Think I'm going to be sick!

[FlatOnTheHill]

I know its very sweet when kids come home from school with a tupper wear box containing a pizza, cakes, or biscuits that they have made in cooking lesson.
But AIBU in looking at the contents and feeling totally sick?
The thought of dirty hands, maybe dirty school work top and utensils and the tupperwear box sitting around all day in the school bag with the contents getting warm and sweaty. Omg its just rank.
Does anyone else pretend to eat their share of the contents but guiltily chuck them in the bin

*I'm really shocked that some food is sent home half-cooked shock

We had home economics in the morning, and if we didn't have time to take things out of the oven, the technician would do it and store it correctly for us, and we could collect it after school. Surely that would be more sensible? confused

Or surely the teacher should be making sure things are being done on time?*

I work in a school with a very high number of pupils with behavioural and learning support needs. Even with an extra adult in the class it's almost impossible to make sure that all them are managing to sequence and organise themselves properly. We do try though! The 1 technician in the department is part-time and has to do all the prep for all of the classes, she doesn't have time to be sorting out individual pupil's items, and very often there's a class coming in behind them. We can only hope that parents are aware that the food needs to be either A) cooked again, or B) binned.

It's a state school, no extra bodies or time are available, and 50 hours of support time across the school has recently been withdrawn. We do our best.

hermione even professional chefs don't get their timing right every time - have you ever watched Masterchef - The Profesionals! The difference is, they can keep going with their dish and leave the critics waiting, they don't have to pack up and go to double science!

If the Food Tech Lab is being used for a lesson immediately afterwards, it's not practical to leave stuff in the oven to finish cooking.
I agree that sending home half-cooked food isn't ideal - but no more risky than incorrectly reheating a pie or similar at home even if it is fully cooked. The important thing is to ensure that the instructions given are followed. If families aren't confident in doing that (or indeed, in some cases, don't have the equipment to do so) then its undoubtedly better to throw it away.

I follow the food safety press quite closely, and can never remember reading about a case of food borne illness linked to a school food tech lab. If teen hygiene is bad as some of the comments on this thread make out, then I take my hat off to the professionals working in school food tech - keeping the environment clean and safe must be an perpetual challenge!

I do understand it's not ALWAYS possible but I just never realised food was sent home half-cooked. It just sounds like a recipe for food poisoning to me!

I eat it!

If you ever eat outside your home, so in a restaurant, cafe or takeaway, you are completely unreasonable.

Anyone who has been a waitress will tell you why.

I would be far more worried about that than secondary age kids cooking, heck, I eat the primary kids cooking. Unless it looked totally mangled or grey from too much kneading!

There is a big difference between a sunken cake or a fruit tart with a soggy bottom and undercooked meat dishes.

My son brought cake home from the childminder. I ate it, it's cake .

I work in preschool, I eat the stuff we make with the 2,3 and 4 year olds, hygiene is important but so is having the children know you love what they achieved and a few germs aren't going to kill you if you're generally healthy.

Haha, yep you are so right, I can't eat it ever. I lets the other kids eat it though

I remember cooking chicken stir-fry, pasta salad, pizza and lasagne in food tech, never gave myself food poisoning. Most of the time it was the lesson before lunch, so I ate whatever I cooked for lunch with glee! Mum got really annoyed that I rarely brought anything home because I ate it all before it had the chance to.

I used to go with my DS1 to an after school cooking club. He was about 13. I remember looking at some of the utensils and having to wash pots before we even started weighing stuff out. I'm not a hygiene freak but I didn't fancy cooking flapjacks in a saucepan that had a curry scented crust on it.

I loved it when DS and DD brought food home especially when it meant I didn't have to cook tea. I trust them to he hygienic. However when I was a TA in school and children brought in homemade cakes and biscuits at Christmas etc they always went in the bin as none of us trusted home hygiene!

I remember bringing a lasagne home. My mum reheated it and we had it for dinner that night. Not a scrap was left. My mum then thanked me for making it and bringing it home. The look on my stepdads face was a picture. He didn't like me and then decided it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten. I knew he was only saying it because he hated me so I didn't take it seriously (he was an abusive alcoholic). He would go out drinking and come home vomiting. He did it that night and told everyone I'd given him food poisoning. So yeah that's my one abiding memory of home Ec. I remember bringing home marble cake, rock buns, scones and cheese whirls. They were always eaten.

We used to have to keep our cooking in the cooking room fridge until it was time to go home so no sweating in bags. Also the teachers were very strict about all hair being tied up before entering room, no bags/ coats etc in the room and all jewelry off. We had to wash our hands in entering and again before we started cooking. All of my cooking used to be eaten by the family and was always appreciated except the time I accidentally used plain flour instead of self raising in a cake

Depends on age. I trust my teens's solo home ec efforts 100%. But I used to help 3 and 4 year olds to cook at school and they'd all work together then we would divide it up to send home. Despite my best efforts there were always fingers up noses and in mouths, so hygiene was only as good as the lowest common denominator. I never ate their efforts and advised my friends not to either.

I think that's harsh I'm a volunteer for reception cooking classes & I can assure you every surface/equipment is scrubbed before we start, kids come in groups of five & we supervise hand washing. It then usually gets put in a 200 degree oven anyway! I have never known a reception child give it to their parents to eat anyway

I used to teach cooking lessons to kids age 5-14. Hygiene was top priority but you had to have eyes like a hawk to monitor them all. A sly wee pick of the nose or scratch of the bum didn't get missed.
I was 99% confident that the kids left class with goodies to take home that had been hygienicaly prepared. Probably scarred some of them for life with my "rules.
I don't like to eat anything a kid has made without my supervision........kids are kids, they forget or don't find it important not to contaminate things lol

Thats why I said 'pretend to eat' your share. The 'cook' would be none the wiser if it had been binned!

Do people seriously think that their children are stupid or something?! As if they'd be taken in by a pretend eat of their cake. Might work with reception aged kids, but any older than 6 they will realise.
Bloody hurtful.

All of you so worried about food sitting in the bag "all day": are you in the tropics?
I give my DC food in the morning for eating at lunch time, have i been poisoning them all these years?

Plus what HP said.

I loved it when DS and DD brought food home especially when it meant I didn't have to cook tea.

Me too.
"You're making pizza? Aces. That's tonight's tea sorted!" .....

The thought of dirty hands, maybe dirty school work top and utensils and the tupperwear box sitting around all day in the school bag with the contents getting warm and sweaty. Omg its just rank.

Don't know if it's a case of your school being slack if they're hanging around the food all day in bags, or a case of your over active imagination - as at ours you leave the food in fridges and pick it up at the end of the school day.

Rosa and Cath - you must have far sharper eyes than I do! All surfaces, equipment and hands started out clean but even with some special handwashes for children I caught after fingers went up noses/in mouths/down trousers and before they touched the food, I still didn't have much confidence. Mind you, I've done cookery classes with adults (for fun, as a pupil) who had precious little idea of food hygiene. Sometimes you just have to - shudder - suck it up.

I think it's neurotic to obsess about 'nose-picking and arse-scratching'.

Most germs are good for you, or neutral.

I also agree with this:
Being "anti-bac" queen is in itself pretty unhealthy.
Way to wreck your immune response.

Never saw any of my kids cooking efforts. They ate/shared it on the bus on the way home.