Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU or is DH? Food hygiene related

113 replies

Absofrigginlootly · 17/10/2015 23:29

Please help settle a friendly debate....

ok, I admit I can be a little OTT about food hygiene/infection control etc (being a nurse).... But this evening DH had just started browning some beef for a stew and dropped the plastic spoon he'd just stirred the raw meat with on the floor. He chucked the spoon in the sink and picked up a new one.

"Aren't you going to spray dettol on the floor and wipe where the spoon fell?" I said.

DH said he didn't see the need.Hmm .....
We have a crawling baby!

DH thinks what I said needed doing was OTT...... AIBU??

(Should I LTB?!) Wink Grin

OP posts:
Alibabsandthe40Musketeers · 18/10/2015 01:23

Raw chicken I would have used a cloth with hot water and fairy liquid. But raw chicken is a completely different thing bacterially to some raw beef.
Pork, not sure really - would depend how i'm feeling Grin

I really try not to use antibac stuff. My parents are Drs, my Dad in particular is a total clean freak, but even he really tries to limit it's use. It is simply not necessary and does prevent small children developing strong immune systems.

Really though, you should relax about it. Good handwashing practice and avoiding raw meat/cooked meat cross over is necessary - we do those things. The occasional thing dropped on the floor, juice from a joint of red meat or whatever, I don't stress about. None of us have ever had food poisoning, and neither of the children have ever had a single tummy bug.

steff13 · 18/10/2015 01:39

I'd wipe it with a Clorox wipe if it was chicken or pork.

Jayne35 · 18/10/2015 01:47

Never mind cleaning, wiping etc. who lets their little one crawl round on the kitchen floor?!?!

iamanintrovert · 18/10/2015 01:53

For me it depends if there was visible meat juice on the floor. If yes I would have wiped it with a paper towel. If no, I wouldn't have bothered.

AgentZigzag · 18/10/2015 01:55

'who lets their little one crawl round on the kitchen floor?!?!'

The OP?

Me (when they were little)

Probably a whole ton of others.

Is your kitchen floor that dirty Jayne? Wink

steff13 · 18/10/2015 01:56

Never mind cleaning, wiping etc. who lets their little one crawl round on the kitchen floor?!?!

We kept both entrances to our kitchen blocked with baby gates when we had crawlers so they couldn't get in.

Bogeyface · 18/10/2015 02:01

after the meat juice had time to stew nicely and bacteria to multiply!!!

But there was no meat juice. A spoon that had touched raw meat then touched the floor, briefly.

Had he squeezed all the blood out of the beef onto the floor and then walked off, you would have a point (and a much bigger problem than the state of your floor!), but he didnt. And, as has been pointed out, it was beef so it would fine anyway.

If it had been chicken, and I had a crawler, then I would have wiped it with a cloth dipped in hot soapy water that I always have in the washing up bowl when I am cooking. With pork I probably wouldnt bother.

Bogeyface · 18/10/2015 02:03

I didnt let mine because it is the first room from the back door, so invariably gets very mucky very quickly, I used a stairgate across the door from the lounge/diner. But the OP is open plan lounge/diner/kitchen, so its not so easy to keep them out in that case.

BlameItOnTheBogey · 18/10/2015 02:08

Raw pork of poultry and you have a point. Raw beef = fine and you know you can eat raw beef out of the packet and it would be ok….

toomanyeggs · 18/10/2015 02:14

I wouldn't have had time to clean it up, the dog would have licked it up!!!! Grin

partialderivative · 18/10/2015 03:24

I have never owned an anti-bac spray, and probably never will

KoalaDownUnder · 18/10/2015 03:28

I really do wish people would stop with the anti-bac products Sad (for all the reasons mentioned above).

annandale · 18/10/2015 03:53

Wouldn't have occurred to me to do anything much.I don't like dh's slackness re cooked and raw meat on the same shelf of the fridge though.

The trouble is, I know you're reading this and thinking 'ew you dirty lot' not 'must chill out more and apologise to dh'.

OfficeGirl1969 · 18/10/2015 06:55

Personally it would have depended on how wet/slippy it made the floor. I mop most days so the floor it usually pretty clean, but if it was something I, or particularly OH might slip on (he's a bit fragile at present) them I'd wipe with kitchen roll.

Definitely not something I'd bother about on a hygiene level, even if I had a little one crawling (and anyway, aren't the knees of terry towelling babygros specially designed for wiping floors as they go?! Bugger, I did it wrong! BlushWink )

Irrelevant in my house anyway as cooking is always supervised by four cats who always hover by your feet awaiting such utensil dropping delights......

Axekick · 18/10/2015 07:03

Beef wouldn't bother me. That said I do mop the floor in the kitchen after dinner anyway. And our baby wouldn't be crawling in the kitchen while I was making dinner. But the beef itself wouldn't enter my head to immediately sort. I have eaten beef raw on occasion as well.

Chicken or pork, I prob would have wiped.

Got to say, though, I am one who didn't let the kids crawl around the kitchen. Maybe on occasion. But there has never been a reason to and I wouldn't let them crawl on it while I cooked. They usually went in a high chair while I cooked.

Doraydiego · 18/10/2015 07:09

You are a nurse? Really? The nurses I know would realise that dropping a spoon on the floor poses no health risk to a crawling baby.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 18/10/2015 07:09

I'm going to say YABU - but purely for having a crawling baby in the kitchen.

I'm not freakish about many things, but crawling or toddling children in the kitchen is one of my big no-nos, not while cooking anyway, or in fact at all, as we have a gas oven and Ds2 is a button pusher/knob turner.

KatharinaRosalie · 18/10/2015 07:21

I have a baby. I also have a toddler, 2 dogs and 2 cats. Using antibac spray is like polishing ashtrays on Titanic.

MrsAukerman · 18/10/2015 07:27

I wouldn't wipe with anti bac unless it was raw chicken or pork.
You're OTT. I let my baby crawl almost anywhere. I'm more concerned about 'bits' that he tries to pick up and eat than 'germs'. I sweep or hoover probably weekly at best and mop once in a blue moon.
I figure if you take a baby to playgroup then they all lick all the same toys and those toys get spread all over the floor where the adults have their shoes on. Once your baby's done that weekly for 6 months then anti bac spray on the kitchen floor seems a bit daft.

WizardOfToss · 18/10/2015 07:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SevenSeconds · 18/10/2015 07:45

My mum was a nurse too OP. She was like you and very very careful about germs.

I've gone the other way and wouldn't have bothered wiping the floor in your scenario (or if it was chicken).

I'm never ill and neither are my DC. I realise that's just one example, but personally I think a strong immune system is more down to luck / good genes than exposure to germs.

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es · 18/10/2015 07:47

If there was an actual splash mark I would have wiped it with spray (not anti-bac, we only use that if someone has a stomach bug) and kitchen roll. Otherwise no. If it was chicken I would have wiped it even if there was no mark, but again not with anti-bac - I use Method surface spray in the kitchen. I used to have the DCs in the kitchen while cooking as babies but they never really got underfoot or tried to climb where they shouldn't, the crawling stage only lasted about a month with each of them.

GruntledOne · 18/10/2015 07:53

OP, do you make people take their shoes off when they come into the house? And when you take your baby elsewhere, do you insist that they do the same?

Unescorted · 18/10/2015 08:06

gruntled I thought that too. I would be far more worried about what comes in on the bottom of a shoe and traipesd through rather than a spoon sized smear of beef blood.
First what is the chance of the child crawling across the spot where the spoon dropped? If you are like me the kids are kept away from under the cooker area in case a pan is knocked off.
Secondly there is far more bacteria in soil than in meat - normally we put meat in our mouths so are more aware of the risk (and cross contamination) but in this case the hand in mouth risk is the same.

I am also another one who thinks that the use of anti bacterial wipes / washes et al should be left for when it is really necessary eg in hospitals when some ones life depends on it.... otherwise in 20 years we will have super resistant bacteria that may cause us real harm.

Moominmammacat · 18/10/2015 08:25

Do you wear shoes in the house? That is far worse ...