About PIL food hygiene?

[Billyjoearmstrong]

Another argument with Dh regarding his parents and food hygiene.

They basically don’t have any.

MIL will cook huge pots of food to last five days - chicken stews, pasta sauce with meat etc and leave them on the hob all that time, heating them up everyday to take a portion and then leaving it to cool down. Or she’ll cook a big lasagne and the same thing - leave it in the oven for days until it’s finished. I can’t drink a cup of tea at their house - I always thought it tasted a bit odd when I first me them and then I realised that they don’t keep milk in the fridge, they keep it on the worktop.

When they come to stay she will always bring something she’s cooked - really nice of her but it will be some sort of meat which she will have cooked days before and it will have just been left on the side in her kitchen.

FIL just dropped a roast chicken at the door merrily saying they cooked two on Friday and didn’t need it. This chicken won’t have seen a fridge - it will have been sat on the work top or in the oven since cooked.

Dh has had a go at me because I won’t let the kids have any for dinner this evening. I don’t want them getting ill.

We moved across the country to where they live just before lockdown so it’s not been a problem yet, but when they are allowed the kids over I know they will feed them and I’m so uncomfortable with the lack of food hygiene they have - it was easier being so far away as they would visit every 6 weeks and I just wouldn’t give the children any of the cooked food they brought with them.

Dh won’t listen as it’s been like that his whole life, his argument is that he’s never had a stomach bug from it so it’s
Fine.

It just makes me feel so ill thinking about it. The arguments me and Dh have about me putting food in the fridge is unreal, he doesn’t see the harm.

[P0lka]

I am very lax compared to .most on MN, but that's 100% grim!

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

I would think they have all been ill at some point or another but they do not relate that to your MILs poor food hygiene. Denial is a powerful force after all.

Do not send your kids over there at all, if your children or you became ill you would never forgive yourself or for that matter your H who is very much mired in his own fear, obligation and guilt (itself a problem in its own right).

Why did you at all move near them?.

[GrumpyHoonMain]

My mil was like this and so my DH and his brother basically told her whats what and she stopped doing it. You need to be blunt with her.

[Billyjoearmstrong]

@TheWickerWoman the house is clean but they are hoarders. Every surface is covered in stuff - Cleaning stuff, shampoo bottles etc. Hallway full of boxes full of things. They have two spare bedrooms you can’t get into as they are piled to the rafters with (clean, mil is a shopaholic)
clothes. Kitchen surfaces covered in gadgets. Just stuff
Everywhere. But it’s all clean and doesn’t smell. Just a shitload of stuff.

I’m very minimal so it makes me uncomfortable being there.

[nevermorelenore]

Aagh, I consider myself pretty relaxed about food stuff. I reheat rice and have accidentally left things like pasta out overnight then eaten it.... but this is next level gross.

I bet they have been sick from this before and blamed it on some other source. It must have been that man who sneezed on them in the supermarket that caused them to have violent shits, not the 5 day old chicken.

[CherryStoneTree]

Sorry that is properly disgusting. And as for the more you cook the tomatoes the healthier they get is crazy.

No idea how to broach it but my kids would not be eating with them at all.
Think the agar players are a good idea!

[GlumyGloomer]

Tell your DH to read up on Bacillius Ceres. It's a great example as to why reheating doesn't necessarily make food safe. This one is predominantly found in rice, and can create heat proof spores.
You have my totally sympathy, that is absolutely grim.

[Iwalkinmyclothing]

My H is the same. He shouted at me on Friday for having thrown out pizza that had been left out overnight and wouldn't have it that the pizza needed to have been stored in the fridge to be safe the next day. He thinks "on the hob in the pan it is cooked in" is a perfectly reasonable place to store food until it is used up.

I'm not hygienic by MN standards but even I know this is grim.

[time4anothername]

These seem like habits from a time when we lived in cold houses with no heating.

[SistemaAddict]

Reminds me of ds's dad. I once lifted the lid of a slow cooker and found something revolting in there. It had been there days and was going to be used in the next week. We got take away pizza one night (the only safe way to eat) and got drunk and I didn't put it in the fridge. He was amazed I wouldn't eat it two days later when it had been left out. In the box too, not even properly covered. Some people have cast iron stomachs. Mine recoils in horror st the mere thought.

[Billyjoearmstrong]

@AttilaTheMeerkat it’s a very cheap area compared to where we were and Dh had rose tinted glasses about where he grew up. It’s another thread all on its own -
FIL is very controlling it’s been a huge mistake.

[StrawberryBlondeStar]

My in-laws do this. Big pots of curry’s/stews on stove. Just warmed up. Food left in oven for days. My DH would do the same if he could. He does have the constitution of an ox. Never gets ill. His immune system must be amazing.

My inlaws lived till their mid 30s in a country with no fridges and where food was scarce so it’s just a habit thing for them.

[TriangleBingoBongo]

In the depths of winter and with no central heating this was probably ok. But in houses with modern central heating systems and in the summer months I can’t see how this can possibly be hygienic!

[EatDessertFirst]

I'm loving the suggestion of agar plates and swabbing the bacteria laden food. Might be enough to show your DH how abhorrent their food hygiene is.
You can get them on Amazon!

[ToothFairyNemesis]

@Billyjoearmstrong this mumsnet targeted advert made me smile maybe you could suggest it to your MIL?

[GarlicMcAtackney]

How can you stand such a wilfully stupid man? Can mummy’s little prince educate himself?

[littlemeitslyn]

'Fucking' fish? Nice

[CoffeeDay]

Omfg this is an emetophobe's nightmare. Though I definitely know people like this...been to friend's homes where fast food leftovers are kept at room temp overnight and eaten over the next couple of days. My parents also kept cooked food covered on the kitchen counter for the next meal, though thankfully their limit was 1-2 days.

As a somewhat recovered emetophobe, I used to covertly check food hygiene at everyone's homes. And I would instinctively avoid anything that has the potential to be dodgy (meat, leftovers, creamy things, raw foods etc). The thought of my in-laws feeding DD food like that makes me break out in cold sweat so you have all my sympathies.

Depending on how old your kids are, maybe you can secretly teach them things to be careful about at grandparent's place. Such as declining big portions or checking which foods have been freshly cooked and filling up on those. Freshly cooked carbs are usually safest...noodles, bread, potatoes. Rice is good when fresh but catastrophic if it's a leftover so I usually avoid that at people's homes unless I can see it's been just been cooked.

Another tactic would be to feed the kids just before going to their grandparents so they're just not hungry. Or invent a food allergy/health problem and provide packed lunches. This might be hard to get around DH, but there has to be a way. Failing all this, you can come clean with your in-laws and just say you are not comfortable with their food hygiene. If this might lead to arguments, try using one of the children as a shield. Say that DD is being treated for anxiety regarding food hygiene (not at all unusual, starting from 8 I was obsessive about checking expiry dates or refusing to eat food that looked "wrong", much to the puzzlement of my parents. They got used to checking food hygiene for me when were eating at people's homes).

So it's more of a "it's not about you but about DD so please take her wishes into consideration". This is along the same vein as someone going vegetarian and kindly informing the host.

[justasking111]

The weird thing is that people who live like this all the time tend to be ok,but the rest of us if we eat food like this we are very ill.

[DisobedientHamster]

My DH grew up with hoarder parents who made Gollum look clean. Seriously, BAD. Okay, so bad, after they were both gone, they left the house to his brother, who outdid them in slovenliness, never worked and never left home. And he did FA, of course, until the place got so bad the neighbours (it was a semi) complained to the council over and over and he did nowt for years and the council eventually seized the place, cleaned it, put my BIL into temp accommodation, put a lien on the property to cover the costs (including court costs which he refused to engage with at all) and when he didn't pay up, they took it back (it had been a right-to-buy), yes, THAT bad. Like Hoarders but worse. He now lives in a one-bed flat that the HA will probably kick him out of one day.

I put my foot down right away, before kids, NO living like that. Be blunt with her if he won't.

I shiver just thinking how bad that place was, and BIL was stubborn AF and refused to do anything at all (we also lived about 3 hours away).

[GlumyGloomer]

Just saw the passata update. Tomatoes are actually pretty acidic which can inhibit bacteria, so that may explain why they've got away with it for so long. Thinking that this will translate to all food is very dangerous thinking though.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

My God.

I am extremely lax about food hygiene and eat out of date food all the time (I work in a supermarket and so get cheap short dated food). But I'm a stickler for the fridge (mostly because the cat or dog would be in anything I left on the side, I have to admit) and this makes me feel a bit odd.

I would suggest dementia setting in (my mother was always very good on food hygiene and we only realised she was beginning to slide when she left an entire trifle, with fresh cream, out on the side for two days in the middle of summer) except they've always done this. So they've probably got the digestive systems of camels.

You can't change them. Could your six year old go vegetarian or vegan? Bit less of a threat if meat isn't involved.

[InYerFace]

OMG, me and your DH have the same parents!

Mine keep their leftovers in the microwave, where its nice and warm and perfect conditions for bacteria-multiplying, for days on end.

You never know what you'll find lurking in there - usually a chicken carcass left over from Sunday, ready to be eaten at some point during the week.

Bleurgh. We've tried pointing out they probably shouldn't do that. But they never seem to get food poisoning (that they confess to). We just make sure we cook for them and ourselves when we go there.

[Sparklfairy]

If only your DH is eating it, can you not lace the chicken with laxatives?

Seriously though, I'm really quite lax about stuff like this - I live alone so the only one who will be poisoned - but your OP made my stomach turn!

[MedusasButterDish]

@viques

You can buy petri dishes with agar online. I would buy them as a science experiment for your children.

"Let's take a sample from the newly cleaned toilet, and another one from the bottom of my shoe, and oh look, here's the chicken Granny bought over , let's take a swab from here too. Now, who would like to predict which one will grow more deadly microbes"

I absolutely love this idea!

Your DH's argument about never being ill doesn't hold water, because even if he and his parents have never been ill, you and your children have not been brought up eating that sort of microbial load . You will be ill, and it is not kind to subject you to that.