MIL or BIL unreasonable over dietary needs

[Bettyknocker]

Name changed for this. DH has two brothers, Adam and Ben (not actual names) their wives both have dietary requirements. Adams wife has a dairy, wheat and egg allergy. Bens wife is Muslim so doesn’t eat pork.

MIL has, since Ben first got in a relationship, omitted any pork from meals when Ben and family came over. So on Christmas she makes chicken stuffing, doesn’t serve pigs in blankets and takes bacon and sausages off the breakfast and subs for something else.

However MIL always has and still does serve desserts, cheese, cakes with egg in on every occasion and Christmas Day. She doesn’t make any alternative for Adams wife so she brings her own dessert or I make something vegan because I like baking. MIL says it’s not the same thing but can’t articulate why.

For full context non of the wives have actually mentioned it recently- Adams wife is very careful with what she eats anyway but does find it stressful when there are eggs about, Bens wife would prefer absolutely no pork so no risk of accidentally eating it.
Adam and Ben had a bit of a debate about it today because Ben wants to make trifle and pavlova for dessert on Xmas and Adam said “My wife can’t eat any of that stuff and I would rather we didn’t use eggs that day because the likelihood of contamination is high with everyone pitching in with the cooking” Ben was not happy said you can’t omit all that stuff every time we have a family meal and pork is just one thing so not as much of a PITA.

Side note so I don’t drip feed- Ben is absolutely the favourite of the four children but MIL is very very close to Adams wife.

So who’s BU? MIL and Ben or Adam? Me and DH are in no way involved in this, I am not sure who is right but I do know her egg allergy is really quite serious so I don’t agree with the pavlova or trifle idea. I am just curious to be honest.

That is disgusting behaviour and MIL and BIL should be ashamed of themselves.

It is lovely that MIL accommodates Ben's wife's religious beliefs and does not include pork. That is kind and would help to make her feel included.

However, to willingly risk making Adam's wife severely ill and possible death from actual allergies (especially a severe egg allergy) is horrific behaviour. I feel so sorry for your SIL and if anyone should be accommodated it should be her. She sounds to nice to do it, but I would probably just refuse to come for Christmas and risk it to get the point across. It is one thing if they are in the house and not used, but to actively make and serve food containing an ingredient that she is severely allergic to is horrible.

MIL is the one who cleans the oven, she has two in her kitchen so when Ben and family come over she cleans them the night before so she knows there is no pork lurking.
I get that SIL not having pork served is a red herring and so people are focusing on that but I wanted to illustrate that MiL does cater to specific requirements sometimes to an extreme.

No one in the family has any problems with omitting pork from the food, it’s not a ‘thing’ at every gathering; Adam just brought it up in anger yesterday not because it annoys him MIL does it but because it annoys him she doesn’t for his DW.

Lots of lovely ideas here for vegan dishes and or gluten free so I appreciate that.

Also to just address the accidentally eating food with pork- DH and his family are from the Middle East originally so when MIL cooks there’s lots of mixing meats, into say meatballs, and it’s hard to identify. Usually at Christmas we might get lots of dishes been given by extended family so she’s careful just in case.

I can’t comment either way on halal food and her views, I know our turkey isn’t though!

Had to pop back and say a massive thank you!! It is bacterial meningitis.. it could have got very nasty if I would have left it untreated. 💐

Wrong bloody thread!! Sorry 😳