Huge row with DH over food safety - who is BU?

[namechange294824]

NC'ed on the off chance this is outing!

DH and I are both 34. We've been in the process of moving house over the past 2 months, and are finally in a position to have guests in the house (i.e. we have a dining table and chairs). Moving hasn't been without its challenges and there have been some really stressful bits, but on the whole it's been fairly straightforward, and we don't have kids.

Invited DH's parents (mid/late 60s) to dinner on Tuesday night. I offered to cook. I prepared a starter, a main, and a dessert on Monday night, ready to go in the fridge for ease of serving quickly on Tuesday (I was going to be getting in from work only 20 mins or so before they arrived so it made sense to pre-prepare.) I spent 3.5 hours cooking/baking on Monday, which wiped out my entire post-work evening. No drama; I'd offered to do it, and I enjoy cooking.

But throughout this 3.5 hours DH could not help himself from repeatedly putting his head round the door and being critical - why hadn't I done X? Was I going to bother putting Y in the bin or is it going to be left on the side forever? So on, so forth. I asked him to stop, and he didn't. He probably whinged at me 5 times about separate trivial things whilst I was cooking.

The main dish needed a long while in the oven. It was 9.15pm at this point and he had totally exhausted me with his bitching and griping. I told him I just wanted to shower and go to bed and asked him to take the food out of the oven once the timer went off, which would have been at 10pm.

He did that. But he then failed to put it in the fridge, leaving it out overnight on the countertop. He was watching telly until about midnight, well after the point it would have cooled enough to go in the fridge.

I was so furious in the morning that after a night of whinging and sniping at me he'd not even had the thought to properly put away the food I'd spent so long cooking.

His position: the food's fine, it had foil on it anyway, just crack on and serve it tonight

My position: it's a meat dish (with pork in) and I don't feel comfortable serving it to his parents who are in their 60s after it's been left out overnight in the middle of August

He cancelled the dinner plans, and told his mum it was because we'd had an argument (which we had, I guess, but now I feel really humiliated and almost ashamed that their evening was spoiled because of us).

So... who is BU?

‘Who is BU?’
ha?! If that was my husband he’s have a broken nose

I hate to admit but I've been away in a hotel on a Friday evening (had a hobby event to attend on the Saturday)..... got kfc for dinner but had loads left over ......kept in the car all Saturday day......and still ate it Saturday evening in the car on the way home (much to my OHs disgust lol)......personally I think you are being unreasonable...... it was cooked right?......(my family do call me cast iron guts though🤣🤣🤣)......I actually take stuff out of the fridge and leave them to "warm up" on the side board because I don't like stuff super fridge cold......and everyone who says they wouldn't eat it......I hope you don't "dine out" because trust me...... you've had waaaaay worse!

you are definitely Not BU for wanting to throw the dish away- absolutely not worth the risk and your DH could have surely grabbed a few M&S ready to cook meals to make up for the spoiled main meal . But yabvu to cancel his parents - I moved house 11 days ago with a toddler and a teenager and a husband who only took one working day off since. We have had my mom over for lunch twice (who gets waited on hand and foot but apparently over to “help’ 🙄 we still are mostly unpacked although in a bit of a muddle and can’t find a few things - pictures aren’t up on walls etc BUT quite happy to host people now - so surprised your so sensitive after 2 months, particularly with family? Grab a takeaway and a bottle of wine on way home from work and reschedule them for next week ?

That's all well and good if the fridge is empty.

If you put something warm into a fridge that has other foods in it that are more likely than fully cooked meats to be affected by rising temperatures, be careful that you don't raise the fridge temp too much.

A fridge needs to be at 2-4°C. A hot dish can raise it over that temperature for long enough to affect other foods.

It’s ironic people are worried about raising the temperature of the fridge a few degrees but not worried about leaving food out in much higher temperatures.

You poor soul! He was horrible to you when you were putting so much love and effort into something, he was selfish, lazy, then blamed you for it all. You’d think he’d care about his parents as well, but evidently not. I’m so glad you do!

It’s ironic people are worried about raising the temperature of the fridge a few degrees but not worried about leaving food out in much higher temperatures.

Look, Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation sometimes back in the 1850s. A long cooked dish is basically sterile when it comes out of the oven and unless the husband opened the lid/foil and sneezed into it there was no microbial cell in there to grow, and if there were any the numbers would have been too small to grow to sufficient concentration to cause issue in the time available, and it all would be reheated and microbes killed/(some) toxins deactivated anyway. In a fridge, however, there is plenty of food that doesn't get reheated and maybe never has been heated, so carries a higher microbial load to start with, and if you increase their temperature, things will start to grow.

You shouldnt need to tell an adult to put it in the fridge. Both of you should have thought that needs to go in the fridge before bed....but, as you had cooked all night he should have done the locking up before going to bed & spotted it. That said, it would have been totally fine to eat if reheated properly (reading these replies I dread to think how much food is wasted). The food is a separate issue to his idiotic behaviour.

Exactly this. Honestly. I've never had food poisoning in my life from food cooked in my home or my Mum's.

Sheesh ! You dont need his DM to visit.....she's already living in your house with her mental imprints steering his behaviour :o/ " how long is that going to stay on the counter for ?" How enraging ......and how ironic that was what blew the whole deal - how long the pork dish stayed on the counter for - deep sympathy OP

Well the pork isn't the issue no more risky than any other protein. The time this meal was left out is very excessive. The 2 hour 4 hour rule of the PHLS was based on solid bacteriology. The organisms that could have grown include Salmonella many types, Clostridium perfringens, Bacillus cereus, Camplylobacter and others. Salmonella, Camplylobacter are easily killed if the reheat was thorough and exceeded 70 Celsius. The others are toxin producers and spore formers and Bacillus cerus toxin, if my memory serves me correct can survive temperatures as high as 180 Celsius hence . This meal would be a food poisoning risk pretty much in line with the comments made by others. It would be effective if you want to lose a lot of weight rapidly, unfortunately you may end up in the hands of the NHS.

YABVU. I would never put freshly cooked hot food into the fridge! It would have been fine to cool down on the side under foil overnight and then go in the fridge when you got up. And people on their 60s are not frail or "elderly" - what rubbish.

I don't understand why you cooked the day before anyway. I wouldn't serve any guests reheated food, not for food hygiene reasons but just because it's nicer to cook something fresh - otherwise you might as well give them a ready meal. You could have prepped something quicker to cook from the fridge/freezer on the day.

Where are all these pathogens coming from in a fully cooked (practically sterile) and covered dish? @gregaliara

Totally depends on the recipe. Loads of dishes are better the next day.

Possibly curry/stew but I would still rather give guests something freshly made!

but just because it's nicer to cook something fresh - otherwise you might as well give them a ready meal.

You seem to not 'get' cooking. So many dishes are better prepared in advance.

OP, I often see both people’s point of view, but not this time. He was behaving appallingly the whole time. I can hardly believe his grande finale was to tell his parents not to come— what a tantrum!

Are you sure you want to have children with this man?

Incidentally, as an over-60, I am pretty fit and active, but I have nowhere near the same resistance to bugs that I had in my 30s. A bout of food-poisoning would be dangerous as well as horrible.

So basically before fridges we were taking our lives in our hands every time we sat down to dinner !!

Raising the temperature of the fridge would potentially render everything in it risky to eat, so yes. The food was freshly cooked and hot. It was cooked late at night and would have taken hours to cool down properly. Put in the fridge early next morning it would have been fine. No wonder we have so much food waste if peopled are willing to throw a freshly cooked meal away a few hours after taking it out of the oven.

Rosscameasdoody
So basically before fridges we were taking our lives in our hands every time we sat down to dinner !!
The explanations were many. Ptomaine poisoning was a fun one because the food was off. Yes people die from gastro the number of children especially in Africa who died from so called gastro, dysentery was massive so your point is not well thought out. My background would be regarded as v/knowledgeable as I investigated many outbreaks and published some and some were used in training health officers doing their degrees. I was also a speaker in courses in public health in a major hospital for many years. So your point is misleading.

I never said anything about spontaneous generation. I said in a previous post that as long as the dish was left covered and untouched then there wouldn't be anything to grow. I was referring to the posters saying things like this:

Even if microorganisms did waft onto the surface of the food after it cooled down - hours later, they are highly unlikely to be pathogenic and equally unlikely over-night to have undergone enough cell division /toxin production to cause problems.

I don’t think it would have been fully cooled anyway to go in the fridge at night so I think it will be fine.
have u thought of getting a slow cooker at all?
this way you can prep everything and it cooks whilst you are working ready to serve when u get home from work

I read that as: Was there a reason you were not cooking him?

YABU. For talking about serving to his parents who are in their 60’s like that makes them aged and more prone to gastro illness. They are not old.
Unless they are unwell with some immunocompromise that you haven’t disclosed then they are at no greater risk than you and DH. I would have thrown the food out because food safety affects all.

Yes, refrigerate in the morning and thoroughly reheat. No drama. And in your 60s is not old, frail, immuno-compromised..... (speaking as a 63 Yr old)