necessarily vomiting. Food poisoning can cause many different symptoms.

bigblue that was in ref to upthread where I said I don't use wooden boards for raw meat (wooden are for veggies and fruits and breads and hard cheese etc.).

Anyone in any doubt about the need for strict hygiene when handling raw chicken, please read this:

I began having uncontrollable diahorrea and severe weakness. After 3 days I saw the GP - go home and take paracetamol. After 6 days I went back again - on my knees with abdominal pain. Go home and take paracetamol.

On day 7 the pain was unbearable. I hadn't eaten for 5 days and had very little to drink. Interestingly, no vomiting. DP took me to A&E at 3am and I literally crawled into the hospital. My temperature was very high and I was in madness from the agony all over my body. I had a canula put in, straight on morphine and fluids.

The rest is a blur, but I was given antibiotics, then campylobacter was finally diagnosed. My temperature was so dangerously high that I was at risk of convulsions. An x-ray showed I had developed pneumonia as a complication and my stomach was showing what looked like a football on one side - severely inflamed gall bladder.

On day 12 my family were called in as it wasn't looking good. My temperature spiked and I was unconscious.

On day 16 I was discharged from hospital but it took 6 months to fully recover.

Still fancy risking it? Please don't.

I would be the same. Raw chicken is the worst for contamination. I always see the advert in my head were they used a knife on raw chicken, rinsed it under the tap - showed all bacteria that's left.

Ugh. Raw chickeny fingers all over the place. Recipe for food poisoning.

Seriously. All of you who say over reaction don't you realise that handling raw meat in particular chicken and not washing your hands transfers bacteria to anything else which is touched and then in turn to anything else which touches that.

It's not a new thing - my mother (born 1928) would have been horrified by this. Raw chicken is notoriously bad for harbouring campylobacter and salmonella. And my mum of course grew up before the days when antibiotics were readily available - her mother died of "blood poisoning" aka massive organ failure due to bacterial infection (not as far as I know caused by food poisoning - but it did leave my mother understandably absolutely scrupulous about hygiene, particularly kitchen hygiene).