"Don't You Trust Me?"
My father and stepmother follow the raw diet religiously, so their kitchen is one tree-nut factory: nut milks, sweet nut balls, nutmeats and nut salads. They are nurtz for nuts. For this allergic girl, their kitchen is a potential minefield. When I visit their home, I do my best to further minimize risk by bringing my own food, keeping it segregated in the fridge, and generally washing and rewashing a lot of dishes and hands.
Of late, dad has been buying this organic raw honey. It’s crystallized, spreadable and beyond delicious. He buys it in bulk, in a carton of six big tubs and offered me some. This past Father’s Day weekend, I brought a quart jar to fill up with honey. (Always fun to “shop” at the parents’ house.)
On the counter top (next to lots of open packages of tree-nuts) there was an open tub with deep groves left by the bowl of the spoon scooping out luscious portions of honey for their morning green tea consumption.
I took out a fresh tub from the carton in the pantry and asked if I could open it to take a portion from there.
“Sure”, my dad said. “But why not use the open one?”
“Because you put your used spoons in there.”
“Yes, but just spoons for tea.”
“But what if you ate some nuts and then used a nutty spoon to dip into the tub?”
“But we don’t do that.”
“Never? Ever? You’re saying you never ate some nuts using a spoon and then used that nutty spoon and dipped it into the tub?”
It was an irrational question, I know, and not really probable but it was my deepest fear. I was thinking of the few occasions when he absentmindedly has offered to cut me some watermelon after popping a few Brazil nuts in his mouth without washing his hands. Not neglect per se, just not focusing.
“I don’t think we’ve ever done that”, he said. Then the T bomb: “Don’t you trust me?” He was teasing with a grain of truth.
“No,” I smiled. “Not with this. As it’s all the same to you I’m going to open the new honey and take some with a clean spoon.”
"OK," he said.
I did and it was delish.
But my dad’s question has lingered. Did I go a step too far in saying, “I don’t trust you with this”? Or was that a legitimate precaution? Especially given the lack of hand washing history and/or all the tree-nuts everywhere? At what point does risk management become global distrust? Can a person with food allergies ever let their guard down? Even with loved ones?
Big questions, I know.
I wonder readers: what would you have done? Would you have taken the honey from the already open but potentially contaminated container? Or would you have held your ground for a new fresh container? Is there a third option you can envision?
Of late, dad has been buying this organic raw honey. It’s crystallized, spreadable and beyond delicious. He buys it in bulk, in a carton of six big tubs and offered me some. This past Father’s Day weekend, I brought a quart jar to fill up with honey. (Always fun to “shop” at the parents’ house.)
On the counter top (next to lots of open packages of tree-nuts) there was an open tub with deep groves left by the bowl of the spoon scooping out luscious portions of honey for their morning green tea consumption.
I took out a fresh tub from the carton in the pantry and asked if I could open it to take a portion from there.
“Sure”, my dad said. “But why not use the open one?”
“Because you put your used spoons in there.”
“Yes, but just spoons for tea.”
“But what if you ate some nuts and then used a nutty spoon to dip into the tub?”
“But we don’t do that.”
“Never? Ever? You’re saying you never ate some nuts using a spoon and then used that nutty spoon and dipped it into the tub?”
It was an irrational question, I know, and not really probable but it was my deepest fear. I was thinking of the few occasions when he absentmindedly has offered to cut me some watermelon after popping a few Brazil nuts in his mouth without washing his hands. Not neglect per se, just not focusing.
“I don’t think we’ve ever done that”, he said. Then the T bomb: “Don’t you trust me?” He was teasing with a grain of truth.
“No,” I smiled. “Not with this. As it’s all the same to you I’m going to open the new honey and take some with a clean spoon.”
"OK," he said.
I did and it was delish.
But my dad’s question has lingered. Did I go a step too far in saying, “I don’t trust you with this”? Or was that a legitimate precaution? Especially given the lack of hand washing history and/or all the tree-nuts everywhere? At what point does risk management become global distrust? Can a person with food allergies ever let their guard down? Even with loved ones?
Big questions, I know.
I wonder readers: what would you have done? Would you have taken the honey from the already open but potentially contaminated container? Or would you have held your ground for a new fresh container? Is there a third option you can envision?
Comments
I am always super-vigilant myself, and after the first 't' word discussion with friends, family members, co-workers, etc., it never is a problem. I tell them straight up how sick I will get (fortunately I'm not anaphylactic (sp?), but I get very sick for days, even weeks). I tell them it is NOT a personal attack on them, their food or way of life, I just don't want to be negatively reminded of our visits every time I have to run to the bathroom from getting sick!
You did the right thing :)
The conservation of washing one spoon or saving a bit of water and soap could have caused an allergic reaction by accident, not worth it.
A similar food safety issue albeit not allergy is that my elderly in-laws had different ideas for food safety and preservation than what scientists & government recommends. They would leave pizza on counter overnight and for multiple days including that with meat products for a topping and eat it for days. I lost all debates over my request to refrigerate it. This was an issue when I was vacationing with them and sleeping in their home/eating their food and also when visiting them for a meal and they'd try to serve me this unrefrigerated but reheated left over pizza.
They refused to believe any bacteria would grow on room temperature food for overnight or up to three days.
I just gave up the battle and declined to eat the pizza when served. Not even worth the discussion after a while, repeated year after year.
I don't trust my mother with my daughters -- and not just about their allergies (ie, the time she put my 18-month-old down in a parking lot and then turned her back on her while she unloaded the shopping cart and was then shocked to find she'd wandered off amongst the cars... augh!!). It was just getting worse and worse and worse until I finally blew my stack and told her that my husband and I had discussed it and we just did not trust her to be alone with her own grandkids. She sobbed -- it hurt her so much -- but it was absolutely necessary. This was serious stuff and she was just skipping through life all la-la-la... and putting them in danger. I was sorry to hurt her, but she needed to know how we felt, so that she could change her behaviour.
And, from that point on, she did start taking things more seriously. Well, ok, the very next week she did arrive with a birdfeeder and seed to hang on our porch for the girls, and she did pour half the seed across the porch as she did it, and it did CONTAIN PEANUTS...! But, after that she started to get a bit better. If I hadn't said anything, she wouldn't have had the opportunity to change.
Don't feel bad and don't give it a second thought. With food allergies, trust is more than just a courtesy -- it's got to be justified. You couldn't justify it because you dad's own (historical) behaviour. So you opened a second jar. The action itself really is no big deal, but the honesty of it was perhaps something he needed.
What gets me is when we bring our own food - my son is anaphalyctic to several things as well - and still get the "don't you trust me" reaction. No, I don't. Not when I've run into so many people who simply don't understand.
Several years ago, she gave my then 2 year old daughter a banana nut muffin (both of my children and I are allergic to tree nuts). Fortunately, my daughter said, "Grammy, I can't eat this!"
Recently, my mother-in-law bought several pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream to make sundaes at a family get-together, then promptly set about scooping out a portion for her husband. She contaminated two of the three "safe" pints before I stopped her. If it was just me, that's one thing. It wouldn't have been a big deal - I just wouldn't have had any ice cream - but both of my kids share my tree nut allergy. If I hadn't said anything (or worse, if I hadn't been in the kitchen to see what she did!), she would have scooped the kids' ice cream using the same spoon, from the contaminated pints, and who knows what would have happened.
The way she reacted left me feeling like I should apologize to her, but I don't think I should have to apologize for protecting my children. She says that she gets cross-contamination and the seriousness of our allergy, but she certainly doesn't demonstrate a real understanding of the situation. So I don't trust her, and whether she is offended or not, that's how it has to be.
You did the right thing.
Yasmine
my family also makes a big deal about having peanuts around my cousin who was recently diagnosed with several food allergies. her peanut allergy is not as severe as her tree nut allergy, but god forbid they be asked to not bring pecan pie to family gatherings.
i think (as gross as it sounds) the only way to make someone without food allergies understand cross contamination is to compare the allergen to dog poop. they would puke on your shoes if you told them to just pick the dog poop out of their pizza and eat it anyway....
My mantra is that people are certainly allowed to be ignorant, but not at risk to me. My family sometimes are the worst offenders too, if it helps ("Can't you just eat a little?"). :)
Don't let your guard down. And perhaps overly cautious is good considering the ramifications if not. I don't think it's distrust, you do trust and share with others how to learn to trust.
My 8 year old is the allergic person in our family (tree nuts) and he is getting to be more vigilant than I am!
Don't ever let anyone shame you into being unsafe!
As someone who has to avoid sugar I constantly get,"It only has 1 tsp of sugar per so and so amount of other ingredients." Well, that 1 tsp of sugar can make me break out and be miserable!
Until the other person (relative, friend, colleague) truly goes through the experience of being sick from an intolerance to foods or has a scary reaction to a food or chemical they can't really understand how playing it ultra safe is about survival, sanity and health!
I have drug allergies (discovered a new one the other day @@) so I have an inkling of what he has gone through with his 2 allergic episodes (fortunately neither life-threatening).
My husband is Celiac. His mom is Celiac she was disgnosed 29 years ago he was 5. When he was diagnosed we learned lots of things we shared with her that she was doing "incorrectly" and she has since made the entire house GF and even owns a baking mix line.
BUT
EVERYSINGLE time my husband eats her cooking he gets sick. Very sick and I mean EVERY time.
Now she doesn't even bring gluten into the home anymore but somehow she makes him sick. She wears she doesn't use anything with palm oil the only other thing he has a gluten reaction to but because of this I don't trust her. I ask whats in everything.
Kudos to you for opening the new container.