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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Re Ice Cream?

132 replies

WTAFF · 03/04/2016 15:38

I'm after some advice from you all. I went for an ice cream today and ordered a cornet with a flake.

The woman behind the counter took payment from me and then after handling the money grabbed the cornet, filled it with ice cream and then stuck a flake in the cornet with her bare hands. The only part she didn't touch with her unwashed hands was the ice cream!

This is in a place with a 5* hygiene rating. Surely this can't be normal?

I have severe germ phobic tendencies (OCD) so this may be clouding my judgement. I didn't say anything in case I was being unreasonable but next time I think I might try another ice cream place!

WIBU?

OP posts:
DiscoGlitter · 04/04/2016 00:42

Just seen your update. If you are actually living with OCD, your reaction doesn't seem as mad.
I sometimes suffer from anxiety, and some of my reactions to stuff people will probably scoff at.
Just keep working on it, I'm getting better and you will too Flowers

mathanxiety · 04/04/2016 00:49

...As long as the chips are kept at or above 63 degrees C. If reheated, in Scotland the food must reach 82 degrees C.

mathanxiety · 04/04/2016 01:05

About half a million people (at a minimum) are affected by foodborne illness in the UK annually. It costs millions of £££ to the NHS and to business.

You could die from a contaminated ice cream, depending on what contaminant was involved and on your own immune status.

UrgentSchoolHelp · 04/04/2016 01:41

Are some of the arguments not quite analogous to arguing a nurse shouldn't bother washing their hands so much?! Granted infection doesn't affect everyone, but for the few it does it can be devastating.

I'm not remotely on the OCD spectrum, but I'd be bloody cross if I saw food being served in a very unhygienic way in a restaurant (luckily I don't eat out often!).

TippyTappyLappyToppy · 04/04/2016 04:04

I think you'd be better off worrying about the money itself (which you also handled and do handle, day in, day out) than the cornet or the flake. Money can be truly filthy stuff.

Did you put gloves on to hand her your money and then take them off again to eat your ice cream? Or did you use bacterial gel between handling your money and your ice cream? If not then YABU.

bananapeanut · 04/04/2016 04:31

Haha
I've worked in events catering at hundreds of different restaurants.

I've also worked in housekeeping at a 5* hotel.

You lot would be horrified if you knew what was going on behind the scenes-- touching a flake with a bare hand is honestly nothing

Member251061 · 04/04/2016 09:31

I would worry too, but so far, we have not had food poisoning from an ice-cream stall. Like you, i just wouldn't eat the part she had touched. I tend to buy things wrapped up at ice-cream stalls.

oliviaclottedcream · 04/04/2016 09:55

When I was a child in Italy the butchers used to have a person whose job it was to only handle the money. So I see what you mean OP, but a few germs don't hurt.

I don't know if you eat out much? But having worked in several restaurants, as a waitress, I promise you if you saw what happens to your food, even in the up- market places you'd be outraged.

treaclesoda · 04/04/2016 09:56

I've never seen an ice cream vendor wear gloves to make up a cone, and I don't see what difference they would make anyway. BUT having said that, I do like to see food handlers wearing gloves, even though I know in my heart that it is psychological.

I know it has been said a million times before, but the cleaner we become, the more sick people seem to get. There is hardly a week goes by without some sort of d&v bug going around schools and nurseries, yet I can only remember having that sort of bug once or twice in my entire childhood, and I wasn't unusual.

But I'm as guilty as the next person of being 'overly clean', because it is just drummed into you these days that it is a necessity.

treaclesoda · 04/04/2016 09:57

I'm also a huge believer in 'what you don't know won't hurt you' . Only up to a certain extent, obviously.

SylviaWrath · 04/04/2016 10:02

How do you think people prepare your food in restaurants? Do you think chefs wear gloves? Do home cooks wear gloves?

It's crazy. Its over cleanliness that actually makes you more sick. If you're constantly smearing anti-bac on your hands and spraying everything with bleach, you'll have no immune system left!

BarbarianMum · 04/04/2016 10:04

It's just life. I'm sympathetic to those with germ-phobia OCD but I think it's a big mistake to normalise it and spend our lives disinfecting things.

Highsteaks · 04/04/2016 10:07

About half a million people (at a minimum) are affected by foodborne illness in the UK annually. It costs millions of £££ to the NHS and to business.

Yes, but most of those are due to food not being cooked properly aren't they? Rather than because a stranger touched it? I would imagine you are more likely to contract listeria from the ice cream rather than get something nasty from the person who touched the flake and the cone?

The one I always get a bit ick about is the buttons on pedestrian crossing. If you really think about it it could be really disgusting. For this reason, I just don't think about it. I have survived this long without any major disasters. I think our bodies are able to deal with far more than we think, otherwise the human race would have died out long ago!

JocastaFarquhar · 04/04/2016 10:15

In terms of food hygiene, the cornet is considered a low risk item as its desiccated and not a breeding site for germs.

ILostItInTheEarlyNineties · 04/04/2016 10:24

The number of icecream vans in our area has definitely dwindled. I wonder if modern health and safety regulations have put most of them out of business.
Sinks, disposable plastic gloves, napkins and paying to attend food hygiene courses must eat into the profits.

SylviaWrath · 04/04/2016 10:47

About half a million people (at a minimum) are affected by foodborne illness in the UK annually. It costs millions of £££ to the NHS and to business

And I would bet anything at all that not one of those cases is from a flake or an ice cream cone. The ice cream, possibly, the untouched part. Thats not unlikely.
You're at highest risk of food poisoning from your own kitchen/cooking than anything else.

Sunnyshores · 04/04/2016 10:50

wish i hadnt read this

IAmNotAWitch · 04/04/2016 11:03

Do people who worry about this stuff get sick more often because they worry, or do they worry because they get sick often?

Someone in our house being ill is a rare event (like less than once a year rare and I can't actually remember the last time someone had anything that could possibly be food poisoning) and we are all following the ten second rule (sometimes rather more than 10 seconds), chucking cat dishes in the dishwasher with ours (the kids ate the cat food on more than one occasion), handling money and eating food in the same interaction. Eating week old stew out of the fridge and so on.

We have even traveled to developing countries and snaffled up whatever with no ill effects - always whatever the locals are eating, never ever tourist food!.

I get that the OP has OCD but the worry that people who don't have OCD have around food just seems bizarre to me.

Humans are strong, there a 7 billion+ of us, mostly living in some pretty shitty conditions and still we survive.

Orwellschild · 04/04/2016 11:10

I work in the food service industry. The only gloves which most companies allow are hypo allergenic latex free non powdered gloves - which can only be worn when preparing raw or cooked food to avoid cross contamination. Having conducted hundreds of food safety audits, and also bacterial swabs, bare (washed!!) hands are much much safer than gloves, which could be worn for hours. People who serve food are (generally!) trained to wash their hands whenever necessary.

parmalilac · 04/04/2016 11:15

Yes, that's horrible, anyone handling money should not then handle food. I must confess I usually observe to see if they do this before ordering something, and if they do I walk away ... even more annoying when they're wearing gloves, perhaps they think the gloves are to protect their hands from money and food, rather than their real purpose?

JassyAlconleigh · 04/04/2016 11:29

Iamnotawitch that's exactly how we operate. Pretty impressive ingestion of germs here too and never ill.

Cheese needs to be way past sell-by to get eaten here Blush

Most people I know IRL are relaxed about it too. Exhausting to monitor otherwise.

tangerino · 04/04/2016 11:29

Seems totally normal to me- I know money is dirty but life's too short.

On the other hand, I was quite put off ice cream vans when one stopped outside my house a few years ago. How nice, I thought, maybe I will buy one. Except the chap wasn't stopping to sell ice cream but in order to get out and piss all over my garden wall then get back in the van and drive off. Urgh.

OmaC · 04/04/2016 11:52

When I was young mum wouldn't let us go to the Mr Whippy van as she said he went to the toilet and didn't wash his hands. Don't know how she knew perhaps just a ruse not to buy an ice cream. You can always throw away the bottom of the cone if concerned. We need a few germs though

MrsWinklepicker · 04/04/2016 11:53

Highsteaks, surely the reason we have children is to press the button on the pedestrian crossing for us Grin

limitedperiodonly · 04/04/2016 12:13

YOU DIDN'T EAT THE FLAKE? Do you still have it?

Grin at stealthpolarbear