Why are people frightened of food ?

LydiaSophia

My Mum moved house a while back and found really out of date tins etc - we all ate them no problem.

I am 28 and I think it is the generation below me that have a morbid fear of food poinsoning. I will eat anything that is past it's sell by date providing it hasn't grown things and doesn't stink.

Best before dates are there as a guideline anyway!

The_Pink_Wafer

I wash my hands before and after cooking, I also wash my hands after handling raw meat. I don't let raw meat touch other food in the fridge and I also wipe down all surfaces before I start cooking.

Just common sense, I don't do anything else. I don't eat food if it smells bad or has mould on it, but I don't see any harm in eating out of date stuff if it looks and smells ok. Stuff in tins keeps for ages anyway, may as well eat it!

mirakl

I have a Canadian friend who couldn't believe it when she was eating with us and were all tearing off chunks of baguette without holding it with napkins so we didn't spread our hand germs onto it. She was telling me that North Americans are completely terrified of food, she left butter out of the fridge for an hour and that meant she had to throw it in the bin! I don't think I could cope with that level of terror, I'm careful, I don't mess around with raw chicken and don't take any unnecessary risks, however I'll still eat out of date food if I'm sure it's fine.

mcbiddy

i cook with my nose...anything that stinks (except perhaps cheese... yum!) i bin... or if it's developing some kind of fungal growth... in evolutionnary terms smell and taste are the two indicators of safety for food...
the thing is as long as you're careful and cook things properly, there should be no problem. I still wash my hands constantly when i cook but more for the sake of not injuring myself for poor grasp of the knife...

skystar

The other week at work I whipped a packet of Go Ahead biscuits (that had been languishing at the back of a cupboard) out my lunch bag with Best Before date of July 2006.

As I had thought they tasted absolutely fine but everyone was horrified that I was eating them. Most people I work with are probably aged between 25 and 30 :rolleyes:

I was not expected in the next day as they were all convinced I was going to have food poisoning :rotfl: :rotfl:

The next day I produced a packet of crisps with BB Sept 2006. Gasps again!

The thing is I eat very few crisps and biscuits that they do end up out of date but I refuse to waste anything so if it tastes all right then I will eat it

Back to the food safety issues in school. I am 27 and when I got Home Ec at school I remember there being a huge issue about how to wash dishes e.g. right temperature, order of dishes, when to change the water, etc. I remember thinking this is like teaching your granny to suck eggs!! We never did any proper cooking. They only things we made were crispie cakes and coleslaw. But no sharp knives were allowed so trying to cut cabbage with a blunt one was a nightmare!

Anyway I have rambled!

aurorahelios

Personally I find the statistics about hand washing (something like 33% don't wash after going to the toilet) a lot more scary than the use by dates on food. I use the looks ok, smells ok approach and we suffer very few stomach upsets.

IMO a lot of this food phobia comes from the ever increasing amount of processed food. I have a cousin who was fed a diet of processed food as a child, she has turned into an adult who won't touch out of date food, won't eat meat with bones in, lives on processed rubbish, is on a permanent diet and has at least one sickness bug a year. She is older than me so its not always about age but I was taught to cook and given decent home cooked food -I didn't appreciate it at the time but I do now.

Miss_Money

I think in general im the if it looks and smells and tastes ok then it is but seriously i think alot has been made of the cleaning products around and the heavy use of them is sweeping imunity from things away. Im not saying dont wash your hands after handleing meat (thats common sense) but the whole bleach everything, disinfecet EVERYTHING is a bit far. My DD is hardly ever ill and i dont go over board on disinfectants etc but my house isnt dirty.
I agree that a dropped biscuit wont harm you.

thriftlady_2

mirakl wrote:

I have a Canadian friend who couldn't believe it when she was eating with us and were all tearing off chunks of baguette without holding it with napkins so we didn't spread our hand germs onto it. She was telling me that North Americans are completely terrified of food, she left butter out of the fridge for an hour and that meant she had to throw it in the bin! I don't think I could cope with that level of terror, I'm careful, I don't mess around with raw chicken and don't take any unnecessary risks, however I'll still eat out of date food if I'm sure it's fine.

OMG, how do they eat crisps ? I keep my butter in the butter dish on my counter - what can happen to it ? :rolleyes:

Peem

I was always nervous of how long to keep food. Rose Prince helped me a lot with confidence in keeping stuff and this site has helped too

didn't do home ec at school.

Mum always cooked from scratch (and still does) however, we were never allowed in the kitchen while she was making dinner (I totally understand why now - a chance for some peace and quiet) but I never experienced leftovers. There just never were any in our house. You had to eat everything on your plate - and anything left on serving dishes Dad would hoover up.

The only thing that would go more than one day was soup - the veg soup would sit in the pot and get eaten every day - possibly reheated more than once. Only if it could be smelled without taking the lid off would it be deemed "off"

As others say I think you need to eat a bit of dirt. But with food, familiarity does not breed contempt, rather a bit of respect. I ensure we have washed our hands before handling food and especially after raw meet. The kitchen is always clean.

The problem I have with keeping stuff is that I don't know how long it's been sitting on the shop shelf - that's why I like dates on my packaging as far as reasonable.

tawnyowls

jessicamb wrote:

Out of interest does anybody know if there are any germs that are not killed by very hot soapy water? I'm thinking 60 deg +.

Yes, there are, but the vast, vast majority are not harmful to humans. Pathogenic bacteria (the ones that cause disease) are in the main adapted to grow well at body temp (37 deg), and generally have a fairly narrow temperature range in which they're comfortable. The main exceptions are spore-forming bacteria, such as Bacillus subtilis, which people are often being warned about on here, especially regarding cooked rice.

Generally, mechanical cleaning is sufficient, with a spray of disinfectant once a day. Obviously, if you clean your kitchen and then leave the wet cloth festering happily on the draining board and wipe down again, you'll be giving a nice fresh inoculation of bacteria to your worktop. Bacteria, like humans, need water and food (that's why the toilet seat is usually cleaner than below the rim), thus if you keep surfaces clean and dry, avoid transporting bacteria from one surface to another (from a dripping chicken, for instance) and wash your hands regularly, you'll go a long way to keeping them at a safe level.