Right, I know this is terrible.

[Devilsspeckywhore]

But I'm due for a Xmas Eve dinner with my MIL in a couple hours. She is an excellent cook. The thing is, I don't see her washing her hands before she prepares food. I know it's not the end of the world but her food has made me sick in the past and I just can't handle this. What am I meant to do. I can't back out at this point. It was agreed we would be getting a takeaway. I think I'm going to embarrass myself pushing the food about and not eating it. She is always trying to feed me and I don't know how to bring this up !

You really urgently need to get professional help with your health anxiety. What you have written here is really nuts.

You are the one who has made you unwell, not your MIL’s cooking.

It literally wouldn’t occur to me to ask if someone had washed their hands before cooking. Its completely irrational: even if she hadn’t washed her hands the heat of the oven would kill the germs anyway.

You’re not thinking straight. Get through tonight/Christmas and get some help. For your family’s sake.

Just me

Then, kindly, this really is a ‘you’ problem.

Your more likely to get food poisoning from uncooked food than you are through someone not washing there hands enough, though it is important to wash hands after touching raw meat/fish.

Most bacteria from hands would be killed in the cooking process. I think you are probably over thinking it. A take away is far more risky and causes a lot more cases of food poisoning than Xmas dinner does 😉.

I don't think it's irrational it's the normal thing to do to clean your hands before preparing food no and not doing it makes me feel sick their fingers in it all germy

Thanks anyway for handing me a bit of a grip ! I'm going to eat the dinner

If no one else has been sick after eating her food then it's not the food. It;'s almost certainly down to your opinion of her hygiene. Please do get help with this as it must be a daily struggle and mental health issues can have as much impact on your physical health as physical health issues themselves can. I do wonder a bit why you are so fixated on her however, because you're happy to have a takeaway but you have no idea how clean the people preparing that are.

It's awful to be suffering with OCD around contamination. It consumes your mind if you behave as if the fears are true and instead of getting to enjoy the moment you are locked in a cycle of fear. Do you have diagosed OCD?

I suppose it's because she is almost aggressively trying to make me eat her food and she is not washing her hands it kind of just makes me mad or something

A) she might have washed before you arrived
B) take away chefs might give less of a shit
C) cooking kills the germs
D) your fears are irrational
E) seek help in the new year
F) best of luck to you

Stop being ridiculous then.

Do you seriously stand in the kitchen and watch her every second ehole she's cooking? I'm sure she does wash her hands.

Was anybody else ill the one time you were sick?

What on earth has that got to do with the rest of your anxiety? Are the pets helping out too?
am actually heartened of the sensible level of posters so far, had expected a feeding of your anxiety!

Yup. I am a very fussy eater, and I live in an officially developing nation. MIL lives with us, and she has some real odd ideas about food hygiene. It has taken years for her to change some her cultural ways. You would not want to see the local wet markets.

Hand washing in the domestic environment has never crossed my mind. Much bigger potential issues.

Sorry to digress, just trying to figure out why handwashing is the issue.

I dint think I’ve ever seen anyone wash their haves - it’s not something I would notice. I assume they are as hygienic as anyone else. Don’t you think your previous illness was a coincidence and nothing to do with her? Otherwise wouldn’t she be making everyone sick?

I could not count how many times I have eaten friends' or relatives' food over the years. Have I ever seen them wash their hands? Well, possibly, sometimes, but I simply could not say for sure.
This is a you problem OP, (and is it the only one you have concerning food or eating?) so you probably need to get help for it .

I’m sorry you feel this way, and I completely understand. I have emetophobia and it can be all consuming, this time of year is worse . I’ve no advice, but you have my sympathy

I'm an electrician and often find myself repairing ovens etc in restaurant and takeaway kitchens - trust me, you don't want to know!!!

I used to work in food preparation. Don’t eat out.

her food has made me sick in the past

But that's not true, is it? Your OCD made you sick by thinking about germs. Because if it were her food that was "poisoned", others would be sick too, and they weren't.

Poor MIL.

Do you ever check the food hygiene ratings for restaurants or takeaways before using them? If not, your MIL not washing her hands is insignificant.

I used to be a quality controller at dairy crest (cheese) years ago. We all had the food and hygiene courses.

Part of my job was to, every now and then go round all the workers after the dinner break and get them to dip their finger tips into a petri dish. All petri dishes went into an incubator for a couple of weeks.

The results were mind blowing. We were trained to recognise all types of mould. We knew when unwashed hands had urine/nicotine on etc.

Not surprisingly, nearly all the women's were clear and it was always the mens that were utterly rank. Sometimes the mould grew so much it almost pushed the lids off.

Even more surprisingly, it hasn't stopped me eating cheese.

Cooking does NOT kill germs! Have you never heard of heat resistant bacteria?! If cooking killed germs then food poisoning would rarely occur if ever! I can’t believe people actually think like this 🤦🏻‍♀️😆

You threw up because of your neurosis, not her cooking.

Whatever she had on her hands would have been destroyed by the heat of cooking. And unless she’d gone straight from changing a baby’s nappy or clearing dog poo from the garden to cooking, her hands aren’t going to be contaminated any more than yours are.

You're winding yourself up.

Have you posted about not being able to eat anyone else’s cooking before?

Yes but

a) you don’t know she hasn’t washed her hands - you can’t be with her all the time
b) even if she hasn’t, its a bit gross at an intellectual level but its extremely unlikely to make you ill enough you would vomit - any microbes transferred to the food from her hands would be killed by the heat
c) you being ill before was either your neurosis or a coincidence

The fact that its only ever you getting sick and no one else is very instructive.

Have you got children? You really need to deal with this so you don’t pass it on to them. Its really limiting and debilitating.

Err... yes it does. In 99% of cases.

The bacteria which can cause an issue in rice are about the only ones you are likely to come across which are not killed by cooking. Which is why you are advised not to reheat rice which has been left at ambient temperature.

It is also why you are advised to make sure meat like chicken is cooked through, and to make sure that ready meals are heated to piping hot all the way through. To kill any bacteria.

I can't believe people don't know that...