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

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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?

Practices being promoted or mentioned as low risks here are illegal under food safety regulations in the UK New Zealand Australia. The regs formulated as a result of the work of the UK Public Health Laboratory Service and pretty much adopted as detailed above in those countries. It does appear to me they should have posted on Mumsnet and with the expertise I am seeing here could have avoided adopting such silly regulations.

Presuming this is in relation to food produced in commercial premises. It is certainly not 'illegal' to eat food that has been out of the fridge overnight in your own home.

Well, luckily UK, New Zealand and Australia food safety regulations have no say over what I do in my own kitchen.
These rules were written to provide a simple and easy framework for commmercial kitchens, that everybody follows and everyone knows what to do without having to rely on their own or their colleagues judgement. And if something does go wrong and there is an outbreak of food poisoning, they can show that regulations were followed. In my own kitchen, where I know how something was prepared, covered and stored, I make my own decisions based on this knowledge.

Igneococcus SharonEllis
I will not be eating at your house ever you have an understandable but worrying lack of knowledge of bacteriology. The scenarios you paint are unsafe if you ran a restaurant or commercial food premises it would only be a matter of time before you were being fined or prosecution for unsafe food handling practices " Scary as hell. this quote "It would have been fine to cool down on the side under foil overnight and then go in the fridge when you got up."

I think it's safe to say that there's not much chance you'll be invited to the home of any of us ignoramuses, so no need to worry.

" Scary as hell. this quote "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 you still haven't told us which species of microorganism would rapidly grow at room temperature after having being boiled for two hours. You'd think it be rather famous like Deinococcus and its radiation resistance is rather famous.

Well you won't be coming to my house so we're all good then 😂

Play dumb, ring his mother and ask her if it's safe to leave pork out in a warm room overnight ... let his mother tell him

Absolutely right. But funnily enough in 50 years noone has had food poisoning after eating food I've cooked. And my children are very rarely sick compared to their peers. So, I'm good, thanks.

Also ask her about leaving it out in a cool room overnight, covered, and being put in the fridge very early in the morning.

Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus. Never forget post production cross contamination then re grow the contaminating bacteria. Then inadequate reheating especially large volumes. Enough of my efforts I'm used to educating food handlers cooks/chefs. And householders home cooks who swear they didn't cause a food poisoning outbreak in the home. It is embarrassing when its friends around for a meal. dealt with that as well.

How on earth do you think people coped in the days before fridges?

a) people ate less meat
b) people often preserved meat with salt etc
c) people did get ill - have you not noticed the improvements in life expectancy?
d) modern methods of agriculture and butchery involve a lot more cross contamination
e) many people these days are on immune suppressants as they have been found to help tackle certain conditions (people with my condition basically died within a couple of years of getting it before immune suppressing treatments started) .

It's quite sobering to realise how much ignorance there is even on a generally well educated forum like Mumsnet isn't it

My grandmother had a stewpot on the go pretty much all of the time. No fridge. Lived to 85, must have been a medical miracle.

Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus.
Not generally a problem in meat that has been long and thoroughly cooked which is what we are talking about here.

Well no, clearly the people who died of food poisoning didn't get to live till old age.

Everyone's bodies are different and then chance plays a factor too.

I mean my grandma smoked like a chimney from girlhood and lived till 92 🤷‍♀️

I mean, she didn't seem to kill off any of her extended family either. All of whom lived to be a ripe old age.

Humans have survived many millennia eating meat, trying their best not to waste food, without refrigeration. Let us apply teeny bit of common sense to this discussion.

For all of those millennia mass industrial farming methods weren't a thing. Nor were things like immune suppressant treatments

All my grandma's siblings lived to a ripe old age despite smoking like chimneys. I still don't use that as proof that smoking is fine.

Pork is much more safe to eat now, not less

Igneococcus.
You just failed bacteriology 101 not just failed you flunked: spore forming organisms have great survival and the toxins in several organism I listed are hard to destroy boil at 100 Celsius they are still present and that means if enough produced you are going to succumb. I herewith finish this education as I have failed to successfully educate.

Cannot believe the stuff on here, no wonder there's so much food waste in the UK!
It would've been fine to eat.

LOL, keep trying to patronise but I can assure you that you're the one who doesn't get cooking. Do you think a Michelin starred chef would reheat something they had made the day before to serve to clients? Thank God you won't be cooking for me any time this century.

Michelin starred chefs will have pre-prepared many aspects of the meal beforehand, from stocks to sauces and so on.

You ... seem to be proving my point 🫠