Food poisoning... ugh
Today's post will be a lesson in situational irony. You see, My Sweetie is a health inspector. He has a Masters degree in public health with a focus on epidemiology, and he spends his days assessing, and sometimes condemning restaurants' cleanliness and food handling practices. All of this is done with the goal of preventing foodborne illness (aka: food poisoning.) It also bears mentioning, at this juncture, that neither "stomach flu" nor "24-hour bugs" are actually Things. Influenza is a respiratory infection, and if your stomach is what's bothering you, it's probably food poisoning. Likewise, if it clears up "on it's own" in 24 hours. Food poisoining.
Okay, now My Sweetie loves to make the joke that the shoemaker's children go barefoot. Because our own kitchen is far from pristine. Don't get me wrong, we're fairly careful where the actual handling of food is concerned, but if he were to find a restaurant kitchen in the state that ours routinely is, he would be issuing charges, at the very least.
He also has very strict rules about leftovers. How long they can be left out before they go in the fridge, and how long they can be kept in the fridge before they should really be thrown out if not eaten. I, on the other hand, was raised in a very different way, where Friday night's soup would cool on the stovetop overnight, and then go in the fridge in the morning. When the bread went moldy, we would just cut away the fuzzy parts, and then toast the rest. It also helps (or doesn't!) that I seem to have a very strong stomach. I will eat something that sat out for too long, suffer no averse effects, and he will grumble that I "dodged a bullet".
Well, on Thursday night, just before we were set for a 4-day weekend camping trip that we had been really looking forward to, I decided to finish a tub of chip dip that had been in our fridge for "a while" (I really have no idea how long it had been there, which I suppose was my first problem. It tasted a little off, but I figured how bad could it be, and ate a goodly amount before deciding that the rest was just too far gone, and throwing it out.
Spoiler alert: How bad could it be? Pretty bad.
We ended up coming home first thing (and by first thing, I mean My Sweetie managed to turf me out of the tent so he could pack up at the crack of 10) Sunday morning, I slept pretty much the whole drive home and went straight to bed. I'm only now starting to get back on my feet, as evidenced by the fact that I'm doing laundry. My life is so exciting.
Okay, now My Sweetie loves to make the joke that the shoemaker's children go barefoot. Because our own kitchen is far from pristine. Don't get me wrong, we're fairly careful where the actual handling of food is concerned, but if he were to find a restaurant kitchen in the state that ours routinely is, he would be issuing charges, at the very least.
He also has very strict rules about leftovers. How long they can be left out before they go in the fridge, and how long they can be kept in the fridge before they should really be thrown out if not eaten. I, on the other hand, was raised in a very different way, where Friday night's soup would cool on the stovetop overnight, and then go in the fridge in the morning. When the bread went moldy, we would just cut away the fuzzy parts, and then toast the rest. It also helps (or doesn't!) that I seem to have a very strong stomach. I will eat something that sat out for too long, suffer no averse effects, and he will grumble that I "dodged a bullet".
Well, on Thursday night, just before we were set for a 4-day weekend camping trip that we had been really looking forward to, I decided to finish a tub of chip dip that had been in our fridge for "a while" (I really have no idea how long it had been there, which I suppose was my first problem. It tasted a little off, but I figured how bad could it be, and ate a goodly amount before deciding that the rest was just too far gone, and throwing it out.
Spoiler alert: How bad could it be? Pretty bad.
We ended up coming home first thing (and by first thing, I mean My Sweetie managed to turf me out of the tent so he could pack up at the crack of 10) Sunday morning, I slept pretty much the whole drive home and went straight to bed. I'm only now starting to get back on my feet, as evidenced by the fact that I'm doing laundry. My life is so exciting.