To think that, unless you know the kitchen they were made in is very clean, homemade edible gifts go straight in the bin

[Bearbehind]

Especially this year

Given we’re sanitising things we touch and are ultra conscious about the spread of germs etc - AIBU to think that if you get edible gifts from someone’s who’s kitchen you either don’t know or don’t think is very clean - you’d just bin it?

I’m not saying you can catch Covid from the food but it’s the principle of not knowing how hygenic stuff is

I’m not a fan of homemade gifts at the best of times - I think a sort of rule should be that unless your homemade items are good enough to sell for actual money, then please don’t do it

No one is going to admit they binned it but I do hope those who would make homemade edible gifts, especially for teachers, this year think twice

You can keep telling yourselves that the only people who wouldn't want to eat homemade gifts are bonkers obsessives with hygiene issues who clean too much as much as you like, but it won't make it true. It's possible to have a perfectly normal attitude to cleaning and still not want to eat every single thing made in other people's kitchens.

Of course teachers should accept homemade gifts from small children. What they shouldn't in any way shape or form feel obliged to do is put them in their mouth.

I would never bin it!!!!

@RaspberryCoulis my job is quite literally observing people clean their kitchen, their bathrooms, looking at hand wash routines, food storage etc. I did similar with professional food environments.

• i eat hot or freshly prepared food in most cases. hairs etc are a bit grim, but won’t make you sick.
• salad, buttercream, cream, anything with home made mayonaise, cold mince etc: no, hell no
• yes, fruit and veg grow outside. That’s why you need to wash it properly! fox and dog poop is seriously unhealthy. the majority of people don’t wash veg (or their hands for that)

You can keep telling yourselves that the only people who wouldn't want to eat homemade gifts are bonkers obsessives with hygiene issues who clean too much as much as you like, but it won't make it true
Truth is very subjective in such a statement. I will keep telling myself this so it's true as far as I'm concerned. Same as it is presumably true to someone on the other side of the argument that I'm a reckless fool who is only one slice of coffee and walnut cake away from horrific gastric infection.

@DappledThings

You can keep telling yourselves that the only people who wouldn't want to eat homemade gifts are bonkers obsessives with hygiene issues who clean too much as much as you like, but it won't make it true Truth is very subjective in such a statement. I will keep telling myself this so it's true as far as I'm concerned. Same as it is presumably true to someone on the other side of the argument that I'm a reckless fool who is only one slice of coffee and walnut cake away from horrific gastric infection.

About the bonkers bit, yes, there's some subjective judgment! About the fact that it's possible not to be an obsessive cleaner (in fact to be pretty slack about cleaning) and still not want to eat every homemade gift you get offered, no. That's a fact, not a subjective judgment, although I realise it may not be a fact you've got personal experience of! And I don't think people who will eat absolutely anything are reckless fools as such.

I would actually eat quite a few things but like a pp I would be more wary of some things (buttercream) than others (biscuits). The more vulnerable something is to causing food poisoning and the more it not doing so depends on the maker having done certain things exactly right in the preparation including having very young children nowhere near it, the less likely I am to want to eat that thing. That wouldn't change how grateful I felt or how warmly I'd thank the person, it would only change whether or not I ate it later.

I don't believe its that likely to get sick from eating a cake, cake is a pretty low risk item, so much so that the local council don't do checks now for people running cake businesses unless they are using high risk ingredients such as cream. The only way you would get sick from eating cake would be if it was contaminated with something else.

People are so fussy, our fruit and veg grow in manure? Most things we buy in shops are likely to have been touched by many people with dirty fingers, the glasses in pubs? Food in pubs? Food from almost anywhere has been touched by possibly someone who may have scratched their ass or picked their nose. Do you all wash your shopping as soon as it gets through the door?

Most home made stuff has been touched by one person (the person making it), if you have friends that are that disgusting maybe you should re think your friendship circles 🤣

did someone say raw eggs are dangerous

dont know if your got the memo edwina but theyre not

The amount of time foodie gifts can sit around can make a difference for me. Something made fresh for guests is less vulnerable to causing food poisoning than the same thing made and then kept for days under cellophane waiting to be given as a gift.

[quote ohnothisagain]@RaspberryCoulis my job is quite literally observing people clean their kitchen, their bathrooms, looking at hand wash routines, food storage etc. I did similar with professional food environments.

• i eat hot or freshly prepared food in most cases. hairs etc are a bit grim, but won’t make you sick.
• salad, buttercream, cream, anything with home made mayonaise, cold mince etc: no, hell no
• yes, fruit and veg grow outside. That’s why you need to wash it properly! fox and dog poop is seriously unhealthy. the majority of people don’t wash veg (or their hands for that)[/quote]

Surely if it's your job you've also seen how very grim many professional kitchens are, even with decent star ratings, and how very very common it is for poorly-paid food service employees to come into work while quite ill? I think it's only reasonable if you'd also refuse to eat something with salad cream etc that's been made at a restaurant...

@GabsAlot

did someone say raw eggs are dangerous

dont know if your got the memo edwina but theyre not

www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/20/dozens-of-people-poisoned-this-year-by-salmonella-infected-british-eggs

The risk is definitely small compared to Edwina Currie's time though.

I will eat NOTHING made by a child!!! Yuck!

I am a home cook so luckily don't get offered much cooked stuff from adult friends as they know I can do it myself!!!

@CantStandMeow

Nearly everything edible that was given for the staffroom/class teachers was binned in the last school I worked at. It doesn't mean that the thought wasn't appreciated and we weren't touched by the gesture.

A colleague didn't understand why no-one had eaten a cake left on the side and cut a slice. It was full of dog hair, the cake must have been 20% hair. It was like a rite of passage getting the hair cake in the end.

Aye right

@florably

Ah the annual joyless Mumsnet homemade christmas gift thread! Stop it op, your making me feel all christmassy!

😂😂😂 Exactly

I’ll eat anything, but not if it’s hairy 😉

OP I don't believe you actually receive gifts of any description

I accept food and edible gifts from friends. But any one who is a stranger (not a company) I don’t accept. We get many homemade gifts at work, I just leave them for anyone else to enjoy. I have had a bad experience of trying food from an unknown person before resulting in food poisoning, so I feel it’s best to just not accept it.

Just eaten a delicious soup made by a colleague and currently asking when they'll next bring in their much-loved sausage rolls, so fair to say I would not throw a food gift in the bin.

I would eat almost all the things. And if I couldn't eat them, I would absolutely do my best to come up with a reason not to accept them in the first place. (And covid is the perfect one - it's new, so doesn't reveal to Rachel from up the road that you've been binning her carefully crafted offerings for the past 11 years.) The obvious exception is the cake given by the beaming and grubby child. Obviously refusing that would be akin to refusing to answer a toddler's phone.

Still, as many have said, it's professional kitchens you really want to worry about. Because more often than not, it's not contamination that's a problem so much as age. Home cooks tend to buy specifically and then bake very shortly after rather than having loads of ingredients hanging around. Commercial cooks, less so.

Looks like the chef over-ordered on cream last week. Never mind, it smells alright...

Well I ate something my sister in law made and there were strange bits of paper like stuff in it. I was gagging away and now can't eat anything she has made. Not so much a hygiene issue, but she does terrible food experiments not dissimilar from Mrs Cropley from the Vicar of Dibley. Otherwise I tend to eat what I have been given, or I try it on the kids first and if they respond well, I will eat some.

And I am obviously a two-faced bitch as I will smile and accept what she has given me before putting it in the bin!

Sorry to say i hate home made food gifts unless it’s alcohol. Luckily I am not a primary school teacher

I've had food poisoning twice in my life. Both were caused by professionals.

I don't waste handmade food presents on anyone would not be pinching it off the cooling rack, if they were here.

DS1 did once give his teacher, TA and boarding house staff marmalade for Christmas, with a note to pop it in the cupboard if they weren't going to use it. They used to send messages home requesting more. It was a quirky arrangement but worked.

I've had people round the hose who recoil from having drinks or eating anything. Unless they admit having OCD or similar, I just don't invite them again.

The problem is people seem to take major offence if you turn down their home baked goods. When I used to work in an office I tried saying no to home made cakes a few times but the looks I got! I found it easier to just take it, then wrap and slip in the bin when no one was watching. I know it's irrational, I know bad hygiene practices go on in all sorts of places, but I just cannot eat home made.

think people should have the awareness to realise that unless their homemade gifts are good enough to sell then they are unlikely to be well received

How spoilt we've become. And joyless.

I've received precious hand made gifts from people who wanted to give me a gift and needed their money for other things. They might have a spare egg and flour but not enough for a gift. I don't care if it would have been worthy of a shop. I was thankful. It certainly didn't occur to me that they should have known better.

This is a deeply depressing and angering thread.

OP, you remind of Hyacinth. You're incredibly lacking in good manners.

I would never eat a homemade gift
no no no

I don't eat what my dcs cook in school

I can't believe all these posts about accepting food gifts with glee
I'd rather be given a turd to bury