To wish Scottish restaurants/cafes etc had 'scores on the doors'?

[Ameliarosethistle]

I recently moved up to Scotland and I'm finding the lack of hygiene rating at restaurants difficult to deal with! I'm so used to checking the hygiene rating of a place before eating there and when living in England I tended to only eat at places with hygiene rating of 4 or above.

AIBU to wish that Scottish restaurants had scores on the doors and not simply a 'pass/fail' rating?

Nah, Scots don't get food poisoning. We were immunised in the 80s by samosas sold beside the till in newsagents.

YABU. You have OCD, that's the problem, not how the Scottish food hygiene system is set up.

Scottish and have never seen this, storing chocolate bars on top of the open ice cream? So they have to lift it off every time to scoop?

I’ve lived in Scotland for more than 50 years and I’ve never had food poisoning from eating out here.

Have you thought of getting some help for your anxiety ?

I've never seen the chocolate bar thing either! Why would anyone place wrapped chocolate bars on top of the exposed ice cream that they needed to serve? You'd just have to move them all every time and it would squash the ice cream? And the packets would get ice cream all over them? Really struggling to picture it! And seems utterly pointless.

I think this probably is more of an OCD thing, yes. I've never checked a hygiene rating before eating somewhere in my life and never had food poisoning. I don't think people routinely do it before they eat places.

@Ameliarosethistle re ice cream and chocolate, is it in position A or B of this pic? (Over invested!)

How likely are you though to actually get sick from the outside of a chocolate wrapper? I mean if I eat chocolate at home I just unwrap it and eat it, I don't wash my hands after touching the wrapper.

I have ocd and take lexapro, it really helps. Contamination ocd ends up controlling your life.

The pubs you know of where there are repeated cases of food poisoning, has anyone advised environmental health or is it just rumours on social media?

DSis ran a restaurant some years ago and a customer claimed to have suffered food poisoning after eating there. It's a reportable issue, and DSis had myriad forms to fill in and had a visit from EH. No issues were found.

That’s a good point. If my mil ever gets a sickness bug she always tries to blame it on the last place she ate. Even if I get sick she immediately asks ‘did you eat out?’ Well yes but I also have four kids who attend school and various hobbies and clubs and two of them have to be regularly reminded to wash their hands (presumably they’re not always reminded outside since adults are busy) so there’s a million ways I could have caught something! But she prefers to blame it on something she ate.

I'm surprised noone has tried to blame this on Nicola Sturgeon yet.

Haha @MichelleScarn This is the chocolate packet on top of some ice cream in a shop in Edinburgh. The ice cream is delicious from this particular shop and I'm sure that the place hasn't caused anyone food poisoning (it looks perfectly clean in other respects) but obviously it's less than perfect from a hygiene perspective to stick something that people may have handled without washed hands actually on top of the ice cream and they might have lost of hygiene point in England for this.

Oh I see, they're using it like a label to say what the flavour of the ice cream is? Can't say it would occur to me as an issue tbh. But I would unwrap a choc bar and eat it without washing hands when other random people could have touched the wrapping when it was in the shop and that wouldn't occur to me not to do either!

What do you do when you eat out on holiday? It sounds like your OCD is causing additional anxiety, and its being fed by accessing hygiene ratings data.

In 40+ years of eating in restaurants around the world I've never even thought of looking up a hygiene rating before booking (general reviews yes such as Tripadvisor or Foursquare etc but not the hygiene rating alone). The one time I actually got food poisoning was in England, from a branch of a well known chain of Italian restaurants with great reviews. I was just unlucky.

They may well have wiped the packet clean to use it as a label? It looks intentionally placed vs your description which sounded like they just dumped chocolate bars on ice cream for no reason.

Yes one of my sisters is like this- it's always 'food poisoning' when her family clearly have a bug.

So one shop in Edinburgh uses the. Wrapper to tell you the flavour I don't see your issue

We used to have them in garages round here (West Yorkshire). I suspect in a lot of cases, they were made by the garage owner's wife/mum/auntie/sister and very nice they were too. I hate how you can't generally buy room temperature ready to eat food these days, everything has the life, and taste chilled out of it.

I never pay attention to hygiene ratings and the only time I've had food poisoning in the last 30 years was due to a sandwich from the work canteen that was probably made in accordance with all the rules.

Do you not lick the inevitable melted chocolate off your fingers after eating a chocolate bar?

I have never once checked a hygiene rating or looked at a review of a place for food

I just turn up, think 'they serve food' - then I eat the food and fuck off

I've never had food poisoning in 50 years either (I mean maybe from something I've cooked)

They need to use the packet as a label as us Scots can’t read.

Yes haha! Think it gives mil the illusion of control as she can ‘blame’ the food place for making her sick rather than just having to say ‘oh well, sometimes people get sick.’

It sounds like this is a symptom of (as well as feeding into) your existing OCD. As hard as it is, I think you need to try to accept that actually obsessing over pass or fail ratings isn’t allieving your symptoms - it is one of the symptoms! Although it feels like it’s making you feel better, it’s actually just helping cause more anxiety for you.

I do think it’s a bit odd just to stick a kinder bueno on the ice cream though. Not from a hygiene perspective, it just doesn’t look that good or add to the appeal of the ice cream.

Not necessary in Scotland as all food goes in the fryer, kills all bugs 🤣

5 is only minimum standard.

Sorry OP I think this is your ocd. They will most likely have wiped the wrapper and do you wash your hands after opening the bar of chic before you eat it and lick your fingers. In fact even if you do, 90% of people don’t. Plus most of these ratings are not worth the paper they’re written on I don’t think, it will depend on the staff working on the day.