S/O Childhood Food-Safety Scars

[Cecropia]

The deep-freeze thread got me thinking... My parents scarred me for life with their food handling practices.  I still feel like I take my life into my own hands when I eat a meal at home.  I'm sure that this is a huge reason why I am so paranoid/meticulous about meal preparation and hand washing.

 

When they thaw frozen meat, they just leave it on the counter overnight or longer.  Even a frozen ham or turkey is thawed this way.  After a meal is cooked, it sits out on the stove/counter for hours and hours until someone finally gets around to putting it away.  Or maybe it sits long enough to be used for the next meal.  If the cook is sick, he/she still has no qualms about constantly tasting and getting their germs in the food.  Hand washing means wiping your hands on the dish towel (sometimes a brief few-seconds scrub of soap if you're lucky).  Making cookies or cake?  We'd always eat the raw batter...

 

But my parents are really hardy, they could probably count on one hand the times they've ever gotten sick from a home cooked meal (the majority of meals).  Honestly, I don't remember getting sick from meals at home, and I'm sure they handled food the same way then.  As an adult, I've had some real fights with them when I've been pregnant or my kids were really young and I didn't feel like the food they were being given was safe.  My parents don't understand why I get so worked up about it, and obviously they won't change the way they do things.  Why would they?  They don't ever get sick from it.  It's really quite amazing that they still get away with this, even in their 70's now with various health problems.

[Ravin]

Standard food safety protocols are overzealous CYA measures that keep lawyers as well as public health officials happy.

 

Your parents' habits in their home kitchen obviously aren't a problem, particularly when they have clean sources for that food to begin with.

[Guest]

Well I thaw our meat in hot water in the sink and none of us have ever gotten sick. That's also not proper food handling technique!

[JustEm]

I cook the same way as your parents aside from thoroughly washing and when handling raw meat. Raw cookie dough is the best! My parents cook this way as well. I never got sick as a child and haven't as an adult either.

[JustEm]

Oh I also don't thaw meat on the counter

[Guest]

I'm pretty much the same as your parents. :/

[bettyandbob]

I grew up with similar food handling practices. We didn't get sick. 

 

dh worked in his college cafeteria and so our home food handling is a little tighter than my parents. 

 

Of the things I worry about, my parents' food handling is pretty low. 

[Guest]

I grew up with similar food handling practices. We didn't get sick.

 

dh worked in his college cafeteria and so our home food handling is a little tighter than my parents.

 

Of the things I worry about, my parents' food handling is pretty low.

And in an institutional setting there is a lot more chance for cross contact and contamination of food left out too long during prep or areas not properly sanitized - that's much less of a risk in a home kitchen.

[Cecropia]

Well, it looks like I'm in the minority on this.  I don't follow the USDA perfectly with food handling either... sometimes I'll put semi-frozen meat under hot water to finish thawing quickly, but that's for a short period of time and it gets cooked immediately afterwards.

 

But isn't the science pretty clear that bacterial counts on raw meat are significantly affected by handling and thawing methods?  The percentage of already-contaminated meats at the average grocery store (including the rise of drug-resistant bacteria)?  The benefits of hand washing with raw meat juices, household illnesses?  The bacterial growth rate on cooked foods left at room temperature all day?  My parents don't get sick, and lots of people do what they do and don't get sick, but those are all anecdotes...

[AnnE-girl]

I'm with you. I'm not perfect, but I wash my hands religiously and I'm pretty careful about food being left out. I do thaw in the counter, but only for a short time and it's usually just ground beef that I start cooking when it's partially still frozen anyway. I'm not doing that with a roast or whole chicken.

[ktgrok]

Part of the issue is that say, salmonella wasn't a widespread issue until factory farming practices came into existence. When you parents were young, it wasn't a problem to worry about. Food safety rules changed because circumstances changes. 

[skimomma]

I also grew up with what I have come to learn is a lot of potentially unsafe practices.  Counter-thawed meat and all.  I don't believe I ever suffered from food poisoning so either I am very hardy or those practices are less dangerous as we are led to believe.  I still get twitchy when eating anything my mom prepares because it has for sure only gotten worse over time.  When she put a bottle of salad dressing on the table that expired in 2008 during our last visit, I knew we had to start watching more carefully.

 

That said, I do things that are not "recommended."  We don't eat meat so we miss all of those issues.  But I do leave things out on the counter like big pots of soup or rice or beans to cool until I feel like they will not heat up the whole fridge.  I cook 16 cups of rice at a time and tossing that in the fridge while still hot has got to be putting all of the food in the fridge at risk.  I have no issue eating expired food (within reason) as long as is smells and tastes fine.  I also neglect to put things like mustard and pickles in the cooler when camping since I have so little cooler space and it hasn't killed us yet.  I have been known to keep home-canned goods for up to two years and will still eat them.  Hopefully I will not go down a linear slide as I age so that I too put salad dressing that expired almost a decade ago on the table.

[Annie G]

My dad and inlaws have more 'tummy upset' days than they should and I suspect it's a combo of poor food prep and eating things that have been in the fridge too long.  My inlaws' fridge is NOT cool enough due to a damaged gasket. But they absolutely refuse to replace it because 'it works'. 

 

Both still thaw meat on the counter, and while I don't think they are using worse methods than when we were kids, their immune systems don't seem able to tolerate food that's a little iffy. 

[Ausmumof3]

I am somewhat careful because I'm prone to gastro and I don't wanna deal with it. But if you follow all the guidelines all the time you never eat. If I've remembered I pull stuff out to thaw in the fridge. If I forget I will thaw on the counter. It probably helps that we do our own meat that comes prepackaged and frozen back from the butcher so there is minimum time to get contaminated. I'm also pretty picky about any meat I do buy. But stuff gets left out for too long from time to time. If it's summer I'm more fussy. I figure when it's 7 degrees in the house anyway the fridge won't change much.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I'm honored to be spun off of :lol: I grew up with many of the same food practices. My parents still thaw meat on the top of the fridge so the dog won't get it, sometimes overnight. My mom believes that rinsing meat will save you from food poisoning. Food sits out after meals (though not usually long enough for the next meal). We always ate raw cookie dough, and they are tasters as well (they do wash hands before handling food though). 

 

I only thaw meat in the fridge or a water bath, but otherwise, I handle food pretty much the same way. Sometimes I make cookie dough JUST so we can eat it before baking! The only time I've ever had food poisoning was traced back to a bad batch of seafood dip from Costco (salmonella, ugh), and while I can't vouch for Costco's handling of it, I know we handled it correctly here at home, while three of us ate it, I was the only one who got sick (thank goodness!). I think that, in general, we're safer than we fear we are on the food handling front. That said, though, I still throw away more food than I like, just because I figure $10 is a small price to pay to possibly avoid food poisoning. 

 

I think I'm going to toss all that pork though. If it was beef or chicken, I might feel differently, but I really dislike pork. That's how it ended up not getting eaten in the first place. I tried a few different cuts in a few different ways and just couldn't make it palatable. Even the idea of eating pork kind of grosses me out, so three-year-old pork...even if I kept it, I suspect I still wouldn't manage to cook it! I'm definitely going to food waste hell *sigh*

[teachermom2834]

My mom always said that getting salmonella from undercooked chicken is an old wives tales 🙂

[Cecropia]

My husband told me his favorite pie was french silk, but he'd always get "the fake version" from Baker's Square.  Somewhere in our first few years of our marriage, I thought I'd wow him for his birthday with a "real" french silk pie, which is made with raw eggs.  I thought, "I grew up eating raw cookie dough all the time; I would even slowly eat down a ball of cookie dough for a week; I'll be super careful making this" etc.  And it turned out beautiful, he ate it fresh the day it was made, said it was delicious, and then got really sick... (I didn't touch it, not a huge fan of super-chocolate desserts...)

 

He has no desire to eat french silk pie ever again!  And now I look at anything containing raw eggs with a suspicious eye... but I have a favorite, favorite buttermilk sugar cookie dough that I make once a year for Christmas that I must eat, whatever the consequences!

[DawnM]

I grew up in Africa.

 

Our food handling was often worse than what you are posting, and it wasn't all by us, but by the homes we went to.  We survived.  All of us did.  There were deaths from other things, but not from food.

[kiana]

Yeah, same, thawing meat on the counter, leaving food on the counter unless it's super hot. As a result I'm incredibly casual about my own food -- my own stomach seems to be able to digest anything without issue and I've eaten some stuff that I know was going off and that I would never recommend anyone else eat -- however, I'm super careful with anything that I'm making for anyone else. I've had some friends with very touchy stomachs. 

[Annie G]

My husband told me his favorite pie was french silk, but he'd always get "the fake version" from Baker's Square.  Somewhere in our first few years of our marriage, I thought I'd wow him for his birthday with a "real" french silk pie, which is made with raw eggs.  I thought, "I grew up eating raw cookie dough all the time; I would even slowly eat down a ball of cookie dough for a week; I'll be super careful making this" etc.  And it turned out beautiful, he ate it fresh the day it was made, said it was delicious, and then got really sick... (I didn't touch it, not a huge fan of super-chocolate desserts...)

 

He has no desire to eat french silk pie ever again!  And now I look at anything containing raw eggs with a suspicious eye... but I have a favorite, favorite buttermilk sugar cookie dough that I make once a year for Christmas that I must eat, whatever the consequences!

 

I'm guilty- I make French Silk with raw eggs. I don't recall anyone ever getting sick after eating it, and our kids grew up eating raw cookie dough and licking cake batter from the bowl.  I'm sure if any of us ever got sick we'd probably swear off raw eggs. 

[AnnE-girl]

I'm guilty- I make French Silk with raw eggs. I don't recall anyone ever getting sick after eating it, and our kids grew up eating raw cookie dough and licking cake batter from the bowl. I'm sure if any of us ever got sick we'd probably swear off raw eggs.

I have a couple recipes that call for barely cooking eggs, so I spend the extra money and buy the pasturized eggs for those. That makes me feel a little bit better.

[BarbecueMom]

I have an incredibly weak stomach. I could probably get food poisoning from bottled water. DH came home from work today and said he was queasy and had a headache. It's from sinus drainage, but the word "queasy" was enough to keep me from even attempting to eat dinner.

 

That being said, I do thaw vacuum-sealed meat packages in the sink or counter during the day, like bacon or sausage or ground beef, if I'm going to be home to keep an eye on it. Shrink wrapped stuff or overnight thaws go in the fridge.

 

My mom would (and probably still does) wipe raw chicken juices up off the counter with a dry paper towel. Needless to say, between that and my stomach issues, I don't do chicken at all anymore.

[goldberry]

Part of the issue is that say, salmonella wasn't a widespread issue until factory farming practices came into existence. When you parents were young, it wasn't a problem to worry about. Food safety rules changed because circumstances changes. 

 

Yes, this.  

[kubiac]

Food is not trying to kill you. 

 

Use your senses to see if anything looks wrong, smells wrong or feels wrong. Cook food if it needs to be cooked. Wash stuff with soap if it looks dirty. The end.

[Debbi in Texas]

I remember many times my mom would send one of us outside to put a pound of ground beef on the fence post to thaw.  She no longer does that, but we never got sick.

[Stacia]

When I was a kid, my aunt once set a package of meat on her back bumper to thaw. Then all of us went out somewhere & it wasn't until we came out of the store that she saw (& remembered) that she had put the meat there to thaw! :lol: (Uh, I guess she probably used it for the dinner she fixed us that night...?)

 

I'm probably in the sturdy camp because my mom always had almost no sense of smell. My sister was a picky eater. My dad traveled a lot due to work. So, whenever my mom suspected something was spoiling or going bad, I was called in to do the smell/taste test. I hated having to smell sour milk (among other things)! :tongue_smilie:  Oh well, I've lived to tell about it. (I have suffered through a couple of bouts of food poisoning in my life, but those were due to food from outside places.)

[frogger]

We haven't been sick from food poisoning other than once on vacation from eating out. I do bleach after cutting pork or chicken from the store but just use dish soap with moose or fish. I'm slightly paranoid and more cautious with seafood outside of fish and I'm paranoid and zealous about my canning protocol but raw eggs, no problem. Rare beef? Mmmmm I thaw on the counter or force thaw in warm water provided I'm trying to cook it then. I test things and sm willing to eat things that are expired provided it is in a reasonable amount of time.

[MaeFlowers]

I don't know. My Mom thawed meat the way you are saying and it wasn't an issue. Red meat was put in a cold oven to thaw and chicken was thawed in cold water. I still do the same thing. Of course, we both wash our hands when handling raw meat and try to prevent cross contamination.

 

It can also go the other way,though. You can be too paranoid about food. My MIL is this way. She avoids a lot of food that she believes could possibly cause her food poisoning. She also makes sure all meat is cooked to within a inch of charcoal. Even still, she has more food borne illnesses than anyone I know. Anyway...she passed her paranoia on to my ds. It took while for me to convince him that things were okay. He's finally eating eggs again after about 7 years.

[regentrude]

I grew up with similar food practices as you describe, and cannot recall anybody ever getting sick. Consequently, I tend not to worry overly much about food safety; the recommendations and what we consider "necessary" these days obviously has immense margins.

Edited July 26, 2016 by regentrude

[SparklyUnicorn]

I do all of that.  I don't recall anyone getting sick from food here.  Only thing I do do regularly is wash my hands the proper way.  Whenever I come home from shopping or wherever, first thing I wash my hands. I wash my hands when handling any raw meat and several times while preparing food.  I also use a meat thermometer for most meat so I don't have to guess or wonder. 

A lot of the safety stuff is most necessary in an institutional setting where you have multiple people handling the food and a wide variety of people with various levels of healthiness. 

 

I do have a few instances where I'm more cautious.  For example, I tend to be more careful when thawing meat on the counter or leaving food out all day when it's very hot in the house. 

[PrincessMommy]

I do a lot of similar things as your parents.  The reason I leave cooked food out for a few hours is because I want it to cool before putting it in the cold fridge.  The the exception of some accidents, I don't generally leave it overnight.

 

I defrost my meat on the counter and sometimes I do it in a warm water bath (still in it's plastic wrap).

[Guest]

I avoid food that sits out. My in laws like to make lasagna and mayo based salads and let them sit out overnight, in the garage, before serving and if any is leftover. The ingredients usually sit in the car while the preparer is at work, no cooler. Any frozen food item is also in the car, then refrozen, then heated up and served.There is no hand washing or counter washing before food prep. We have all had mild food poisoning, so now we eat before we go.we take a token something that someone who knows how to safely prep food has made. We do not eat dip, as several do not safely share. The pinkeye, the runs, the vomiting...we arent participating.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I avoid food that sits out. My in laws like to make lasagna and mayo based salads and let them sit out overnight, in the garage, before serving and if any is leftover. The ingredients usually sit in the car while the preparer is at work, no cooler. Any frozen food item is also in the car, then refrozen, then heated up and served.There is no hand washing or counter washing before food prep. We have all had mild food poisoning, so now we eat before we go.we take a token something that someone who knows how to safely prep food has made. We do not eat dip, as several do not safely share. The pinkeye, the runs, the vomiting...we arent participating.

 

LOL...ok that's a bit much.  I don't think I'd eat any of that either.

[kewb]

The deep-freeze thread got me thinking... My parents scarred me for life with their food handling practices.  I still feel like I take my life into my own hands when I eat a meal at home.  I'm sure that this is a huge reason why I am so paranoid/meticulous about meal preparation and hand washing.

 

When they thaw frozen meat, they just leave it on the counter overnight or longer.  Even a frozen ham or turkey is thawed this way.  After a meal is cooked, it sits out on the stove/counter for hours and hours until someone finally gets around to putting it away.  Or maybe it sits long enough to be used for the next meal.  If the cook is sick, he/she still has no qualms about constantly tasting and getting their germs in the food.  Hand washing means wiping your hands on the dish towel (sometimes a brief few-seconds scrub of soap if you're lucky).  Making cookies or cake?  We'd always eat the raw batter...

 

But my parents are really hardy, they could probably count on one hand the times they've ever gotten sick from a home cooked meal (the majority of meals).  Honestly, I don't remember getting sick from meals at home, and I'm sure they handled food the same way then.  As an adult, I've had some real fights with them when I've been pregnant or my kids were really young and I didn't feel like the food they were being given was safe.  My parents don't understand why I get so worked up about it, and obviously they won't change the way they do things.  Why would they?  They don't ever get sick from it.  It's really quite amazing that they still get away with this, even in their 70's now with various health problems.

 

 

You probably souldn't eat at my house. 

I leave meat to that won the counter all the time.  A ham or a turkey I thaw in the fridge. 

I will leave a meal sitting out for hours and hours and use it at the next meal.  Overnight only happens by accident.

Hand washing-unless raw meat was involved it may or may not involve soap.

Raw batter is the best.  In fairness, I use farm fresh eggs not eggs from the grocery store.

 

No one has gotten sick from eating in our house.  My mother does the same as I (where else would I learn my food habits), along with her mother, and so on.

 

I had more of an issue with my mil feeding my kids fake fat free food when they were little.  I would rather something cooked from scratch then that garbage she feeds us. If my mil does cook something from scratch she is all over safety protocols.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

_{Confession: I make mayonnaise with raw eggs... on purpose.}  

 

 

[kewb]

I avoid food that sits out. My in laws like to make lasagna and mayo based salads and let them sit out overnight, in the garage, before serving and if any is leftover. The ingredients usually sit in the car while the preparer is at work, no cooler. Any frozen food item is also in the car, then refrozen, then heated up and served.There is no hand washing or counter washing before food prep. We have all had mild food poisoning, so now we eat before we go.we take a token something that someone who knows how to safely prep food has made. We do not eat dip, as several do not safely share. The pinkeye, the runs, the vomiting...we arent participating.

 

I wouldn't eat that either.  There is a difference between letting something cool on the counter before putting in the fridge and leaving mayo based stufff sitting out in a garage or in a car.

[SparklyUnicorn]

In the dead of winter, I often keep pots of soup on the enclosed porch.  It's so cold it freezes.  It's nice because it's extra fridge/freezer space.

 

 

[Guest]

I wouldn't eat that either. There is a difference between letting something cool on the counter before putting in the fridge and leaving mayo based stufff sitting out in a garage or in a car.

It makes one realizes how hot the interior of a car is on a sunny day, even in winter. I know if the ground beef is frozen before use, it helps, but still.....

 

Then add in the lack of handwashing combined with the fake fingernails...we like to propose chinese takeout! The owner trains his workers in food safety and no one we know has been sick from his food.

[regentrude]

_{Confession: I make mayonnaise with raw eggs... on purpose.}  

 

How else would you make mayonnaise?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

How else would you make mayonnaise?

 

The alternative is to not make mayo and just buy the weird stuff in a jar.

[fairfarmhand]

I do thaw in the sink but keep an eye on the meat. When it's mostly thawed it goes back in the fridge.

 

I don't bleach anything in the kitchen. I clean with hot soapy water. I started doing this when I learned of all the bacteria that bleach doesn't kill.

 

The only time anyone;s gotten sick from food was when it was not from my kitchen.

 

(I take it back. I forgot about the infamous Chicken Chili when the crock pot malfunctioned and my brother, who was babysitting, fed it to everyone even though the beans were slightly firm and it just wasn't hot. )

[kiana]

In the dead of winter, I often keep pots of soup on the enclosed porch.  It's so cold it freezes.  It's nice because it's extra fridge/freezer space.

 

My mother calls her porch her auxiliary fridge in wintertime :p

[MEmama]

Yep, that's how I grew up too.

 

I'll never forget my husband's horror at discovering a gigantic pot of chicken soup my folks were keeping on the work table in the garage because there wasn't enough space in the fridge. They ate on it for days. I'm not sure he's ever been so grateful to be vegetarian!

 

Of course, my mom also use to fix steak tartar (raw beef) which we all loved. I can't fathom it now, but it was always a treat. No food was off limits in her kitchen (homemade head cheese, rattlesnake my brother killed in the backyard, cow tongue) and I doubt any expiration dates were ever upheld. I grew up believing cheese was supposed to have a moldy crust.

 

It's no wonder I always answer Yes to the "would you eat this?" threads! Lol.

[regentrude]

 I grew up believing cheese was supposed to have a moldy crust.

 

Good cheese often is supposed to have a moldy crust, LOL.

[MEmama]

Good cheese often is supposed to have a moldy crust, LOL.

Yes, I know the difference. It was ALL cheese.

[purplejackmama]

_{Confession: I make mayonnaise with raw eggs... on purpose.}

You.are.a.WILD.women.

[tm919]

How else would you make mayonnaise?

I can't remember where people are located, but if Monica in Switzerland is in Switzerland (that sounded so weird...)... I know eggs are processed differently in different places. Like in the U.S. eggs are washed, but in the E.U. that's illegal. I think there's something similar with how the chickens are vaccinated in the U.K. versus not in other places. 

 

Like someone above said, a lot has to do with the quality of what you get. Like in local grocery stores, if you get a steak & you don't check carefully, it might be two stuck together not a whole steak... which means if you sear it, there was a surface in there that wasn't seared. Ew.

[SparklyUnicorn]

One can buy pasteurized eggs (to use in mayo).  I don't though.

 

I usually buy jarred mayo.  Nothing really weird about it.  It's mayo.  Probably there are some preservatives which is ideal to me because I really don't want to make it every day.

 

 

Edited July 26, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[Wheres Toto]

I'm wondering why you were traumatized if nobody ever got sick? What made you start questioning their practices to such an extent that your "scared for life"?

 

We follow some of those practices (although dh is the cook not me).  Meat thawed on the counter, raw cookie dough, leftovers put away eventually, etc.  Nobody gets sick.

 

I agree on the car thing though - ick.  We don't leave meat or egg based stuff in the car for any length of time at all unless it's the middle of winter (like leftovers from eating out if going to a movie).

[SparklyUnicorn]

I'm wondering why you were traumatized if nobody ever got sick? What made you start questioning their practices to such an extent that your "scared for life"?

 

We follow some of those practices (although dh is the cook not me).  Meat thawed on the counter, raw cookie dough, leftovers put away eventually, etc.  Nobody gets sick.

 

I agree on the car thing though - ick.  We don't leave meat or egg based stuff in the car for any length of time at all unless it's the middle of winter (like leftovers from eating out if going to a movie).

 

I wondered the same, but I assume she was making a joke/being sarcastic?