Why are people frightened of food ?

skystar

Missmoneypenny wrote:

I agree that a dropped biscuit wont harm you.

Missmoneypenny, I have the "five second rule" i.e if it's down for less then it's fine

My husband is horrified when I do this. I then remind him as a small child he probably ate biscuits, crisps off the carpet and it done him no harm

angelavdavis

My mum was always a little more slapdash than me (she had two jobs most of my childhood so goodness knows where she got time to cook stuff from scratch but she did).

I remember her having a dripping/stock pot in the fridge that used to make me squirm! Still today I can't keep anything like that in the fridge for too long. Mind you, none of us were ever ill!

When my cousin was born, she had an Irish mother (no disrespect, I have Irish descent but my auntie slagged off everything in England as being worse than Ireland that by the age of six I was wondering when someone was going to tell her to go back if she hated it here so much).:rotfl:

Her mum wouldn't let her drink tap water - unless it was boiled! She drank boiled water all her childhood. You have never known a more unwell child - she spent the whole of her childhood with traintracks running from her nose - poor thing!

She still has a really poor immune system and we always maintain its because she wasn't exposed to the bugs we were.

Peem

I'm back to finish what I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted by Underground Ernie and some crumpets(don't ask)

If your mum doesn't tell you about food safety, who will?

We learn from the media to be frightened of food. And the media is the main place we look to for this information - no way would I have discussed food with my mates when I was starting my own home. There are still very few who would be happy to discuss food. Cook books - the ones novice cooks see - are about celebrating the celebrity and their knack with food combining (IYSWIM) not about kitchen management.

Gem_

My mum is a horror for out of date food - I think she regards it as some kind of personal challenge to see how long she can keep something!

Her candied peel is from 1983! she still eats some every xmas.

The worst has to be a muller corner which lingered in her fridge for two years!!!! she maintains that it tasted exactly the same as a fresh one.

Saying that, we are rarely ill. The only time my mum had food poisoning was from some meat she had bought the same day.

Gem

lynzpower

lynzpower wrote:

heres the governments info site, for future reference for anyone who might be unsure


http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/keepingfoodsafe/

mirakl

thriftlady wrote:

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

It's shocking, she obsessively washes all fruit and veg before cooking or eating it because "you never know what diseases the fruit pickers have"
:rotfl:

It's a really good thing she didn't see me chucking the cats off the worktop before I started cooking

saving-grace

I've just eaten some delicious pineapple upside-down cake.....and I've just worked out that I opened the tin of pineapple last Wednesday..........
Interesting thread Thriftlady.

thriftlady_2

Peem wrote:

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

Rose Prince's book The New English Kitchen has this to say on the subject Modern food-safety advice can be the enemy of good home economics. It encourages wastefulness.....But there's no hope of making all food safe. Not when 60 million humans are on the loose - eating dirt as babies, sharing dinners with family pets as toddlers......The thing to bear in mind is that the most dangerous thing about food is the person handling it.

tomstickland

A lot of people seem to need things to be scared about all the time. The human body is pretty tough, so basic cleaning and common sense is enough.

Being terrified is a state of mind and a pretty silly one at that. Sometimes you just have to get on with things. TBH I'm amazed at how little thought I give to some of these things. I don't sit eating my tea passing 100s of what ifs through me head. Then again, I did bin 2 sausages that looked dodgy the other day.

saving-grace

There is a current thread about baking for school fairs. While I am happy to contribute to the home baking stall I will only buy something if I know who baked it - and if I am happy withthe cleanliness involved in its making (e.g. wouldn't buy from a neighbour who lets her cat roam the worktops)