My parents unhygienic food practices

[sahknowme]

This is on behalf of my DH, as I'm used to it my parents eccentricities.

My parents seem to live in another world when it comes to food safety. They seem to be against refrigerating cooked meat. For example, they boiled a piece of preserved beef (a traditional dish), and left it on the counter overnight, warmed it up to a simmer then served it. They regularly leave joints of meat out on the counter for 2 to 3 days. Worst of all is the gravy which gets cooled to room temp, left overnight (on the counter), added to, reboiled, then cooled to room temp several times over the course of a week. They even do it to fish soup. We all have strong constitutions, so this doesn't affect us.

My DH is worried, because they serve food to their elderly parents, and to our 1 year old DS. He thinks I should have a word with them, but they are stuck in their ways and won't listen.

AIBU to let them do their own thing? Is this as bad as my DH suggests?

No way I'd let my one year old eat their food.

@Eliza9917 got ill regularly? Perhaps died?

It's not great, to be honest.
I have left stuff out overnight (covered) on the stove top or in the oven, in the UK and Australia, but if it was fish it would be binned, ditto if it was chicken (it isn't because I don't eat chicken).
Dark meats like lamb and beef are rather less risky than fish, poultry and pork but it's still not great and I wouldn't leave it out for more than overnight personally, covered or not.
Gravy is indeed a rich soup for bacteria to live in - is it covered though? If it's covered and re-boiled before use then not quite so bad but still not really a good idea .
The fish soup - just no.

So a lot depends on how bad it really is - is your parents' kitchen hot or cold? do they have stone/ slate slabs to stand stuff on? Is it in a larder or just in the warm kitchen? And is everything covered or not?

I think you might need to pick things apart a bit more to sort this one out. Time of year is a biggy, especially if they actually have a cool place in their kitchen - eg a pantry. One way to bring up the conversation sensibly could be to think about safety in hotter weather - things that work in the winter can't be done in summer.

A soup or stock pot that is thoroughly boiled every day should be fine, for example. It's something I do quite a lot. I grew up in Sydney and in the hottest weather there it wouldn't be done - mainly because you wouldn't want the stove on and wouldn't want to eat soup! But much of the year, especially when we were teenagers, it was really helpful.

Leaving meat to cool overnight, fine, but when the weather is warmer you'd want to be remembering to put it in a properly cool place first thing in the morning.

I think if you try to tell them they have to change what they've always done, you may hit a wall of "we're fine, so what?". If you can lead them to, actually maybe we've been lucky and we should think a bit more carefully about which things are ok, maybe you can sort it.

At a guess, someone with an Indian heritage will have parents or grandparents whose basic food safety rules are hot climate rules; so there could be a little leeway on that side too, if your husband can see that everyone is thinking sensibly.

I thought leaving meat to cool overnight was fine too.

Embarrassingly I don't quite get what most posters are horrified at?

I have the constitution of an ox and eat anything and am never ill.

I regularly leave stuff covered, overnight, and eat it re-heated the next day. Is this bad?

Could you say you’ve all become vegetarian?

Posters saying that it's fine and what did people do before fridges etc. The mortality rate has gone down due to modern practices modern medicine etc. People used to die of food poisoning is what. Probably a big reason for child mortality was dying of diarrhoea from Shigella, Campylobacter or Salmonella poisoning.

I caught Salmonella from a dog and the Doc was visiting me twice a day and I though I was going to die. If you can see obvious dodgy practices then take action rather than regret it, possibly forever.

Nope, I wouldn't eat anything any of you had prepared and it definately wouldn't get fed to my children. Or my dog, if I had one.

Cooked meat of any kind should be chilled in a fridge once completely cold and only reheated once. Boiling repeatedly will not get rid of the toxins released by bacteria. Rice should never, ever be reheated. It is one of the highest risk foods.

Makes me shudder how ignorant some people are. You are lucky to have not been made sick by this sort of poor hygiene. We may have better antibiotics these days but there are also many resistant bacteria.

I'm stunned at people who would put themselves and their families at risk because 'its never hurt me before' or because they wouldn't want to offend anyone.

(Disclaimer: I am a chef so I'm probably over cautious. I wouldn't dream of feeding my customers food treated in this manner).

I wouldn’t eat it, I leave things to cool before putting them in the fridge (made a curry last night, allowed leftovers to cool then straight in the fridge). My DH is immuno compromised at the moment so I’m extra careful with his stuff. I’ll eat something that’s a day or two past expiry if it looks/smells OK but I won’t serve it to him.

My DH and family are from Eire and I have almost the same ‘battles’ with them around food hygiene. It’s all good and we’ll saying ‘what did people do before fridges’ etc but there’s a fridge there so why not just reduce the likelihood of food poisoning and bloody well use it. Even when she uses the fridge I’ve got to ask how long something has been in there before we eat it. In all other aspects she’s immaculate and so is the house so it may be generational or cultural.

Ha you lot should all try staying with my FIL.

• On the last visit, his partner dumped a raw chicken on the wooden chopping board, preps it and the bacon/sausages to go with it, and didnt wipe the board or wash her hands afterwards. If the board is ever cleaned, it is a perfunctory swipe with a filthy rag.
• She hardly ever washes her hands but dips her fingers in all the time when cooking and just licks them afterwards.
• She frequently feeds the dogs bits of food with her hands.
• And just SO much more.

So either food hygiene is all bollocks or me, DH and the kids are incredibly lucky, because none of us are ever ill. I am baffled. And revolted.

No real advice OP but much sympathy. I’ve tried talking to her about hygiene but met a serious brick wall.

Yuck! I would find some facts on the net and show them.

I leave things out to cool down completely when cooked- in a cool, shady part of the kitchen, but then they get refrigerated or frozen asap. I think your parents may be pushing their luck a bit, sorry. I don't think O could eat their food.

I don't have a strong constitution and I get very ill very fast if something is wrong with food.

My late MIL used to keep tinned (unopened) food in the fridge so that it would "keep longer". Once it was opened the leftovers remained in the tin in the fridge. Once she offered something saying it tasted "a bit fizzy" :o

What do you think people did before fridges 🙄

They used preserving methods like salt and cheesecloth wraps. Placed items in cool cellars and often still ended up with serious illnesses. Diorreah was a major cause of death before humans discovered bacteria in food.

Why do you think fridges were invented?

What do you think people did before fridges

I can just remember us not having a fridge when I was a young child. What we did have was a big walk in pantry with a marble counter which kept things cold.

As this was the late 60s there were no big supermarkets so people shopped more regularly and didn't keep as much extra food in the house. My mother didn't work at that point so probably shopped most days and just bought what meat she needed for that day or the next.

Also, people tended not to have central heating so for a lot of the year kitchens would be cold.

Because it's never done you harm op doesn't make it ok. Kids running across a busy road playing chicken may never get hit by a car, but it's not a sensible thing to do.

We have stopped eating at my parents's house for this reason. Every time my DH eats there he gets an upset stomach. The fridge is a biohazard and surfaces aren't clean. Plus now their eyesight is getting worse, they once served up raw chicken nuggets thinking they were ready to eat snacks.

I had a mil from Eire, OP. She's in her late eighties now.

After a roast dinner she would put the cooking dishes the meat, and veg had been roasted in, outside for the huge colony of feral cats to lick clean.

I always hoped the dishes were then scrubbed clean in very hot soapy water. Didn't know for sure, though.

Wouldn't eat there and wouldn't let my child eat their food either. Meat in the fridge and the reheating multiple times and adding stuff thing? Grim.

Can I just jump in to say it's not 'Eire'. It's 'Ireland'.

I also wouldn't say it's a normal cultural thing from Ireland. My mum is 85 and puts things in the fridge or the freezer, whose predecessors first arrived in our house in the early 70s. Gravy was never left out, whipped cream always refrigerated, soups ditto. She likes soft butter so that gets left out and eggs are stored on the counter too. But mum is always careful about refrigeration. She grew up on a farm where they churned and stored their own butter, buttermilk, cream, etc, and maybe that made a difference?

I don't recall any practices like those you mentioned in my large extended family or the families of friends growing up in Dublin (I am 53).

When I was a teenager (before I became vegetarian) I had friends (through a voluntary group) that were in their 70’s. Incredibly lovely, immaculate house, both great cooks etc. They had a huge old heavy soup pan of ‘winter soup’ on their stove...it was amazing. They used to put anything & everything in it...left overs (from serving dishes, not individual plates!), slightly droopy veg, bones from roasts etc. It was warmed up mid morning & kept warm until supper time, then off overnight to go go back on mid morning the next day. It stayed there all winter. It’s a wonder, looking back, that none of us were ill, but we weren’t and it was so welcoming & lovely.

I was ill once from a tiny bit of milk that was in date but had obviously been left on the counter top at some stage, I’d checked the date and it was fine, seemed ok in my coffee... after I’d stopped being ill I poured some into a glass to see if it was the culprit and I could tell then it was ever so slightly ‘over’. I’m very careful and would rather throw something out if I’m not 100% sure it’s fine, it’s not worth being ill over.

I’m guessing your DH’s grandparents have built up quite an immunity to stuff, but there are things you can’t do that with, so yes I’d be a bit worried...

...and there’s no way I’d let babies/small children eat any of their food, I’d just take stuff for them & me - and DH if he wanted.

My cellar in my first house hd a stone shelf with a built in box with a mesh door. I believe that's where food was kept in the old days and the mesh kept the flies out.

I am actually guilty also of leaving a cooked casserole or gravy on the hob top to cool overnight. I will also then freeze it for another day.

Never been poisoned, but I do think several days is too much, even with Ireland's cooler temperatures.

My dad used to be like this , they would leave the Sunday roast in the oven and it would be dinner the next day etc. Always stuff on the side . I haven't had a sickness bug or anything that I can remember ever and have a cast iron constitutional, it could be luck . I guess I'll never know 🤷‍♀️

Foods that used to keep fine outside of the fridge have now had the ampunt of salt and preservatives reduced to make them healthier - milk used to have something hideous added to it at one point to preserve it so practices that were safe in the past are not now

Eliza- cold larders. My great grandmother had one.