Pasta salad - using hands to mix?!??

[SomethingLikeAPhenomenom]

DH was making a mayo pasta salad today as friends over for a BBQ. He'd put all the ingredients in a big bowl, I walked in on him using his hands to mix it all together. AIBU to have called him out on how disgusting and inappropriate this is? No idea where he's got the idea that hands are better than spoons. Am now getting the silent treatment - genuinely now questioning if I am in the wrong here and this is normal behaviour??

There are some food preparation activities where it's acceptable to use (scrubbed clean!) hands.

Pasta salad is not one of those.

If your hands are clean, I think it's fine? Obviously not if you haven't washed them. I find it a lot easier to use my hands for this sort of thing

Yuck. WHY would anyone do that? 🤮

You can mix any food of any kind as long as your hands are clean.
I mean what about people making sushi?
Marinading something?
Mixing up salad leaves.

You’re odd. Impo. But mumsnet is filled with food weirdos who wash chickens and bleach lettuce.

How do you think chefs in restaurants make it? Hands all the way.

I wouldn't do it because you're hands would get covered in mayo and whatever little bits there are!
For some things, like making dough, hands will get messy and there isnt an alternative but squishy pasta salad!?! You dont need hands for that. A spoon does the job. Why get in such a mess, and put yours hands all over the food? Use a spoon!

It just makes no sense.

I don't see an issue as long as hands are washed scrupulously immediately beforehand. I wouldn't do it myself though, I think it would be too easy to damage the pasta and I'd get mayo under my fingernails, bleaugh.

Reminds me of the time my ex told me there was no knives washed up so he decided to bite the cheese off for our dinner, and told me after I had eaten it not envy

Ugh no that's horrible!

An aside:
Pasta salad made in the English way is grim as fuck. And a bit 1970s cul de sac

Obviously there are nice Italian cold pasta dishes, and if he was mixing one of those then it’s even more fine.

I don't think it's gross with super clean hands - after all you have to touch other food!

PumpkinP ex. Good decision.

@PumpkinP oh my god that made me laugh out loud 🤣🤣🤣 how gross! But honestly if people are uptight about their food being handled/touched during preparation then don't bother eating out anywhere, I hate to tell you but chef's use their hands to work 👐

Bleurgh - gross - but only because the salad doesn't get re-cooked. Use a spoon! It's arguably far less messy and far more hygienic.

Something like dough or cake mix is fine as it'll go in the oven.

Why do people think it’s ok if it goes in the oven. So raw food isn’t ok

Do you use tongs to serve up your little PFB carrot sticks

i use a spoon for mixing pasta mayo or coleslaw bt only because i cant stand mayo on my hands, if his hands were super clean washed it is quicker to mix with hands and no unsafer than using a spoon

I still feel sick thinking about it now ! Who does that! I even checked the cheese thinking he was joking but it had teeth marks on

But chefs work in sterile environments and have a basic understanding of hygiene, no? Actually I don't think I want to know if they don't! Am getting the feeling maybe I'm being a bit upright then, but DH isn't the biggest fan of hot water.... (and yes I have asbestos hands from so much hot water, not much feeling left!)

@Flyingagainstreason

Why do people think it’s ok if it goes in the oven. So raw food isn’t ok

Do you use tongs to serve up your little PFB carrot sticks

There's a bit of a difference between picking up some raw carrot for your child and mixing someone's pasta salad all through your fingers!

I wouldn't do it for pasta salad but I don't see what's fundamentally gross about it - I would toss salad leaves by hand and that's not cooked after either. But then I always end up wondering if I've got madly low standards after reading MN or whether it's just that a huge number of people with issues around cleaning and germs post here. If his hands were clean I wouldn't care - but then I also eat food from kitchens where cats go on the counters, that other people have made in a kitchen I haven't seen, that someone else might have briefly touched and many other things that half of MN considers to be absolutely disgusting. [Shrug] I rarely get ill, so...

But chefs work in sterile environments

???? How would a restaurant kitchen be 'sterile' any more than a home one is?

I wouldn't but only because of the mayo. I tend to mix leafy salad / chopped salad by hand. Watch any cooking show and watch them plate, most of it is done by hand.

Oh god I'm with you on that one

Chefs work in a sterile environment?!!

It’s not an operating theatre!

Seriously, kitchens are not sterile!

They may have basic understanding of food health but it’s not cleaner that your own hands