For me it depends more on the time of the year and if the family has been sick. At Christmas time, my husband's family seems to always have the stomach flu. I will not eat if someone has been sick and handled the food. This method has served me well over the years esp during Christmas meals. It used to be that just after Christmas we'd all end up with a stomach bug. Since I've instituted this method, I haven't been sick during the holidays for about the past 10 years. The extended family hasn't done as well. Now I eat at home before I go anywhere and I just participate in the other events minus the meals.

If I am invited to a party and all my friends bring a dish, I am more than happy to eat everything.

I am sometimes cautious around sals bars, although at work there is a very nice one in the onsite cafe. I have been eating there ever so often.

I usually don't take samples that are sitting out, like in a fruit and vegetable type grocery.

Yes, I eat other people's food.

Sue

I never thought about this until I brought I something to the schools main office (pto had been holding breakfast, I was taking some leftovers to office) and they asked who cooked it...and I said I didn't know, why? And she kind of explained, that everyone's kitchen habits and living conditions were different, and that they wouldn't eat something depending upon where it was prepared.....since then, yes, I have been to homes where I would not eat what comes out of the kitchen....cats on counters....not sure that they wipe their feet after using the litter box....and the amazing number of humans that will exit a restroom, breezing past the sink? Yuck. And agree, setting diapered people on eating, serving, preparation counters....um no, don't put my lunch on that spot.

The majority of concerns expressed here happen every time you eat at a restaurant. Cooks sneeze and keep on cooking; dish preps sample food with fingers; some use bathroom and don't wash hands; and if you visit Chipotle, you'll witness bizarre unsanitary kitchen practices, like emptying trash and not washing and changing gloves before preparing your meal.....really.

I only eat food from people I think are clean. For example, I have a coworker who does not bath, wears dirty, stained, smelly clothing, doesn't comb her hair, leaves food on her desk for days and her car looks like she is living out of it--gross! I would not eat anything from her kitchen. Anybody who looks like they bath and is relatively neat--sure, why not?

I agree with Brushworks, but I still eat out. I never had a friend that was so "dirty" that I wouldn't eat at her house. I'm honored to be invited to someone else's house for dinner and never give it a second thought. I'm known to be a pretty good cook so I hope when I bake something as a gift, it isn't thrown out. The thought makes me very sad.

Yes, yes I do. I don't ever recall getting ill from eating someone else's food. I have had food poisoning a couple of times from restaurants, but never from something homemade.

I have been very sick from eating at buffets, the breakfast ones especially. I don't do those anymore and especially don't do the oriental restaurants that have the big buffet with seafood I had to go to the hospital after one of those.

Yes. I eat anywhere and any time. I might not eat food a medical patient brought in, though? I wonder why it's where I draw the line, but cannot express it yet. I'm not sure all patients are happy with their care, and wouldn't do something to it!? Maybe? I mean, how well do you really know a patient? Restaurants at least know they have regulators watching them, one extra safety measure. Something like that. I could be offbase. I might eat it. But I'd have to have known them a long time or seen them a lot.

Reading some of the responses makes me wonder how some people eat in any restaurant anywhere, for the reasons Brushworks mentioned. I attend potlucks frequently, and while sometimes I won't eat something there it is because it contains some ingredient I don't like or because it doesn't look particularly good. Or because I have already eaten too much other good food.

I'm actually making chorizo stuffed banana peppers right now to bring to a hunt brunch after today's fox hunt. Many others will have brought food there, and perhaps kept it in their vehicles while they were riding, or will bring it over to the tables after putting away their horses.

For workoutlady's case where there is an actual history of ill-effects from eating at her relative's house, I understand it completely, for many other cases here it seems overly paranoid and picky. Although with that said, a co-worker made a jar of home-canned applesauce and gave it to me as a gift, and the jar is still sitting unopened on my desk at work.

Interesting thread. I won't eat a buffet. They gross me out with people touching food, sneezing. Friends of mine ate at one last week and ended up in the ER with food poisoning. I eat all the food my family invites me over for. In my house dogs lick the plates, cats are on the island and we never get sick. I wash the plate in my Bosch in the very hot cycle and wash the counters and island down all the time. Never get sick except once when I went to the Farm Show , the biggest one in the country, and ate food at their food court and came home and threw up. So never been back.

For most things, I'm of the if it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger camp, but I have my quirks about food and I'm not sure it's all rational. I can eat a lot of food from other people if I haven't seen them prepare it or haven't seen anything gross. One wrong move and I'm done. Egg salad a week past Easter with eggs that have been dyed is past my comfort level. Someone else's kids sitting on the counter and cooking is outside my limit although I did allow my kids to help cook like that when they were little. You can grill just about anything and I'll eat it because fire kills all germs. I don't want your 'moist' turkey. I want it cooked until the germs are dead.

I'm pretty healthy so I'll trust folks and eat almost anything from family and friends, or at a potluck or bake sale. If it was someone I knew to be really nasty, then no, but I figure I can survive a few pet hairs. My father has trouble remembering to refrigerate cooked dishes, and will keep everything way past the expiration date, even meat, so I avoid eating anything he cooks--doesn't seem to bother my kids, though (all adults who can decide for themselves).

I'm always very nice to servers in restaurants, in part because I don't want anyone tampering with my food.

I'm especially meticulously clean in my own food preparation in part to benefit a granddaughter who became seriously ill and had a compromised immune system several years ago. It was very different in the home where I grew up as it didn't have running water and washing wasn't as frequent. I never hesitate to eat at potlucks, family dinners, restaurants, etc. and can only think of a couple of times in my life that I had an upset stomach likely caused by the food I ate. On the other hand, if I saw an obviously unhealthy situation, I would re-consider eating there.

I'm not germphobic, other than a situation like following behind someone at a salad bar who sneezes into their hand and then grabs the spoons. But as others, I am conscious about food safety temperature-wise. Hot foods very hot, cold foods cold, and if I'm somewhere where I'm not satisfied with the handling, I'll stick to chips and cheese and cracker stuff.

Cats who have used litter boxes walking on kitchen counters is beyond gross to me.

Nope, don't really worry about it. We eat out over a hundred times every year. Like others I try to stay away from egregious situations.

My grossest experience was one winter, commuting to work in the morning. The subway train was crowded with commuters, so I was standing up. People were close in but able to shift around, it was nothing like being packed in on a Tokyo train.

Then the guy standing behind me SNEEZED RIGHT INTO MY HAIR. He could have turned aside, or held his hand up to his mouth....but he didn't.

Creep.

Somehow after that, a little inadvertent food dirt doesn't seem so bad.

jakkom, I think you and I live in the same general area and we eat out a lot too. One indicator I use for whether or not to return to a restaurant is the cleanliness of the bathrooms. I won't return if the bathroom is smelly and in need of cleaning. Some ethnic restaurants are particularly guilty of this and they lose my business as a result.

I've eaten 'other people's food' all my life. There were at least a dozen kids in my neighborhood. We 'ran free', eating lunches and snacks provided by the mother of whatever house we were in at the moment. The thread about school cafeterias shows we mostly ate food prepared by local ladies. We've all eaten in restaurants and been guests at dinners and parties where the host and hostess prepared the food -- or had it catered. We've eaten at weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, whatever!

Pets on the floor don't concern me. Allowing pets free range in a house as though they were humans strikes me as unsanitary and just plain peculiar.

This is more about *which* people's food than 'other' people's food.

I remember one of our VNA nurses 'solving' an elderly patient's recurrent diarrhea after accepting his offer of a glass of orange juice. He'd been storing frozen OJ in his cupboard before mixing it with water and refrigerating it.

A couple of responses say we seldom have reason to be suspicious about other people's food if we just don't know people who look unclean or are generally sloppy.

I have never given it much thought, but I was at a baby shower one day and took a piece of the cake, my Step Daughter was trying to get my attention to tell me not to eat it since the lady that fixed it had a ton of cats and her place is covered in hair. YUCK, It is a touchy subject nowadays

Pot lucks I have never shied from. Goodies brought in from my students--never would I eat. I agree with the posters above about restaurants. I worked in a few and I know the caliber of people who do..if you are CAUTIONS you should stay home. From the THRIVING EATERY trade most people try hard not to think about it. No "home made" goodies are allowed to be served to students in the public schools in MN. Heck even our football concessions stand has to be manned by a "certified food preparation professional" and what a joke--nothing going out changed but our expenses due to her salary went sky high!!

Oh, the thought of cats on the counter makes me gag! Nothing is more disgusting to me than pet hair flying around into food....sorry...

I love Potlucks, I just ate at one today. I don't have an issue with eating other people's food.

I love Potlucks, I just ate at one today. I don't have an issue with eating other people's food.

My nephew works in comercial refrigeration. He is in many restaurant kitchens for repairs. As a result, my sister has a list of places she should never patronize, because of disgusting kitchens.

When first married, I was shocked my MIL would put all food not eaten in an oven that had just been used for baking, off but cooling . The food stayed there for the whole evening, in case anyone wanted more. By contrast, she stored canned goods in the refrigerator.

Eating at others homes, haven't bothered me and grew up with tons of pets all over the house and yes, we let our first dog lick the plates when fininshed, it all went into dishwasher. I never worried about hair or anything. Seem where I got those things were from restaurants not people's homes. I have eaten three times and each time at this place I find hair and that turns me off worse then anything.

This is my house.

My German Shepherd knows how to open the dishwasher with his snout. So I always have to remember to make sure it's latched.

As once it's open - my Beagle crawls inside & does a more thorough dish cleaning. On numerous occasions he takes the silverware out to wash it better. I find spoons & forks all over the house if I'm not careful.

Oh, Pawprint, that's hilarious!!!! Can you post a picture of the act? Talk about team-work!

I don't think you're a snob. Maybe a bit paranoid.

We've had dogs for years-all sorts of coats- and it's very rare to get dog hair in our food.

A few specific foods that can only be made by specific people for me. Chicken salad, though I love it, can only be made by my SIL or my Aunt. Same with chicken ala king... only by Aunt or cousin (her daughter). I never order either when eating out cuz don't want to get any little gross gristle/cartilage bit that I know THEY would not let slip by. Back in June, ate at The Crab Trap in Somer's Point, NJ. Can't remember what entree was that brother ordered but it can with a side of chicken salad... a "tradition"?? It was DELICIOUS! I ate it ALL... one tentative bite after the other!

Love crab but very rarely order it out. One little bit of shell/cartlidge and I'm DONE... and what if that's during the first few bites! Also like crab cakes that are CRABcakes... not too much bread/filler. NOT a fan of picking crabs though I enjoy the results. Too much work for too little pay off. Even when not on sale, that big $$ back fin or lump crab meat has GOT to be cheaper than what it would cost to buy enough live crabs to pick a pound of goodness!?!

I hate getting cartilage or gristle in chicken salad. Totally ruins in for me and I'm done.

the Crab Trap is still around? That's great! It's been there forever.

The last time I got sick, for a week, was in August. It was aThai, Vietnamese, Chinese buffet. I don't usually do buffets because you don't know how long it has been sitting there and who has done what to it.

The ickiest place was my sister's kitchen with 3 cats walking on everything chasing cockroaches.

Sure I do, but it doesn't happen very often. My SIL will send me over a dinner sometimes or when they make tuna steaks because that is something I don't usually buy for myself. My other friend has her family over for Good Friday, she makes way too much fried perch and the next day will drop off a perch dinner at my house.

Whenever I cook a meal, even for myself I put my hair up into a clip or ponytail and put on a clean tee shirt so there is less chance of pet hair on my clothes or my hair for that matter. Lately though no matter how much I try I find my own hair in my food and that just grosses me out. If I find a pet hair that doesn't bother me. Just the feeling of having to pull a long hair from my mouth gives me the willies ooooo. So now if I make something to share it comes with a disclaimer that they may find a strand of my hair in their food and we just laugh about it. I don't send meals or baked goods out very often any longer. Now I have a thing about glasses or mugs that have not been rinsed properly if someone does not have a dishwasher, When I was a kid I was served a cup of soapy tea. I have gotten away from it a bit but I used to have the habit of rinsing a mug out before someone serves me tea or coffee when I am at their house and they don't have a dishwasher. My friends are okay with it. I don't have a dishwasher but I make sure my glassware and mugs are thoroughly rinsed. I have seen some people wash dishes and don't rinse and put them right on the dish rack to dry or just swish them under rinse water.

Pawprint when I was a kid and used to eat dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house and they used to put all the plates on the floor and the pots for the dog to lick the food. Then the kids would hand wash the dishes. and at best of times their plates were crusty haha.. I never had pets and that really grossed me out. When my sister comes here she lets my cat sip out of her coffee cup or lick the dregs from her oatmeal bowl. I just can't do that haha.

Plates etc. that dogs lick must go in the DW. Their saliva doesn't budge otherwise.

I've worked in restaurants and I'm well aware of the failings of hygiene and temperature control that can occur. For the most part, I don't worry about it because I have a healthy immune system. However, I'm pretty picky at potlucks with regard to avoiding foods that clearly are not at the proper temperature.

I'm pretty good about eating anyone else's food, buffets and all. My only real pet peeve (and thankfully these kids are all grown up now) was going to my sister's at Christmas. She would make all these wonderful little treats and put them on the coffee table. It only took one baby walking up and handling everything and putting it back to keep me from ever eating anything off that table! I personally think babies are way more gross than dogs or cats.

I've only gotten food poisoning a few times and that was always from restaurants. I figure the odds are with me that it will be ok unless the food looks like it might be bad or smells bad.

Agree about kids touching everything. Gross.

Piece of birthday cake after your kids blows spittle all over it? No thank you ;-)

I never even thought about most of the things you mention. I scrape the icing off birthday cakes after people blow out the candles. I love potlucks. My feelings were hurt one time when I made a beautiful dish of wild rice and I heard a man in line say it looked like dead lightening bugs. Humph.

A couple pet hairs won't kill me but if I found a human hair -- and I have -- I don't eat any more of the dish. The worst was when we went to a Chinese New Year celebration and found a bandaid in the green beans. Oh, gross! We were done for the evening after that. I think "chinese food" take outs are the worst.

The one thing I can't stand are dips. They end up full of broken chips and suffer from double dipping. I think they are just disgusting.

Yes, I do.

I eat other people's food at pot lucks. I attend at least 5 pot-lucks a year and most of these are among friends or family.

Dedtired, about this bandaid you found in the green beans. Were you chewing on it and thought "what the heck is this" or did you see it on your fork before you ate it?

To date, I've never found anything more than hair in my food. No foreign objects or bandaids.

I remember a funny scene from The Brady Bunch.

While stirring the cake batter they found Kitty Karry All's underpants. (That was Cindy's favorite doll.

Yes and no. I am careful about what I take. I don't care about pets etc. but there are certain foods I won't eat at potlucks etc.....such as chicken wings simmered in sauce. Soggy skin is not my friend LOL.

I am allergic to celery so many salads and soups etc. are out for me due to that. Not a fan of sweet so rarely get tempted by baked goods plus I am allergic to bananas and pineapple. Cookies and brownies and cakes smell and look good to me, but they never taste as good as they look so are not worth the awful stomach ache I get later.

My mom can be an awesome cook (best turkey anywhere) but she has poisoned us more times than we can count. VERY selective when we eat there ;). For example, she makes great meatballs usually. When I saw the shrivelled mushrooms swimming around in the SWEET and SOUR sauce last time, I passed on those. I hear they were pretty gross as she got confused half way when making them as they started off as meatballs in mushroom gravy then turned into sweet and sour somewhere along the line.

Went to a birthday party recently and could NOT get past the first bite of the main dish. Tasted like old meat. Then I found out who had made it (my sister's MIL) and I know I don't like her cooking...most likely would not have even tasted it if I knew. Whenever she makes something it is always off. Rancid butter or old meat, or stale ingredients.

Dances.

I will always try someone else's cooking. It's how I was brought up. If someone is kind enough to cook or bake for you, the least you can do is try it. I've come across some food that is absolutely delicious and have gotten a few recipes this way. Other times, I've eaten foods I wouldn't want to cook because it's a complex recipe so it saved me a lot of time. :) I don't see any difference eating food in a restaurant compared to food cooked in someones kitchen at home. If you think eating in a restaurant is a good choice between the two, think again: have you never watched those restaurant make over shows? Or those videos showing working picking their noses then making a sandwich without washing their hands?

At one post fox hunt brunch hosted by another local club, one dish that their group made was "Brunswick Stew", I tried some and was not really a fan of it in the first place, especially given that it had icky lima beans. Then I overheard the cook telling someone that in order to be "authentic" Brunswick Stew should have at least some game in it. She continued saying that she didn't want to overdo it so she only added one squirrel to the dish. I think I spat the most recent bite back into my bowl and dropped the rest of the bowl into the trashcan.

Pawprint, the meal was served family style and we spotted the bandaid in the bowl, thank heavens!

You don't like squirrel? Growing up we had squirrel, rabbits, turtle and fish all caught and brought home :)

Sue

Looks like various untoward cooking habits tend to drive some people a bit squirrelly?

A number of the potlucks that I've attended were family or church-related ... and a number of the people at our smallish church know one another's cooking habits quite well.

Don't recall having had any tummy problems in quite a long time. Including my first use of a gifted crockpot last week ... that ran for a few hours, daily, and took forever to cook the smell (so help me, that was supposed to have been "small"!)bits of carrot, potato, chicken and onion ... for almost a week.

But I grew up on a farm during World War II, when the hired hands on Dad's large (for those days) farm had gone to war, and we had lots of farm chores to not only keep us busy ... but develop our immune systems, as well. Including pig/cow/horse/chicken manure on hands, clothing, occasionally on face, etc.

The dog thought it a real treat to be allowed into the house on a rare occasion, though.

Cats/dogs didn't get to lick our dishes ... but, now that I live alone, I've been known to lick out the bowl following breakfast ... to put it in good order for soup, come supper-time.

Now that my hairs are fewer ... and shorter ... they get harder to find should they happen to have fallen into some of my food.

And ... as someone suggested, quoting someone less fastidious, "... it hasn't killed me, yet". Tomorrow's another day, though.

I suspect that I ate some dog in Korea over 50 years ago, though, as I thought that some meat in the soup/stew where I was a guest was a bit different ... and saw an empty dog-hide being carried across the yard, later that day.

ole joyfuelled

If you want to be alarmed watch one of the restaurant rescue shows with Robert Ireland (?) where he goes back and gets his first look at the kitchen. I've seen an episode where after he sees the kitchen he announces they are going to kill somebody and marches out into the well occupied dining room, shouts for everybody to stop eating.

One of my renters was working in a local family owned restaurant when he first moved in, and, well...

Another show I watched one time - one of those investigative ones - talked about bacteria levels being found during testing of commercial buffets.

They weren't low.

At ones I cruise here it is typical for tong handles to be left partly, if not completely in the food by other patrons. Some operations use tongs with handles too short to make it possible to keep the handles at bay without some effort.

Then of course at a place that allows sampling using tiny paper cups I've seen somebody eat out of one and then go back for more, using the same cup and I guess the same spoon too. I think they were probably there for free dinner, like those who eat lunch by touring the samples at Cost Co.

Any pet that has fleas and is present over or near open dishes of food could be shedding flea poo into them.