Food Hygene ( Or Lack Of It )

[tiger31]

I always wonder why more people don,t come down with food poisoning more often here .there is nothing more off putting walking along the food street vendors and lifting up the lids to find flies scootin out of the dishes .It does,nt seem to bother philippino,s ,and at home its a constant battle with the g f to keep telling her to cover up food instead of leaving it open to the heat all day .And same with the fridge everything goes in without a cover on it .do you guys have the same issues with this ? the philippina,s just don,t have any concept of food hygene here .the health n safety people would have a field day out here from the U.K .

[brock]

The thing that used to get me were the ants crawling over everything, It used to send me crazy, I opened a box of quaker oats and a cockroach the size of a mouse jumped out and scared the sh** out of me, That was enough for me, In the end I bought countless number of plastic containers of all sizes, And every food item had to be in them or I wouldnt touch that food.

[GregZ]

My Filipina and her family keeps everything in TIGHTLY locking containers :541: and food left on the table is covered with a plastic vented cover you commonly see here. I had some issue with the length of time some of the foods sat out at first; now the meats and a few others find their way to the fridge before long. I have less issue with some items sitting out than I did at first because of the Filipino super noses they all seem to have to check and make sure it is still good when eating time comes. Still I do shy away sometimes if I have my doubts.

Now the refrigerator is a different story; sometimes NOT cover the dishes, sometimes cover the dishes. They didn't use the fridge so much before I came along... I haven't said much, just put a plate over a bowl of food and bought a couple of covered storage containers. That seemed to catch on!

ANTs! The first time I saw a million running across the food didn't sit too well with me. I was told it meant you were RICH to have ants coming for your food. I replied with something to the effect of it meant you were too poor to afford insect spray. But we don't see much of them anymore. No food is ever left out overnight and everything is in sealed containers so the ants and roaches live next door. :dance: My girl does make changes to satisfy me, more than I notice and probably more than needed but I'm okay with that.

The first thing I came up with saying ON MY OWN in Visayan translated to "rude rat ate the bananas"... They don't do that anymore as they are in the fridge now. My girl likes to TELL EVERYONE about that though, so good memory maker there. :cheersty:

[sonjack2847]

If you stopped and thought about what you eat and how it is handled all over SE Asia you would be hungry most of the time.

[i am bob]

You know, I bet if we could peek in on grandma and grandpa when they were young, they probably had the same ideas on food sanitation as we see in the Philippines now... They didn't have plastic wrap or snap-top storage containers... Window screens weren't all that common and a fly swatter was a standard kitchen tool... In fact I can remember my uncles telling stories of chasing the flies away so the freshly caught fish could be cooked over an open wood fire beside the lake... And I can personally remember the old Sunday School picnics where a quick glance couldn't identify how many ants compared to seeds the watermelon had. Ah, yes! Those were the good old days!

:dance:

[Dave Hounddriver]

Food hygene is just the visible tip of the iceberg. I have noticed more diseases transferred by what seems to be the germs on the hands. Everything is rife with germs here. The dogs in the yard, the old food they are scraping off the plate, the CR. And of course there is a certain amount of washing of hands but not nearly enough to correspond to the amount of germs on them.

And filipinas like to touch your face.

[Mike S]

Well I've been here on going on 6 years and haven't contacted any problems with germs yet ..... I don't wash my hands before eating even in the mall but then I didn't do that in the US either ..... IMHO .... people are just to obsessed with hygiene .... guess a lot of them never spent to much time in the military (well at least as ground-pounders .... you fly boys and swabbies don't count ... :hystery: ) ..... we would go for days at a time with out washing our hands ... or taking a shower ... shaving and brushing your teeth was done in your steel pot .... and I don't remember anyone getting sick from it ..... we ate c-rations from WW II and drank water that was stored in tanks that god only knows when they were cleaned last .... so I guess my system is kinda used to it .... now I'm not saying if I was to pet some dog or clean the toilet bowl I wouldn't wash my hands that just makes common sense but washing my hands every time you turn around ... nope ..... :mocking:

I will admit when I got here I was a little apprehensive at seeing foods setting out on the table most of the day but then my asawa explained that they always reheat the ulam before serving it for lunch and supper .... makes sense to me and I'm still alive and kicking and apparently it agrees with me as I sure ain't lost no weight .... besides how in the world can you hurt stinky dried fish by leaving it on the table ..... the fly's won't even go near it ... :hystery: :hystery: :hystery:

Edited October 23, 2012 by Mike S

[ibemarshall]

And filipinas like to touch your face.

*Note to Self #3...remain standing where my face is out of reach when I think it might be the subject of a "touching" opportunity...unless of course it is my asawa then I will do as I am told* :rolleyes:

[Thomas]

You know, I bet if we could peek in on grandma and grandpa when they were young, they probably had the same ideas on food sanitation as we see in the Philippines now...

Well. Mine were born years enough back to not have refrigirators (except perhaps boxes with added bought ice.) My grandfather believed his refrigirator made his food stay fresh for ever, so we better said "No thanks" to everything we didn't know were new... :hystery:

Food hygene is just the visible tip of the iceberg. I have noticed more diseases transferred by what seems to be the germs on the hands.

Some odd with the missing hand hygene, Filipinas find many kanos smell bad, because of missing hygene. Perhaps they don't see the missing food hygene as a problem as long "fresh" germs haven't had time to make the food smell yet :)

[tiger31]

If you stopped and thought about what you eat and how it is handled all over SE Asia you would be hungry most of the time.

thats why i,m never out of mcdonalds and kfc sorry to say lol