locations of scoop and saves

recovering_spendaholic

I have to not think about it or I wouldn't eat anything, however I think that we are all, as a nation, overly obsessive about germs. I had a friend who was the untidiest messiest person I had ever met and I would never even have a cup of tea in her house because it was so minty. She used to make novelty cakes and one day I went round and she was rolling out icing on one end of the table while her OH was scraping and cleaning the loo seat down the other end:eek: Having said that I never knew her, her OH or any of her kids having even a cold, whilst mine catch everything going and I am always cleaning and hoovering.

I don't buy food from scoop shops and also avoid supermarket help yourself salad bars, but I do eat in chinese buffet places and at salad bars in restaurants.

beetrootjuicer

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

She used to make novelty cakes and one day I went round and she was rolling out icing on one end of the table while her OH was scraping and cleaning the loo seat down the other end:eek: .

This is just so dreadful, it almost makes you want to laugh :eek: One of the reasons I never buy homemade cakes at fetes, bazaars etc. I'm sure 99.9% come from spotless kitchen but that still leaves the other .1% which could have come from spendaholics friends kitchen. :eek:

Reminds me of the time we were enjoying a slice of a friend's home-made birthday cake. I remarked what an unusual cake it was - sponge with the centre scooped out and filled with marshmallows and the whole lot iced in fondant. 'Oh', she said 'it wasn't meant to be like that but I left it on the worktop to cool and the bl***y dog chewed a hole in it'.

passion8

:eek: @ Some of these stories :eek:

I recently went into a M&S Simply Food store where they have a serve-yourself section for bread, iced-top croissants, scones and similar.

Because they're help-yourself type counters they supply tongs so that human hands shouldn't, theoretically, be touching them. So - all good I thought, until I saw a dirty great big bluebottle walking all over the cheese scone I was about to buy!

When I pointed it out to an assistant, they removed the cheese scone, but not the bluebottle

OS cheese scones for me I think

orchid-96

Before reading this, I regularly had a salad from Morrisons salad bar - Never again :eek: :eek: I had never really thought about people putting their fingers in - yuk....I noticed someone mentioned sandwich shops and gloves..We have a family business (sandwich shop/cafe) and I help out sometimes, we have all done the Health and Hygiene course and were advised that it is better to not use gloves and ensure good handwashing/hygeine...apparantly people wearing gloves tend to 'wash up' less and can just as easily contaminate food by say moving from raw to cooked etc.. with gloves on...we always use tongs to pick up the fillings as well, one thing to look out for is jewellery, watches as they shouldn't really be worn by people handling food.

I have never been in any of these scoop shops, but reading these posts, don't think I am missing out too much...

Nanaof2

My big "no no's" are scoop shops, salad bars in supermarkets & deli counters in supermarkets for the same reasons everyone else has given. Deli counters are because we used to have the dirtiest co-op you've even seen when I moved here 25 years ago & one monday I went in just after shop had opened & they were wiping counter down with the dirtiest dishcloth I've ever seen.

My mum would give but never buy from cake stalls at fetes etc. I only usually buy from my own churches events because i know who made what.

beetrootjuicer

Nanaof2 wrote: »

My mum would give but never buy from cake stalls at fetes etc. I only usually buy from my own churches events because i know who made what.

Very sensible. It used to be quite funny at playgroup bazaars watching everyone discreetly trying to find out who'd made what for the cake stall and the scrabble to buy anything so long as it wasn't the fairy cakes from the one kitchen that left a lot to be desired. :rotfl:

Softstuff

I like scoop shops, deli counters, salad bars and buffets. I tend to eat the unwrapped after dinner mint mostly because I enjoy the look on the faces of other people when I do. I'd buy a cake at a stall, I enjoy cooking food occasionally on a communal BBQ by a river and have been know to eat peanuts/pretzels/popcorn out of bowls on bars.

I never realised I was being such a daredevil! :rotfl:At home I'm a bit of a clean freak, but still stick my fingers in to taste. I seem to have survived so far though, I'm just very relaxed. Explains why the doc says I have "wonderfully low" blood pressure.

fuzzyfelt_2

I'm trying to find a weigh & save type shop in my area. Can anyone help? I'm thinking it may be cheaper to bulk buy a lot of my baking staples (dried fruit etc). I've searched on the internet without any success. I'm sure there used to be tons of them around a few years ago. Anyway, does anyone know if there are any in the High Peak / Stockport / Manchester area?

Pink.

Hi fuzzyfelt,

There's an older thread that may help you so I've added your post to it to keep the replies together.

Pink

lightisfading

Sorry - this has made me smile
While I do cringe about peanuts on the bar (used to run a pub - and I'm sure that a lot of our regulars were not after toilet handwashers!), I think that these days we are brainwashed into being terrified about germs in order to spend a fortune on cleaning products etc.
I have a real problem with this - goodness knows what long term damage will be caused by our exposure to all of these chemicals - more, I suspect than exposure to germs.
A few bugs are probably no bad thing for our immune systems.

Precisely.

Personally, I'd rather have a healthy immune system and not get every illness going.

I also have to wonder how many of you think about how supermarket meat is produced... it comes from animals which sit in their own poo (yay for intensive farming), and then is processed through factories which have been regularly shown to be contaminated with more poo. But because it's nicely wrapped in clingfilm it's 'clean' :rotfl: