Was my request reasonable or was he right to storm off?

[Unsurree]

I just don’t know if I am the problem. In a nutshell we bought raw bacon to put in nets to fish for crabs. DH was putting the raw bacon in while dd 3 was watching.

Affer he filled the net and put it in the water so dd could hold it, I asked him if he would go into the pub opposite to wash his hands.

He got really cross and stormed off muttering. There’s lots of moments like this and I just wonder if it’s me?! I don’t think it is but I would welcome other perspectives as he clearly thinks I’m unreasonable. For context I work full time as does DH but I am fully responsible for dd in the week due to the hours he works. I therefore try to avoid unnecessary risk of illness as there’s already lots of time off I have to take for sickness bugs etc and I thought it was a small thing to do to wash hands to be safe. AIBU?

I agree with the OP, if it once oinked and it’s not fully cooked yet, wash your hands with soap and hot water not seawater. The sea is not sterile because it contains salt! Seawater contains salt (which doesn’t kill most food‑borne bacteria), sand and organic muck, marine bacteria and viruses, bird poo, fish poo, human runoff… the whole buffet. Seawater will remove visible grease because the water movement helps, but it won’t kill or reliably remove pathogens from raw bacon.

Even cured meats like bacon can carry harmful bacteria, including Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus aureus.

Curing slows bacterial growth; it does not sterilise the meat. Bacon is still classed as raw pork until it’s cooked. Food safety guidance in the UK, US, EU, well everywhere, treats bacon as raw meat.

@RedWineCupcakes The ancient Israelites did not have access to parasiticides, vaccines or antibiotics.

That doesn't mean it's safe to eat raw pork today, or that it's OK to get an infection.

While I still wouldn't encourage eating raw pork, the reasons that eating it has historically been a problem are largely eliminated through modern farming practices.

This statement is categorically incorrect. Eating raw pork carries infection risks and it has not been eliminated by "modern farming practices."

I get the feeling that you're one of those people who thinks that "modern practices" is a magic wand that means that bad things don't happen to people anymore. On the contrary, modern farming practices have increased the risk of animals transmitting diseases (not decreased), so much so that antibiotics are routinely given to farm animals to prevent infections.

Kind of took the fun out of it. Do you make him wash his hands after picking up every crab too? There where probably more germs on the handle to the pub toilet than the bacon tbh. Surely he could have just rinsed his hands in the sea or with a baby wipe while you where crabbing and then given them a good clean at the end?

If those who say you're unreasonable want to have raw meat smeared on them, then fine. But I'm 100% with you @Unsurree it is beyond mining to not wash hands after handling raw meat esp with a young child. The least he could have done is used sanitiser, but even that's afar 2nd place to a proper hand-wash.

Many numbskulls seem to have learnt nothing from covid.

But hes going to stick his hands in the sea and handle 🦀 doesnt make any sense to wash them half way through

Oh dont be silly - covid was a virus that threatened us that we had no defense against

He is putting his hands in the sea and on crabs - youll be saying he needs to wear gloves next

far more germs on a toilet door handle than on a bit of bacon

there is no need for all the mass histeria, and comparing to covid..well im gonna use that word..batshit

But hes putting his hands straight back in the sea with your endless list of bad things so wait till after hes done makes more sense

Do the crabs count as raw meat too?

Hes an adult! Nothing to do with mysogeny

he had to go somewhere else to do it, breaking the fun - when hes just going ti be touching the sea and bacon and 🦀 again!

unfortunately when you treat someone like a child they end up acting like it

Live bait

no im thinking 🦀 💩 on your hands 🤣🤣

Sorry, are we talking about a grown man or one of your children? I'd be annoyed if someone told me to go and wash my hands too. If I wanted them washed, I'd wash them.

I agree with all you're saying.
On a side note, I recently interviewed a couple of microbiologists about the raw milk trend and one thing they mentioned was that they both had drunk unpasteurised milk on farms when they were children.
However, they said they absolutely would not do it now because, thanks to rising antimicrobial resistance, unpasteurised milk is much less safe than it was when they were children.
Many pathogens are now resistant to colistin which is a last resort antibiotic ie you are supposed to only use it when you have exhausted other antibiotic options. It becomes challenging to treat pathogens when they are resistant to all the antibiotics in the toolkit. If you have a healthy immune system you MIGHT pull through, but please remember that children and the elderly are more vulnerable.

I would have gone to the pub to wash my hands and do what I was told. And then I'd have stayed at the pub. For a very long time.

Indeed, thank you. Also worth noting that it's not just the antimicrobial resistance, but also, other aspects of modern farming that make raw milk unsafe.

Kind of sad how raw milk used to be a lot safer to consume, but now can't be consumed because modern farming has made milk so unsafe without pasteurisation.

Nah, I wouldn't want him touching anything after he'd handled raw bacon to be honest! YANBU!

I'm immunocompromised and a bit neurotic about this stuff, but I wouldn't have done that in the way I'm picturing the situation. The raw bacon isn't any dirtier than the crabs, the water, the general surrounding coastline that he'd be touching where birds poo etc. And going into pubs to rinse your hands is awkward unless you're right next to it.

So it makes more sense to either:

1. give them a quick rinse in the sea if it's accessible and carry on
2. for him to just try to not get his hands utterly covered in bacon and just wipe them on something
3. use some sort of utensil or stick or whatever to avoid getting all bacon handsy

If you couldn't get to the sea, didn't have any hand sanitiser or anything to wipe hands on, or a bottle of water, and he's standing there with a significant amount of actual bacon slime/bits on his hands, I get it.

Next time I'm sure the crabs would be just as happy with cooked ham.

Whether he's being a dick or not depends entirely on how you said it (rudely or in a friendly 'do you want me to hold that while you wash your hands' kind of way).

I suspect this is one of many incidents where you've completely ruined a family moment.
You knew you had raw bacon why not take sanitiser and hand-wash to wash in the water .

@shuggles

I said 'largely eliminated', not completely.
I also said I wouldn't encourage eating raw pork. There have been no cases of trichinosis from pork in the UK in over 40 years.
And no farmers do not use routine preventive antibiotics. It is no longer permitted in UK.

We have something called the sheep wash its a stream /river people go to and its surrounded by sheep with sheep in the water hence the name toddlers babies adults and everything beyond and between . You would have a fit .

I wouldn't have eaten anything before washing my hands, but I probably would have waited until I'd finished the activity to wash them (to wash off the sea/estuary/net/crab/residual bacon in the empty net bugs.
So I do think you were a bit U to expect him to interrupt the crabbing to go and wash his hands. The pub landlord might also have thought it a bit U for non-customers to come in to use the facilities - better to go in at the end, wash hands and buy a drink.

Did he have to go and wash his hands every single time ? Anyone who has crabbed knows you spend the whole time adding the bacon when it falls off or adjusting it when you get a crab. Just all try to not lick your hands and when the activity is over all go to the pub wash your hands and have a drink. I think the issue is expecting him to do it at the beginning and on own.

Amazing how we’ve cured (see what I did there - "cured" as in cured bacon) so many diseases, yet somehow raw pork still isn’t a recommended hand moisturiser.

Modern farming has improved a lot, but parasites and bacteria in pork have NOT been eliminated. The sea hasn’t improved, its gone downhill mainly due to us!

So the idea that “modern farming solved it” is… optimistic.

Surely you had wet wipes or hand sanitizer? Ordering him to the pub is a bit OTT and pointless if you are doing a dirty activity like crabbing.

It wasn’t a very mature response from him but then you didn’t treat him like an adult so what do you expect?

"Breaking the fun" sounds like treating him like a child -- crabbing takes ages! It would have taken five minutes to go across the road, wash his hands, buy a packet of crisps and come back (i do think they should have had wipes with them instead but there you go).
I'm an adult and I wouldn't get offended if I had mucky hands and my partner reminded me to wash them 🤷‍♀️

If they are going crabbing they have accepted that they are going to be touching crabs and seawater (which could or could not be perfectly clean depending on where they were, but we don't know). People might agree or disagree but there's no need to add raw meat on top of that.