Food safety issues at home causing problems with our relationship?

Question

Here is my situation: Me and my girlfriend have a very compatable and loving relationship and everything in our life is practically perfect accept for a few issues in the kitchen. She constantly leaves the butter out on the counter and doesn't put in back in the refrigarator. She leaves the milk out, leaves ceral boxes open on the counter, leaves a loaf of bread out with not twisting the bag together, otherwords, leaves most perisable items that suppose to be kept in the frig, out, all the time. Sometime, I am away from home several days at the time due to my busy work schedule, and when I return home, I am afraid to eat anything that comes out of the refrigarator because I don't know how long anything has been left out. Here lately, when I am home, and she leaves stuff out, I purposely do not put anything back in the frig just to see how long she will let it sit out. It never gets put back up unless I do it. Any suggestions?????

Answer 1

Everybody has bad habits, even me, even you! This is not only bothering you though, you have some valid health concerns. The only way for her to change is for HER to change. Talk to her about this habit, tell her how much it bothers you. Ask what you can do to help her change her behavior. Could she wear a bracelet for a while as a reminder? When she leaves the kitchen she needs to do a quick visual scan for things left out. What are her reasons for doing this? She needs to "buy in" to wanting to change this bad habit. Is there something you do that bothers her that you could also change? Make this a team effort to build a better living environment. I wish you luck.

Answer 2

This answer comes from my hubby of twelve years. I am similar in the way of your g/f:

First, if it bothers you now, it will bother you much more down the way. The way she is now is the way she will be.

The items you described are not going to give you food poisoning in the way you describe. Bread doesn't need to be twisted closed to stay fresh. In fact, if it is high in moisture it will get moldy quicker with out air. Does she wrap the end around the loaf so it doesn't get stale? That should be plenty.

Butter is fine left on the counter....okay, not for weeks on end, but for awhile it should be okay. Especially if you are using margarine.

Milk....you can taste when milk goes rancid. It can last a little while outside the fridge. Eggs also. If you grew your own chickens, they sit on their eggs for days before the eggs go to market or are eaten. They are designed to survive.

Before the advent of refridgeration and even sometimes after these items were left out in the open, and used rather quickly.

I don't know how seriously people reseal the cereal bags only to put them on the shelf anyways.

We had an ongoing argument whether ketchup should be refridgerated. Though they now tell you to refridge after opening, it wasn't always like that, and lasts just fine on the shelf.

If this is something that really bothers you, either do it yourself or get out of the relationship.

If you decide to have children, your/her standards of what is clean will change considerably.

Good luck to you!

Answer 3

Sounds like "The Odd Couple". While your wife's habits are certainly lax, it sounds like your own fears of 'contamination' are based on something other than realistic assessment of risk. Unless you live in some bug infested tropical area, a box of corn flakes left open on the counter isn't likely to suffer anything worse than diminution of crispness. Butter keeps for many days at room temperature. It is the usual practice in many homes for butter to be warm and spreadable rather than kept 'hard as a rock' in the fridge. While the end slice of a loaf of unwrapped bread may 'get stale', unless there is visible mold or insect activity, the bread isn't unsafe to eat.

When you are "away from home for several days" due to your "busy work schedule", presumably you eat in restaurants? I wonder how you can bring yourself to do so, given your unusually high standards. Please don't look into the kitchens of these establishments, lest you starve to death while away from home.

I suggest that you and your wife work out a compromise. She will agree be extremely conscientious about RAW meat. It actually CAN become a health risk, without any obvious signs, unless contanty refridgerated. In return, you will lighten up about her practices which may differ from what you prefer and are used to, but do not pose actual health risks.

Answer 4

I hear what you are saying, but clearly this gal doesn't get it! You have a few options:

1. Only buy products in small sizes, to reduce waste.
2. Keep the bread in the freezer, after you have repackaged it into 2 slice portions.
3. leave her mess for her to clean up. Never clean it! If bugs arrive, you may need to find a new place to live and I would not take her with me
4. when you return from your trips, drop into a 24 hour grocery store and pick up what you believe you will be able to consume until you need to travel again.

I hope this helps, but I really think the problem is deeper than this. It is almost as if you have become her man-servant and that it is your job to clean up after her. She isn't a child and shouldn't be treated as such. Adults clean up after themselves and give a darn about those with whom they cohabit.

Answer 5

Talk to her about it and tell her your displeasure about it. Ask her what 1 thing u do that she does not like. Then every time u do what she does not like u put say $10 in a jar and every time she lets something out she has to put $10 in the jar. People don't enjoy giving up money and a great way to get money for vacation and the person that did the no no is paying the most from the jar money

Answer 6

Just let her know that this bothers you. I mean really, are you going to let this ruin your relationship? Because over time, it will, and it really is a bad reason to break up. I think you should just casually say that she should put the food away. Also, you could as a joke, put a sign or a dry erase board that says to put it away. Just keep reminding her, she may be doing it completely unintentionally because it's a bad habit from childhood or something. Good luck, I'm sure you will be fine.

Answer 7

i understand ur trepidation in leaving perishible food items out because of the recent headlines we have had in the paper. also, leaving fook out and open that way is a sure magnet for drawing mice and/or roaches to the kitchen. probably when she was growing up she did not do a lot of cooking, or had people cleaning up behind her. if you could do some research on what happens to perishible food left out then you could print it out and let her read it. and talk to her about it seriously so that she will kinow how terrible it is. also print out pictures of roaches, cockroaches and mice and let her read how bad it is to have those suckers running around. in another words maybe scare her not really cause all these things can happen and let her read and see concreate information about her bad habits. thats what i would do. hope this helps.

Answer 8

You sound like a friend of mine I ran into last week. I asked him how he and his wife were getting along. He told me they had split up because when he was cooking, she kept "stirring my pots" and adding things to his dishes. Another friend of mine has to have his dishes put back into the cabinet just a certain way. These things might seem minor to some people but if it really drives you crazy you need to talk to her about it and if she can't bend a little to accommodate your wishes you may as well break it off because eventually it will drive you nuts!

Answer 9

ha ha ha, either you could constantly clean up after her or you each have separate food and label them accordingly. Then she could take the milk out and leave it out overnight because that would be HER milk and your milk would still be fresh in the fridge. I just find it amusing that a grown woman behaves this way.

Answer 10

You need to explain to her how important it is to you that the food be kept fresh, and that wasting food is not acceptable in your household. If she can't make more of an effort, then maybe she's just lazy and you might want to rid yourself of her.