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.

[diddl]

I've been known to leave stuff out or in the oven to eat the next day-unless very hot & then it goes in the fridge.

Didn't think that you were supposed to reheat meat or chicken more than once though?

[altiara]

I remember the sausage thread too 🤢

@Umberta I was thinking the opposite - never leave DH in case he decides to take the kids to his parents every time he’s got them!

I bet they’re just used to bad bowel movements and think it’s normal.

[backseatcookers]

Haha @magicstar1 your sausage thread was one of my favourite ever!! The over investment of MN (including me) was one of the biggest shows of solidarity I've ever seen.

[Billyjoearmstrong]

@diddl That’s the rule I’ve always lived by which is why I always portion up left overs in the fridge.

Dh has just has a load of the chicken, cold inns sandwich. I asked him what he was doing with the rest and he said he was going to put it in the oven for tomorrow. I asked him why he was so lax with food - why would he put it in the oven and not the fridge and he said that’s what his mum would do. I asked why not put it in the fridge if he insists on keeping it? He said I’m paranoid.

I can’t get it though to him. It’s really frustrating and upsetting. I feel like I’m living with a petulant child.

I mean even Ds, a typical lazy teenager puts left overs in Tupperware in the fridge and knows not to keep it for long.

[newtb]

I'm really surprised that the stuff hasn't had maggots in it being left out like that.

[MitziK]

Ewwwww.

I remember the frequent bouts of sickness and diarrhoea as a kid. Trips to the hospital for my funny tummy, etc, etc.

Strangely, I've had just two in the thirty years since leaving home at 16, despite taking biologics and steroids - and waging an ongoing campaign with DP about not leaving food out uncovered overnight because we do not live in a draughty farmhouse on the top of the Moors or my grandfather's cottage with the ice cold, marble lined larder he built that never got above about 4 Celsius in midsummer - if I find something uncovered that I do not know how long it has been sitting there (and sometimes if I do), I will throw it away.


He gets the following morning to have anything he's put into the microwave. After that, it's out. He has also noticed that, strangely, since he's moved in and I have insisted that the countertops and pots are all cleared and cleaned properly, he hasn't had a single sickness and diarrhoea episode either.


It'll just have to be that your DD doesn't stay over.

[Billyjoearmstrong]

He’s one of those people who thinks the microwave or the oven is a magical, sealed mini universe that repels bacteria.

[HazelBite]

One of my DIL's does this!
She will cook something and leave it out overnight to take for work the next day.
She caught me putting something that she had cooked in the fridge, and I gave her a bit of a lecture (I did have a food hygiene cert) and she said her DM always used to do it and no-one in her family had died.
I did point out to her that she has "sickness" far more than most people I know. D'you know she had never thought about it until it was pointed out to her!

[Ireolu]

Grim....that's all I have from reading the first post. Absolutely disgusting, sorry there was more.

[ellendegeneres]

I’d honestly bin it. No way would I risk that being fed to my kids. Fucking vile

[diddl]

I can understand how this night be a habit for older people who didn't have central heating & therefore a cool kitchen.

I'm probably quite lax about this compared to a lot of people.

But I know that there have been times that say some lasagne has been left in the oven, not eaten the next day & when taken out the day after, just doesn't look appetising.

But he constant reheating-at the very least they should just take out a portion to reheat!

How many times will meat have been reheated before it's all finally eaten?

Perhaps if it's always reheated to a specific temp & for a specific time, it is safe to do more than once?

But unless they have a particularly cool kitchen...

[Wewearpinkonwednesdays]

Sorry but when it comes to your kids you can't take the risk. I would be telling them straight, no matter how nice they are. Your dh can't be the brightest. This is really dangerous. Is your dh willing to risk his children's lives? Only takes a quick google to find out what can happen.

[ComDummings]

That’s gross as fuck and I would definitely not be letting my child eat there. Ever. As for DH he’s an idiot, sorry!

[kmc1111]

My MIL did this, but she had the excuse of spending her first 40 years in a freezing climate with little to no heating and a block of ice for a fridge.

[SunshineCake]

Bin the rest of the chicken !!

[Billyjoearmstrong]

@ellendegeneres I made it quite clear to him that the children wouldn’t be eating that chicken. I made them the nice dinner I had planned for us.

So he sat eating cold sandwiches in a sulk, looking mournfully at our cottage pies. Serves him right for being stubborn.

What do you do when someone won’t listen though? I’ve been with him for ten years. I keep trying.

We got together when Ds was 7. When he moved in with us I made it clear that if he wanted to keep food on the hob for days on end that me and Ds wouldn’t be eating it. He begrudgingly stopped doing it but thinks I’m over the top.

[RibenaMonsoon]

My PILs are the same. I made a meat salad (everything cut up in a bowl). They served themselves up some and didn't put the bowl back in the fridge, just left it on the side on a hot day with the door open. Didn't even cover it.
When I came to the kitchen to dish myself up some about an hour later, I had to throw it away instead as there were 5 bluebottle flys sitting in it. God knows how long they'd been in it.
MIL was annoyed I had chucked it as she had wanted some the next day. She didn't seem to think it was an issue.

Shes lovely, truly lovely lady but her food hygiene practices are questionable at best. She regularly does the same as your MIL leaving pots of cooked meat out overnight. Makes my my stomach turn.

[diddl]

@SunshineCake

Bin the rest of the chicken !!

I'd be tempted to add something to it that wpuld make him ill

[Billyjoearmstrong]

@diddl I have some dulcolax in the house. It would serve him right. Don’t tempt me.

[Mrskeats]

I feel a bit sick now

[Amber0685]

Yuck OP, I would be inventing food allergies so your DC could only eat what you send with them.

[JesusInTheCabbageVan]

He’s one of those people who thinks the microwave or the oven is a magical, sealed mini universe that repels bacteria.

Widowed FIL is the same, with the microwave. He's constantly making himself seriously ill with out of date food, but he insists it's a side effect of the medication he's on. Last time we were there he had eggs 3 months out of date

[pumpkinbump]

Dear me. I wouldn't class myself as massively fussy but I panic if I don't managed to cool a pan of something down within the recommended two hours to pop it in the fridge or freezer.

I can only assume that they have stomachs made of cast iron!

I don't know how you're going to get around the issue of your children being there while you are not though.

[MrsR87]

Wow, I am not over the top with this kind of stuff but the examples you have given have really shocked me! It wouldn’t even enter my mind to batch cook and then not freeze or fridge it!

I would feel really stressed in your situation as I would not want to eat it, never mind the kids! It’s a difficult thing to address though as like you have said, she trying to be nice by providing food. In terms of your OH, I think you should show him or read him the replies from here! Show him it’s just not you!

[billy1966]

OP,
One thing to consider,...by giving food that could result in food poisoning, your child is being put at risk.

To knowingly do this to a young child is very wrong.

How would this not be a child protection issue?

Your husband and his family are welcome to poison themselves with their awful hygiene.

However, your daughter needs protection from the stupidity level that permeates your husband's family.

Your child will be at risk eating in a house that would leave food out for up to 5 days.

Horrifying.