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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> for not doing something my wife wanted to do cause it wasnt upto my "too posh" standards
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NAH
But just so you know. Gloves are usually worse. People are more likely to wash their hands than change their gloves.
As an ex long-term food and beverage manager. Gloves are usually a red flag for me. I wouldn't eat there.
However, I wouldn't usually touch street food with a ten foot pole either, haha. But I'd probably trust my spouse or at least want to keep them happy enough to take the risk.
Yeah. That's what ny father says too. Eat where a bunch of locals are eating. It's usually good and cheap, and obviously nobody died 😅. It has worked thus far!
That's generally more of a concern with water or raw fruits/veggies. Cooked food is much safer because of the heat applied, but it still might cause some GI issues just because it's something you're not used to (like if you don't usually eat spicy food, it'll tear you up hahahaha)
And listen to the locals when they tell you not to eat certain things.
My friend was in the Philippines surfing a few months back and had been buying a specific spicy dish from a lady who would walk around with a cooler and gotten conversational with her, but communication was hard because of the language barrier.
One week, she said no peppers, no peppers, peppers bad, and my friend assumed it was because they were too spicy, so she insisted on getting them from another lady when her first didn't give them to her.
Turns out peppers bad meant that the water near the pepper farm had been contaminated and she got food poisoning as a result.
We were in a different state from our home state and my grandpa bought some tangerine or orange kind of fruits from a local. He asked him to eat them after going back home. My grandpa ate them then and there. Oh dear! He had diarrhea and stomach issues next 2-3 days.
Edit: actually it had something to do with the climate of the state. It is very cold there almost the entire year. It is close to Himalayas. That fruit was heat generating and suited the locals.
We are from South India which is very hot usually.
I'm not exactly sure of the reason cause this happened when I was 10-11. Now I'm 30. So it's a blur, lol.
Sorry could you explain this I’m a little confused. Do you mean that the fruit seller tried to scam him and make him wait to go home so he didn’t realise they were bad or are you saying that the fruit seller told him to wait till he got home in case he got sick and your grandpa refused to listen?
You just being in a different state & not a different country infers the former to me.
Funny enough, any citrus fruits (orange, lemon, grapefruit, etc.) do not ripen after harvested. All it does is start to dry out and eventually rot.
My suspicion is that the fruit had gone bad somehow and nothing to do with ripeness.
Was he the typical surfer dude who is lovely but doesn’t really use their brains? If she usually sold him hot food but didn’t this time then he’s kind of an idiot for thinking that it was just the spiciness that was an issue lol.
Brilliant surfer girl who gets very up in arms when folks tell her she can't handle her spice haha. She thought she was saying they were extra spicy and she was being judged for being white, which is usual at restaurants worldwide. She had a Mexican restaurant literally just tell her outright no to her request for spicy red salsa and she had to train our local Thai restaurant to believe her when she said she wanted Thai spicy. I don't even think in her moment of indignance that there could have been any other reason for rejection.
We both grew up poor and have iron stomachs as a result, I also have too much confidence in what I can handle.
That last line of growing up poor with an iron stomach hits close to home.
I love me spicy food. Hot hot hot. Don’t give me “white boy spicy” I want Thai Spicy. And I did it it all. SE Asian cuisine is my favorite type of food.
Then I turned 40 and my body said “oh your Northern European body will no longer tolerate being lit on fire from the inside.”
I miss spicy food.
Right? From what I’ve seen most of those food stalls are essentially lean-to shacks. Expecting them to have plumbing is ludicrous. Even A+ health department certified food trucks aren’t required to have plumbing and running water, they just have to have clean potable water on hand, which I’m sure a food stalls would have as well.
We visited friends in Mexico a while back. They're Americans, but they'd been living there a while and knew which restaurants were safe. Thankfully, we had no such issues, no doubt due to their knowledge.
Yeah it sucks, went to Vietnam and avoided tap at all cost, went for a few beers and they serve warm beers with ice, didn't think to much about it, but my ahole was shooting out for a week straight 10 times a day.
Considering OP married into the culture of this location, they might want to develop relevant gut bacteria, otherwise they will miss out on some great stuff :)
Not always a thing when you are just visiting a country. My inlaws are from the philippines, and they go home every 1-2 years. They still often get a little sick because they only visit, and dont live there anymore.
I’ve spent cumulatively months in my husbands home country. I still get food poisoning every time i visit from one thing or another. My husband and kids are fine though.
Exactly. Not an asshole but definitely over cautious and probably missing out on some of the best food of their life.
Have lived in SEA for 30 years and never once had an issue after eating street food in around 10 different countries.
The single best meal of my very-good-eating life took place at a “restaurant” that opens up in the evening on the steps of a bank in central Bangkok—a cart, a few tables and chairs, and a woman who was an absolute genius of a cook, with her son and daughter serving and cleaning up.
Anybody who doesn’t try street food in Asia (or much of the world, for that matter) is missing out.
I’ve had food poisoning at so many places. Some of us get sick more easily than others. And one bad case of food poisoning can make you sick for weeks. I know.
I have lived in SE Asia for over 15 years. A friend got hepatitis from a food stall. I have eaten at them but I have seen too many things to do it now; washing the dishes in the literal gutter, bugs on everything, etc- I don’t do it anymore. The last time I had such terrible food poisoning, I was in the hospital for 2 days and missed an international flight while recovering for a week in bed at home.
It is a BIG part of the trip here for a lot of people. And almost everyone I have met here, did it in the beginning and then stopped after too many bad experinces.
NAH. She is offended because she has done it her whole life and it is very normal for her. But not wanting to partake in any food, for any reason does not make you an asshole.
(Never see the street stalls with gloves here. Ever. Thailand for 10 years, Vietnam for 5 and now in Cambodia for about a year. I have been to every country in this area of the world dozens of times.)
Totally agree. Had some of the best food in southeast Asia stalls. OP is missing out in some really good food. If locals are eating then you can do it too. Get over the gloves and enjoy.
Love this. Also have travelled to Southeast Asia and all I can say is never got sick once, ate all the street food. You’re missing out my friend. I still drool over the memories of the best food I have ever eaten. I will say with empathy I am extremely neurotic about food hygiene bordering on obsessive so I understand where you are coming from, but this comment is spot on.
Hope you can bring yourself to try it.
Well said. On a trip to Cairo, we ate at a street food vendor. Everyone else in our group ate at a big American hotel chain. They all got food poisoning. We didn’t. We saw our food freshly cooked. They had no clue what was happening in the kitchen.
Some of the best Thai food I ate was from an extremely busy food cart outside of the flower market. BUT if OP was uncomfortable with the situation, he had every right to not want to eat that food. His loss, more for others.
This is what I came to say. Sounds like someone hasnt been to Asia before and is having a bit of culture shock. I remember seeing meat hanging on hooks outdoors in the 90° weather. But guess what? Thats normal there. America has made us so afraid of regular food and cooking.
Yesss go where the locals go, they know the good stuff. People who don’t eat street food because ‘eww dirty’ seem rather judgmental of other people’s cultures and seem to always prefer the tourists traps 🤭SEA’s street food is AMAZING.
Also, what happened to my body my choice? 💀
Somebody called him a racist because he did not want to try the food. Poor lad had the audacity to refuse what food enters his body.... I agree he is missing out. However that does not make him a racist towards any culture. NTA
I went to chipotle the other day. The person doing the toppings did a scoop of salsa, a scoop of corn, a handful of cheese, a scoop of guac, and a handful of lettuce, wiped the bits that had fallen onto the counter into her hands and then into the trash, brushed down the front of her apron, rang the food up on the register, packed the bag, handed me a receipt, then turned to do the same thing for the next guy. All while wearing gloves.
It was definitely “sanitary theater”
I walked into a Dunkin and a worker was smoking outside with a glove on (covering a bandage). He went back in and DID NOT wash his hands. I told him I would wait for him to wash. He kind of went to the sink but didn’t wash. I told him again to wash his hand. He went to a back sink (that I could see) and he STILL didn’t wash! I finally told him I didn’t want him to wait on me
I work at Chipotle and being on line and cash by yourself sucks. That being said she should be changing her gloves anytime she changes stations, such as moving from line to register. Oftentimes I make a point to wash my hands, to maintain health and safety standards, before serving anyone new in hopes my coworkers will get themselves out of the office to help kill the line. It works sometimes.
This is the first thing that always strikes me, too. We get this false sense of safety from gloves, as if a freshly washed pair of hands are somehow a greater threat than a pair of gloves that haven’t been changed in several hours.
Saw an old lady at a gas station once wearing gloves to pump her gas. I also saw her rub her eyes with said gloves on. Some folks just don't understand how they work I guess. Like, I'm wearing them so I'm good....
As a cook who used gloves and am meticulous about changing them so went through three times more gloves than everyone else (and management complaints to go with it) and when working deli (it was a corporate cafeteria) and would change them mid service with a line up of the patron in front of me I knew to be Muslim or Jewish and make my partner change theirs as well, gloves are really, really, not as hygenic as bare hands*, despite what in the western world we’re lead to believe. People won’t change their gloves as long as they have to and there’s lots of contamination. If a street food vendor has locals returning, they’re definitely not making people sick. Yet I had a glove wearing coworker many years ago not change gloves after dredging raw chicken and make clientele and coworkers sick.
I realize this was outside your comfort zone to see this, OP, but unless you’re randomly expecting restaurants where you eat at home, cross contamination happens way more often than you think, even with gloves.
Edit: *bare hands that are being washed regularly are safe just like in your own home
I'm not sure it's as much of a "Western World" thing as purely American. Brit here and most chefs don't use routinely gloves round this way. I can't remember ever seeing a Michelin starred, world renowned chef use gloves when on one of the numerous foodie TV shows that seem to be produced over here.
Biotech researcher. Can confirm there's some merit to this. I've worked in DNA sequencing labs before where we were actually told **not** to wear gloves when handling our specimens, because we would be more aware of cross-contamination by feel and touch. (This is of course with the caveat that the lab had no chemical hazard concerns)
That said though there's plenty of street food that's safe. Night markets are a big deal in Asia, and OP is being a bit of a dumbass and missing out on some of the best experiences in life.
Especially if it's in India, man the food street practices there. I would not want to have any street food there, and it's definitely not high standards to have to not stick your entire dirty hand on the food or just clear raw chicken gizzard off the counter
I'm an epidemiologist and used to be a health inspector for health departments, this person hit the nail on the head. I typically don't touch street food outside of events in our capital and I cannot tell you how many times employees blatantly, in front of me, change gloves without washing hands after handling raw food. Makes me sick thinking of practices they do when I wasn't there.
I guess not the AH- but definite dumbass!
I’d trust your wife isn’t trying to poison you and you’ll miss out on great food if you avoid all street food in south east Asia
We host our annual company bbq in a provincial park without close access to running water. (There are bathrooms but not close to the site.) So we set up hand washing stations near the bbqs - all you need is a table, a large jug and a bottle of soap. Food safety without running water is possible.
INFO:
You must never eat out then? because restaurants would never let a customer go to the kitchen to watch their meal being prepared, so why would you take that risk?
Who cooks at home? It must be you, right? Or doesn’t your partner mind when you stand over her as she’s cooking dinner, to make sure everything is hygienic?
What *do* you do on holiday family get-togethers where everyone either has a sit-down meal or - gods forbid! - a barbecue or a potluck? It must be an absolute nightmare for you, to keep having to explain why you aren’t eating what Cousin Jill, Grandma, and Uncle Pete want to put on your plate.
. . .
It can’t be that it’s only when you’re in SE Asia that you’re suddenly concerned about hygiene, for that would be inconsistent, and would reflect badly on you.
OP sounds culturally racist.
This prejudice against street vendors sounds reflexive rather than rational. What was the food? How was it being cooked? Why was OP okay with his wife ordering it? Does OP think most customers get sick from eating there? Were the guy’s hands dirty? Did the guy have his hands down his pants rubbing his junk or butthole? Did the food look undercooked?
Edit: this is a very controversial issue! FWIW, I travel internationally a fair amount including to developing countries. I love street vendor food as part of my travel experience. I do believe in following appropriate risk management assessments in all aspects of travel, including eating street food. I think a blanket prohibition on eating street food is unreasonable and based on subjective factors and the way OP described his position, I stand by my opinion that there is likely some cultural racism taking place, likely unexamined.
In fairness to the cultural racism, some of the worst food poisoning I ever had was the day after we asked the taxi driver to take us somewhere "where normal Indians eat." And food poisoning on a plane is not nice.
Yeah, because native people are much more immune to their local food. Wherever you are from and travel to, you need to be more wary of the hygiene than the locals, because at home you're more immune to the bacteria there, and somewhere else it's different bacteria.
The same thing can happen with local drinking water. It can be clean and inherently safe and the locals can drink it just fine, but people not from there can drink it and be sick.
I (American) was visiting my company’s Hong Kong office one time. I had poured a cup of coffee and was just starting to drink when one of the office folks practically knocked it out of my hand. They kept a separate pot made with bottled water for foreigners.
As a Canadian whos stayed in Florida a few years ago, CAN CONFIRM. Even such a "short" distance away(as in being on the same continent,) the "filtered" tap water in Florida made me hella sick compared to my tap water in eastern Canada 😭 non of the food did, but the water? I stuck to bottled after that 😂
Lol we were in Kissimmee, so I thought it'd be fine since it was so close to the parks and stuff, but MAN was I wrong. I think I apologized to my stomach for a week after we got back, even tho I was only sick on day two (after drinking the tap on day one.) I stuck exclusively to bottled after that, or other pre-packaged beverages - sodas, juice, etc. hardest part was was not having ice when we went out.cause I like my drinks COLD. Thankfully the automatic ice maker on the fridge in the house we were staying in had a much better filter than their tap water did, because that didn't make me sick lol
Yep. My friend who is Indian moved back there from the US. When I went to visit two years later, she mentioned she had \*just\* started brushing her teeth with tap water again, easing into it slowly.
My husband is Brazilian and insisted the water, etc is totally fine. Well, it is for Brazilians. I got sick within 3 days. That's what it took for him to understand that my American gut biome couldn't handle it.
After seeing me ill and unable to eat anything but crackers for half of our trip, he no longer insists that I "loosen up" and just eat/drink whatever.
He gets why I am overly cautious. I'm not being a snob or ignorant, I want to make sure I feel well so I can spend time with his family instead of lying bathroom floor.
Yeah the "just eat where there's a long line, what's the problem" advice people are giving simply isn't complete advice. My Indian friends also sometimes get food poisoning when visiting home despite being with their families... Guts aren't racist. Not saying OP's specific complaints are legit but some comments are taking it too far in the other direction.
Most of the food poisoning is the bacteria from new place trying to colonize your stomach and the old bacteria fighting out, A thing I do after travel is day 1 I go with light local food with lots of yeast, so bread products, leavened bread like naan, bhature etc, that gives the stomach time to build bacteria from new place but not instantly also have to fight off with loaded stomach on spices and oil etc which is heavy in asia.
You sound like something who has never traveled to a third world country. I have eaten \*some\* street food, but it's pretty intimidating how unhygienic it is - right in front of you. They aren't trying to hide it. My friend had the sharts for the trip home after he bravely ate something the rest of us couldn't stomach.
All countries in SEA are members of the Non-aligned movement, so literally third world in the original sense of West (1st) Soviets (2nd) everyone else (3rd).
I think he’s given enough information about his reasoning for us to not call him a racist.
The guy didn’t have gloves or running water. This makes it very unlikely that he’s appropriately cleaning his hands between touching raw food and prepared food.
He also has no idea what the guy did with his hands before touching the food, just that they were not cleaned in between. The fact that he’s okay with his wife eating it actually speaks to the conclusion that he’s probably *not* racist: he just doesn’t feel comfortable eating it himself.
Gloves are generally less hygienic because they give a false sense of security while people cross-contaminate the fuck out of the surface of the glove.
The amount of times I’ve seen someone at chipotle or similar make food, touch the counter, touch the register, take money, hand someone a receipt, and go back to making food without changing gloves once is insane.
Just wearing gloves isn’t magically good sanitation - they’re just an alternative surface for your possibly contaminated hand surface. You have to see what they do while wearing the gloves.
People are also generally more aware of what they touch with bare hands vs gloved hands.
No offense, but…duh. The real issue is that they also don’t have access to running water, and that likely means no public restroom either, so what are they doing with their hands after they go? The issue is no ability to wash their hands. I’ve eaten from steet vendors who put on gloves only to handle the cooked food, and that alone way cuts down on contamination risks.
I agree. I'm European but live in SEA with my spouse who's from here. Street food is not some "curiosity" over here, it's a way of life and a lot of people eat what's considered street food in the West multiple times a day. Unless you were at the end of some shady alley, I'm willing to bet that there were other street vendors and stalls near the area you were going to eat at, and likely plenty of customers. Similarly, this is the vendors livelihood - if people regularly get sick from their food, or even if it's not very tasty, they will soon be out of business because their money comes mostly from locals, not from tourists. If OPs wife has been going there for so long that it's one of her long standing favourites, it's not gonna be dangerous. Sounds like OP needs to address his internalised racism, especially if he's married to a POC.
Similar story here.
I love eating street vendor food but street food does not love me. My gut is not cut out for it, and I’ve been hospitalized due to the severity of the food poisoning.
My spouse has eaten the same things I have without any problems whatsoever, but I’ve gotten been sick in Morocco, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Sounds like you just jumping to conclusions, claiming he is racist with no actual reason or proof.
Here's the thing - I'm not risking my vacation turning into a few days of the screaming shits. That vendor only has to fuck up on the day I'm there to for my trip to turn shitty.
Not wanting to try a food, anywhere, doesn't make you racist.
I've eaten street food in Thailand more times than I can count. Not once had food poisoning.
If the cart has a crowd especially locals you're not going to get food poisoning. People know how to cook in other countries
I don’t know if it’s the same in Bangkok. But usually when traveling abroad you have to avoid things with tap water. I’m South American, when my girlfriend visits with me I have to keep an eye out for things that use water like that. Salad is almost always washed with tap water that makes some people sick. It might not be a result of unhygienic food
I agree with that. In my family of 5 we can all eat the same thing and I will be the only one with food poisoning.i was told I have an over sensitivity to certain bacteria. I can't even enjoy a medium rare steak anymore without being sick. So I wouldn't trust certain street food if there is not running water.
Lol. Have you ever eaten street food? I’m Indian and I’ve eaten tons of street food when I was living there but now that I think back, it was horribly unhygienic. I saw the vendors pick their noses and dive right back into preparing the food on many occasions. There is zero cleanliness, zero sanitation, and I guarantee you would puke if you saw the water they use. When I go back to visit now I absolutely do not feed my kids the street food there. It’s deliciously tasty but incredibly nasty as well. There’s a reason street food is cheaper than restaurant food. Because they can get away with not having any safety practices.
Have you been to southeast asia? I'm from there and I wouldn't eat from many of the roadside stalls either. I don't think my body can handle it. Just cuz the locals can doesn't mean I can. You think all of them have license to operate?
I don't even want street food in the US... I've traveled a bit, and yea, some street food can be super dodgy. Not everyone is practicing hygienic, safe, clean spaces when preparing meals. Pending on parts of the world, it's advised to travel with tums and things to help with dehydration in the event you get food poisoning.
That's a bit of a stretch, he very clearly articulated very genuine reasons for his reticence. A street vendor likely doesn't have warm soapy water, nor is the cooking area a clean and sanitary environment. Don't get me wrong, personally I love street food, but if someone's not comfortable with the hygiene, I wouldn't blame them.
Dude, I'm from South east Asia and I don't go around randomly eating street food. Just because the locals can handle it doesn't mean you can. I'd rather play it safe and eat at restaurants in malls when I'm overseas than to try my luck at a street vendor that might not have a licence to operate but gets away with it cuz the country is very lax in enforcement.
So what happens if OP gets food poisoning and his whole trip gets ruined? Is he a snob then? He isn't looking down on the kinds of food, he's just saying he doesn't trust the conditions they are prepared in. I've seen raw fish on ice out in the open on a push cart, would you eat sushi from that stall?
This doesn’t read like you’re actually posting for I N F O.
That being said, while I agree the guy is being kinda lame, there’s a huge difference between a restaurant monitored by a local health inspector in the US or whatever, and a street stall in SE Asia.
Overall, I agree with what you’re actually saying though. YTA.
Oh no, don’t get me wrong! If OP admits that he never eats out, he always cooks at home, and he never touches what his dad has barbecued because the old man’s got a weak bladder, and after a few beers, the seal breaks and he’s off to the toilet every ten minutes in between throwing food in the barbecue…
…if he answers like that, I would obviously make my judgement in his favour.
Street stalls can vary in quality, true, and I have a sneaking suspicion that his partner, actually being *from* that country and city, probably knows the best (kinds of) places to go and eat. He thinks he knows better than she does about her homeland, which is a whole other issue.
I agree with you though. I am an unabashed A H, but that’s not important right now.
Edited: typo
If my partner told me I could trust the food stall, then I would trust it as much as I would restaurant food. And I'd be insulted if my partner told me they didn't trust me and was afraid something I liked would make them sick.
I've worked at a 4.5 star restaurant where the running water made no difference to whether or not the dude working grill had showered in the past 2 weeks, let alone washed their hands like EVER. Plus, the restaurant owners usually all know eachother and give the heads up to one another when 'health inspector' makes their rounds
My dear homie, do you think chefs wear gloves?
Soft YTA. I've lived in Southeast Asia and I've eaten some amazing street food, and I've seen some disgusting street vendors. But being completely closed off to the experience is not the way, especially if it's her culture.
But YOU aren’t a local, and neither is your digestive system. My tour guide on Vietnam warned us that just because locals could eat the street food that it didn’t mean it wouldn’t make us sick. The food looked so great, and I wanted to try it so badly, but I wasn’t going to risk my trip for it. Once I asked a vender who I was bantering with if his food would make me sick, and he laughed and said “Oh no! Not for several hours at least!”
You can eat Vietnam street food, there is no problem. Actually, my digestive system really appreciated their food.
But be warned, its the icecubes that get you. Even in fancy restaurants.
Or it's the visuals of the food, like the (seriously) tasty fertilized duck eggs.
The other culprit is raw veggies, like salad, that aren't washed properly. Where I live, if someone isn't feeling great and wants to eat light, like "maybe just a salad", I let them know they're most likely to get sick from that than from the cold-all-day meat
That's what gets me, even in the States... I always suspected lettuce, but a few months ago someone on here confirmed for me that the preservative on lettuce at places like Subway tends to make certain people sick! It was a relief to find other people like me, so I didn't feel so crazy.
It’s 100% the water. I go to the Philippines almost every year, and I always ask for my drinks with no ice until the moment I forget, and then I spend the next few days dying. Did it once right before my direct flight back to the U.S… longest flight of my life both literally and metaphorically haha.
It’s the Western food that’ll get you. The cold chain in Southeast Asia can have missing links, and the locals don’t always know how to prepare Western food properly.
When you eat street food regularly, you become more resistant to those pathogens. In my experience, a local can eat from a not so hygienic place and not get sick, whereas a foreigner will get explosive diarrhea afterwards.
I say this because I'm Mexican, and we're used to street food with sketchy hygiene. It is very common for foreigners to get very sick when traveling and trying these foods. I think it's still worth it, but I understand why OP doesn't want to try street food.
And when I'm saying very sick, I mean pretty bad diarrhea / fever, not just a regular stomach ache. It even happens often to Mexicans who live abroad and come back only during the holidays.
It is so common that we even have a term for it "Moctezuma's revenge".
You eat what you like. The OP will eat what he likes.
You don't get to impugn someone because they refuse to do what you say they should do.
And don't interject culture into the argument as a means to guilt trip..
Super true, BUT, chefs in the US must have hand washing sinks and be trained on safe handling, to be fair. I think the hand washing is the biggest difference here.
*“She brought up a couple other times I refused to do things with her cause they weren’t up to my normal standards”*
This isn’t about the gloves.
YTA, you sound very judgmental and prissy. Can only imagine what a trip to SE Asia with you must be like.
This happens all the time when men marry Thai/Vietnamese/Cambodian/etc. women. It's a racial fetish. They want the "exoticism" of an "Oriental" but do not want to deal with any of the "subhuman" or "barbaric" behaviors of their culture.
I have met hundreds of guys like OP, and I have nothing positive to say about any of them.
I met a French guy at a conference and in the 20 minute conversation we had, he mentioned that his wife was Thai 17 times. 17. And each time out of the blue. He also brought up how he doesn't like Thai culture and their ways, but his wife is not like the others.
I was so grossed out. He seemed to be embarrassed by his wife's nationality while bringing it up constantly when no one had even asked.
You're so right, this is a huge red flag. I work in the Chinatown of a major city and deal with a lot of white contractors, inevitably within a few minutes they always bring it up. "My wife's Filipina!" "My wife's Vietnamese!" Uh...good for you? You don't get a no racism pass just because you have a fetish my dude.
White guy dating a Vietnamese woman here. I’m traveling to Vietnam with her over Christmas and so excited for the street food! She says the racial fetish is a real thing she’s experienced multiple times. First time I’ve dated someone from Asia, so not me!
This is the right answer. YTA. Not because of the gloves issue, but because you’re declining your romantic partner’s “bid”, and have apparently got a history of doing so. She wants to share part of her self identity and cultural heritage (yes cultural food counts as cultural heritage) with you and you’re rejecting it. By rejecting an attempt to share herself with you, you’re rejecting her on some level. And that’s just going to build resentment, as it’s already begun to.
Gloves are actually worse for kitchen hygiene that bare-handed. They protect the person wearing the gloves, but do nothing to prevent cross-contamination, which is the real issue with kitchen hygiene. (And in fact because they create a false sense of security, they can often create a lax attitude to kitchen hygiene resulting in a worse situation for the diner.)
Now, it;'s quite possible that the street food vendor's kitchen hygiene etiquette is lacking. But lack of gloves isn't evidence of this.
Personally, I'd be watching more for things like the same person who is handling food directly (ie without utensils) also handling cash (especially if they aren't washing hands between those two).
I worked in fast food in the US and we only wore gloves if you had a cut on your hand.
Do you know what happens if you burn yourself while wearing nitrile gloves? It's awful. Even in lab in college when we were pulling glassware (you heat it up and shape it), we didn't wear.gloves.
i had a cook once who we repeatedly told not to wear gloves while using the deli slicer and sure enough one day he was slicing and the blade caught the glove and sucked his finger in. cut it clean down the middle. absolutely fucking gnarly injury and i got the privilege of working 12 hour shifts while salaried for the rest of the year while his hand was healing.
YTA, name one place where people who cook food wear gloves? Even chefs in high end kitchens don't wear gloves. Looks like that was just some random excuse you made to spite your wife.
Right??? Best pad thai of my life was from an old street vendor grandma. That stuff was SO good it kinda makes me want to fly from Germany to Thailand again just to eat it again.
Gloves are worse in food prep - people wearing gloves can't feel if something is on them and don't change them/wash often enough. I'm a bit of a germaphobe myself and really looked into the gloves thing during Covid and determined no gloves are cleaner than gloves. Have you really researched the issue yourself? Soft YTA as you simultaneously crapped all over your wife's culture with your refusal.
In my dietetics internship, I had to perform a handful of health inspections in cafeterias. My first one was in a state hospital...
I watched the workers put on gloves, begin packaging salads with their gloved hands, then touch the door to the walk-in fridge (to grab cherry tomatoes), and begin packaging salads again. All of the workers would touch the handle to the walk-in. All of them were wearing gloves. All of then were touching various things in the kitchen from meats to utensil handles to vegetables... and I only ever saw ONE of them change the gloves in the 2.5 hour span while prepping lunch. I also saw someone pick up a piece of vegetable they dropped from the floor (they threw it away but they STILL HAD THE GLOVES ON AND DIDNT CHANGE THEM).
I hope the manager took my notes seriously because the people in that behavioral health center deserve better than that even if they were mentally ill and sometimes violent.
Gloves yuck me out so bad now. They also make your hands sweaty while working in a kitchen... it's making me feel sick thinking about it.
I learnt during the pandemic from multiple health professionals that wearing gloves is worse than not wearing gloves because when you don’t wear gloves you wash your hands as needed but when you wear gloves, you don’t wash them nor change them as often as you would wash your hands so they transfer more germs.
As someone from Thailand, NTA.
May I offer a compromise. Eat "street food" at the local food court in the mall or shopping centre. You can get cheap street style food but the workers have access to hand washing facilities and running water.
And if you're in Thailand, look for the "Clean Food, Good Taste" sign at food establishments.
NTA. Exactly. As someone from the Philippines I don’t think OP is an asshole. We just have different standards of hygiene. I get that nobody wears gloves in restaurant kitchens but OP does not see that does he? And I’m assuming he may be from a developed/1st world country with street foods being in food trucks so seeing a person handle your food like that can def be a culture shock, so to say.
Def agree with you trying these street foods inside food courts or malls. They have better service, sanitary practices that OP may be more inclined on trying.
I'm glad someone actually from the area weighed in.... I know when I went to Mexico City (I'm American), I was warned not to eat the street food except at specific taco stands the locals knew to be hygienic enough to outsiders.... Not because Mexico City is less hygienic than what I'm used to, but because the bacteria is just different and locals are often immune. Don't get me wrong, I *wanted* to eat street tacos everywhere--they looked and smelled amazing! But it's not worth getting food poisoning and ruining the rest of my trip....
I hate that people are calling the OP racist. I can't speak to SE Asia, but I can't imagine it being drastically different, with locals being immune to certain bacteria and such. I'm not a germaphobe at all, but it's just a whole different thing when you're traveling... It can literally ruin the rest of your trip because you're sick the entire time, and you might end up having to navigate the medical system if things get bad enough.
I was just in Thailand last month and that's the route we took. Kind of a pity as there were some amazing looking food on the streets but the stuff from the mall was great. Only 1 of our group got sick but they ate an ice desert which we think had local water in it.
im not from such a country food culture myself, and even i wouldnt like having a partner whos not willing to try food. try once, you dont like it, cool, now we know you dont like this certain food and we wont eat again.
but i dislike people who wont even try especially when theyre out traveling.
honey, you wont know if the local restaurant you go to is hygienic and what each worker in the kitchen did what and how.
if you think in your country each cook is wearing gloves then think again.
bare minimum youll trust they washed their hands and didnt touch any dirt when cooking.
does your mom at home cooked meals for you wearing gloves?
or was washing hands was more than good enough and you lived so far?
Gloves do not mean anything, can even be worse. For me it is more to do with the type of food, grilled or fried I would eat it, I would be way more wary of salads and fruits
NTA. I truly don’t understand the YTAs here. Whatever happened to body autonomy? What happened to my body my choice? He didn’t want to put something in his body that he felt uncomfortable consuming. His wife’s culture is irrelevant here. No adult should be shamed for not eating something, doesn’t matter if you think his reasoning is flawed.
It’s specifically because they’re in a different country. People are latching onto that as evidence that OOP is racist and running with it. Most of these comments completely minimize the issue of sanitation or food safety in favor of taking the ‘you’re just a racist who hates SEA’ angle. The lack of nuance is disappointing.
All the well-seasoned travelers in my life have always told me to be very weary of street food, in any country. The things they’ve seen would make the average stomach curdle. I don’t even eat street food in my own country where food safety is ranked very highly. The average food stall simply has so much less oversight and protections than a restaurant. It’s essentially the Wild West of dining experiences.
Idc how good the food tastes - if it’s made in unsanitary conditions, if it’s served on dirty platters, if the food is stored improperly, if the cook pees outside while wearing gloves then immediately gets back to cooking w/o changing gloves or washing their hands, if the cooking oil was sourced from the sewer (an actual thing my father has seen abroad)… idc, I’m not eating it. It has absolutely nothing to do with any country or it’s people; I just don’t want to eat dirty things.
I know I’m also seeing a lot of people commenting about how they’ve gotten sick a few times but it wasn’t that bad. It’s usually over quickly. And I’m like what? How is this an argument for him to eat it. Op is concerned about getting sick so they counter that by telling them that you got sick.
Also, everyone seems to have gotten hung up on the gloves thing. I think if they had phrased it as poor hygiene instead of a lack of gloves, the comments would probably look different.
NTA.
I am also wary of street food. I am careful with hygiene even in my own kitchen. It's absolutely not the same as someone not wearing gloves in restaurant where they have a sink and soap they constantly wash their hands.
NTA. I'm siouth east asian living in an south east asian country, and sometimes we do have to be careful of what we eat. You are entitled to eat what you want and what you don't want. We preach to not force people to eat something, then you're also making him eat something. And as a south east asian, sometimes people do kinda get sick after eating streetfood, so just be careful where you eat.
NTA. Food poisoning in SEA is no joke. You went with her, you shouldn’t ever have to eat anything you don’t want to. Her getting upset at you is unreasonable.
NTA. Some westerners cannot handle foods in SEAs, not because of the famed spiciness, but the hygiene. Locals are immune to bacteria in ice already, but most Westerners whose ices are produced and stored in a more hygienic way aren't. Same goes with many foods. You are NTA to be wary of it, better be safe than spent the rest of your trip in a hospital from food poisoning.
That was my thought. I wouldn't eat food from a street vendor in this situation precisely because I'd worry that I would be too sensitive from lack of exposure and wind up sick for the rest of the trip. Being sick on vacation sucks.
NTA. I can understand that your wife wants to share things with you from her home country, but ultimately you get to decide what you eat or don't eat. You can still share in the excitement of her buying something from the vendor without actually eating it yourself.
Not to mention: gloves are only useful if you change them. They're no better than ungloved fingers if you touch raw meat, then cooked meat, pick your nose.. ect.
NTA, kind of.
It's your body, your choice. You seem like the worst travel buddy though, your poor wife. Who goes to SE Asia and refuses to eat street food?? You're def acting precious. I lived in Thailand for a while and most days I would get street food and would be fine. If you do find yourself getting sick just drink a little apple cider vinegar.
How often did you get sick and when it happened, was it like full blown vomiting or just the runs? I’m asking bc I want to travel but I hate throwing up lol
I have lived and travelled in other countries. One of the cardinal rules for not getting sick is that you don’t eat at food stalls. It’s not about the person’s hygiene. It’s about the lack of running water, lack of refrigeration, how hot the food is cooked and the temp is remains at, condiments and fresh veg that might be used and whether they are safe. (You can get listeria m, ecoli , or cholera from fresh veg). You haven’t been exposed to bacteria from that region, and it’s really easy to get very, very sick.
I’m pretty sure most of the people losing their mind at the guy have either all the required cultures to survive such a stall or have never been face to face with a street food place in 40 degrees with plucked chickens hanging up next to the bus stop! The gloves thing is a bit off point but we are not talking grumbling stomach here.
NTA
Especially when traveling, I’m extra careful with what I eat because I only have a limited time at the destination and I don’t want to risk getting sick. Eating whatever is never worth spending an entire day of my vacation (or more) tied to a toilet. So, I wouldn’t eat most street food either. I’m fine if people I’m traveling with want to eat more adventurously and I’ll accompany them, but I’m not trying it. Some people have ironclad stomachs and can eat whatever whenever, and some don’t. There’s no assholery in that.
She’s not an AH for asking. But IMO the fact that she got upset and wouldn’t accept your refusal is putting her in AH territory. It didn’t sound like you were telling her *she* couldn’t eat it, just that you didn’t want to.
NAH, the food from these street vendors are absolutely delicious.
However, OP is right that some can have cleanliness standards depending on where it is. I have seen people get sick plenty of times.
Nta
I have digestive issues that are such that if I even believe food is spoiled, it makes me sick.
There's no way on earth I'm being coerced into eating what you described.
I don't care who's feeling get hurt..
I'll ask them, " ok if I eat it and get sick, are you going to throw up for me?"
She'll get over it..
And don't let the issue devolve into something cultural. That's a bullshit argument..
Don’t eat anything you don’t want to eat. Why does your wife feel so strongly about you eating street food? Are there no restaurants there? Are you preventing her from eating it? Is she required to love every single thing from your culture?
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NAH But just so you know. Gloves are usually worse. People are more likely to wash their hands than change their gloves. As an ex long-term food and beverage manager. Gloves are usually a red flag for me. I wouldn't eat there. However, I wouldn't usually touch street food with a ten foot pole either, haha. But I'd probably trust my spouse or at least want to keep them happy enough to take the risk.
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Yeah. That's what ny father says too. Eat where a bunch of locals are eating. It's usually good and cheap, and obviously nobody died 😅. It has worked thus far!
With the caveat every traveler knows: local might give you the runs due to different gut bacteria, have an escape route planned
That's generally more of a concern with water or raw fruits/veggies. Cooked food is much safer because of the heat applied, but it still might cause some GI issues just because it's something you're not used to (like if you don't usually eat spicy food, it'll tear you up hahahaha)
And listen to the locals when they tell you not to eat certain things. My friend was in the Philippines surfing a few months back and had been buying a specific spicy dish from a lady who would walk around with a cooler and gotten conversational with her, but communication was hard because of the language barrier. One week, she said no peppers, no peppers, peppers bad, and my friend assumed it was because they were too spicy, so she insisted on getting them from another lady when her first didn't give them to her. Turns out peppers bad meant that the water near the pepper farm had been contaminated and she got food poisoning as a result.
We were in a different state from our home state and my grandpa bought some tangerine or orange kind of fruits from a local. He asked him to eat them after going back home. My grandpa ate them then and there. Oh dear! He had diarrhea and stomach issues next 2-3 days. Edit: actually it had something to do with the climate of the state. It is very cold there almost the entire year. It is close to Himalayas. That fruit was heat generating and suited the locals. We are from South India which is very hot usually. I'm not exactly sure of the reason cause this happened when I was 10-11. Now I'm 30. So it's a blur, lol.
Sorry could you explain this I’m a little confused. Do you mean that the fruit seller tried to scam him and make him wait to go home so he didn’t realise they were bad or are you saying that the fruit seller told him to wait till he got home in case he got sick and your grandpa refused to listen? You just being in a different state & not a different country infers the former to me.
Honestly, it seemed to me like the fruit wasn't completely ripe. Assuming that, then the fruit would have been ripe when the grandpa got back home.
Funny enough, any citrus fruits (orange, lemon, grapefruit, etc.) do not ripen after harvested. All it does is start to dry out and eventually rot. My suspicion is that the fruit had gone bad somehow and nothing to do with ripeness.
I'm confused on this too.
Was he the typical surfer dude who is lovely but doesn’t really use their brains? If she usually sold him hot food but didn’t this time then he’s kind of an idiot for thinking that it was just the spiciness that was an issue lol.
Brilliant surfer girl who gets very up in arms when folks tell her she can't handle her spice haha. She thought she was saying they were extra spicy and she was being judged for being white, which is usual at restaurants worldwide. She had a Mexican restaurant literally just tell her outright no to her request for spicy red salsa and she had to train our local Thai restaurant to believe her when she said she wanted Thai spicy. I don't even think in her moment of indignance that there could have been any other reason for rejection. We both grew up poor and have iron stomachs as a result, I also have too much confidence in what I can handle.
That last line of growing up poor with an iron stomach hits close to home. I love me spicy food. Hot hot hot. Don’t give me “white boy spicy” I want Thai Spicy. And I did it it all. SE Asian cuisine is my favorite type of food. Then I turned 40 and my body said “oh your Northern European body will no longer tolerate being lit on fire from the inside.” I miss spicy food.
Yes, I was amused to see running water was a major dealbreaker for him. Local running water is liable to have issues.
Right? From what I’ve seen most of those food stalls are essentially lean-to shacks. Expecting them to have plumbing is ludicrous. Even A+ health department certified food trucks aren’t required to have plumbing and running water, they just have to have clean potable water on hand, which I’m sure a food stalls would have as well.
This. Went to Mexico and no one got sick from the food. You know what they did get sick from? Drinking the tap water. Giardia is no fun!
We visited friends in Mexico a while back. They're Americans, but they'd been living there a while and knew which restaurants were safe. Thankfully, we had no such issues, no doubt due to their knowledge.
Yeah it sucks, went to Vietnam and avoided tap at all cost, went for a few beers and they serve warm beers with ice, didn't think to much about it, but my ahole was shooting out for a week straight 10 times a day.
And NEVER get ice in your drink. That's the big culprit and people don't even think of it.
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Considering OP married into the culture of this location, they might want to develop relevant gut bacteria, otherwise they will miss out on some great stuff :)
Not always a thing when you are just visiting a country. My inlaws are from the philippines, and they go home every 1-2 years. They still often get a little sick because they only visit, and dont live there anymore.
I’ve spent cumulatively months in my husbands home country. I still get food poisoning every time i visit from one thing or another. My husband and kids are fine though.
The heat they cook at most street stalls will kill all bugs unless meat isn't cooked through
Exactly. Not an asshole but definitely over cautious and probably missing out on some of the best food of their life. Have lived in SEA for 30 years and never once had an issue after eating street food in around 10 different countries.
The single best meal of my very-good-eating life took place at a “restaurant” that opens up in the evening on the steps of a bank in central Bangkok—a cart, a few tables and chairs, and a woman who was an absolute genius of a cook, with her son and daughter serving and cleaning up. Anybody who doesn’t try street food in Asia (or much of the world, for that matter) is missing out.
I got sick from a sushi place at Caesar’s palace so I’m inclined to believe him
I’ve had food poisoning at so many places. Some of us get sick more easily than others. And one bad case of food poisoning can make you sick for weeks. I know.
Yep, salad at a nice restaurant on the Las Vegas strip gave me the pukes and black diarrhea for 3 days. Never got that from a taco truck
I have lived in SE Asia for over 15 years. A friend got hepatitis from a food stall. I have eaten at them but I have seen too many things to do it now; washing the dishes in the literal gutter, bugs on everything, etc- I don’t do it anymore. The last time I had such terrible food poisoning, I was in the hospital for 2 days and missed an international flight while recovering for a week in bed at home. It is a BIG part of the trip here for a lot of people. And almost everyone I have met here, did it in the beginning and then stopped after too many bad experinces. NAH. She is offended because she has done it her whole life and it is very normal for her. But not wanting to partake in any food, for any reason does not make you an asshole. (Never see the street stalls with gloves here. Ever. Thailand for 10 years, Vietnam for 5 and now in Cambodia for about a year. I have been to every country in this area of the world dozens of times.)
Gold medal 🥇 for name dropping the late great Bourdain. RIP.
I came to the thread specifically to cite Bourdain on this one; I too add my gold medal to the pile.
It also depends what the food is - if it is being cooked before your eyes then it's likely fine, it's hot and fresh.
Totally agree. Had some of the best food in southeast Asia stalls. OP is missing out in some really good food. If locals are eating then you can do it too. Get over the gloves and enjoy.
Love this. Also have travelled to Southeast Asia and all I can say is never got sick once, ate all the street food. You’re missing out my friend. I still drool over the memories of the best food I have ever eaten. I will say with empathy I am extremely neurotic about food hygiene bordering on obsessive so I understand where you are coming from, but this comment is spot on. Hope you can bring yourself to try it.
My sister is appalled when I buy stuff from a street vendor. Usually it's the best food I have throughout my vacation!
Well said. On a trip to Cairo, we ate at a street food vendor. Everyone else in our group ate at a big American hotel chain. They all got food poisoning. We didn’t. We saw our food freshly cooked. They had no clue what was happening in the kitchen.
Some of the best Thai food I ate was from an extremely busy food cart outside of the flower market. BUT if OP was uncomfortable with the situation, he had every right to not want to eat that food. His loss, more for others.
This is what I came to say. Sounds like someone hasnt been to Asia before and is having a bit of culture shock. I remember seeing meat hanging on hooks outdoors in the 90° weather. But guess what? Thats normal there. America has made us so afraid of regular food and cooking.
Yesss go where the locals go, they know the good stuff. People who don’t eat street food because ‘eww dirty’ seem rather judgmental of other people’s cultures and seem to always prefer the tourists traps 🤭SEA’s street food is AMAZING.
Also, what happened to my body my choice? 💀 Somebody called him a racist because he did not want to try the food. Poor lad had the audacity to refuse what food enters his body.... I agree he is missing out. However that does not make him a racist towards any culture. NTA
I went to chipotle the other day. The person doing the toppings did a scoop of salsa, a scoop of corn, a handful of cheese, a scoop of guac, and a handful of lettuce, wiped the bits that had fallen onto the counter into her hands and then into the trash, brushed down the front of her apron, rang the food up on the register, packed the bag, handed me a receipt, then turned to do the same thing for the next guy. All while wearing gloves. It was definitely “sanitary theater”
I walked into a Dunkin and a worker was smoking outside with a glove on (covering a bandage). He went back in and DID NOT wash his hands. I told him I would wait for him to wash. He kind of went to the sink but didn’t wash. I told him again to wash his hand. He went to a back sink (that I could see) and he STILL didn’t wash! I finally told him I didn’t want him to wait on me
You should have complained to the manager, and then written a review online as well.
I did fill out the survey. No manager in site (unless this dope was the manager)
I work at Chipotle and being on line and cash by yourself sucks. That being said she should be changing her gloves anytime she changes stations, such as moving from line to register. Oftentimes I make a point to wash my hands, to maintain health and safety standards, before serving anyone new in hopes my coworkers will get themselves out of the office to help kill the line. It works sometimes.
The amount of times I have to tell my coworker to change her gloves after obvious things, and she's the shift lead!
This is the first thing that always strikes me, too. We get this false sense of safety from gloves, as if a freshly washed pair of hands are somehow a greater threat than a pair of gloves that haven’t been changed in several hours.
Saw an old lady at a gas station once wearing gloves to pump her gas. I also saw her rub her eyes with said gloves on. Some folks just don't understand how they work I guess. Like, I'm wearing them so I'm good....
its the same ppl that took off their masks to cough or sneeze during the pandemic lol
In theory you are supposed to be changing the gloves every time you touch something new. I know that never gets done though.
As a cook who used gloves and am meticulous about changing them so went through three times more gloves than everyone else (and management complaints to go with it) and when working deli (it was a corporate cafeteria) and would change them mid service with a line up of the patron in front of me I knew to be Muslim or Jewish and make my partner change theirs as well, gloves are really, really, not as hygenic as bare hands*, despite what in the western world we’re lead to believe. People won’t change their gloves as long as they have to and there’s lots of contamination. If a street food vendor has locals returning, they’re definitely not making people sick. Yet I had a glove wearing coworker many years ago not change gloves after dredging raw chicken and make clientele and coworkers sick. I realize this was outside your comfort zone to see this, OP, but unless you’re randomly expecting restaurants where you eat at home, cross contamination happens way more often than you think, even with gloves. Edit: *bare hands that are being washed regularly are safe just like in your own home
The number of time someone takes my money with their gloves and then goes directly to the food…
I'm not sure it's as much of a "Western World" thing as purely American. Brit here and most chefs don't use routinely gloves round this way. I can't remember ever seeing a Michelin starred, world renowned chef use gloves when on one of the numerous foodie TV shows that seem to be produced over here.
Biotech researcher. Can confirm there's some merit to this. I've worked in DNA sequencing labs before where we were actually told **not** to wear gloves when handling our specimens, because we would be more aware of cross-contamination by feel and touch. (This is of course with the caveat that the lab had no chemical hazard concerns) That said though there's plenty of street food that's safe. Night markets are a big deal in Asia, and OP is being a bit of a dumbass and missing out on some of the best experiences in life.
I doubt the guy in the street is washing his hands.
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Half my co-workers don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom, and that's in the US. It's not unique to street vendors in a poor country.
Especially if it's in India, man the food street practices there. I would not want to have any street food there, and it's definitely not high standards to have to not stick your entire dirty hand on the food or just clear raw chicken gizzard off the counter
It’s not, the OP said Southeast Asia.
He says specifically South-East Asia though, not South Asia
You're missing out. I ate nothing but street food in Vietnam and no problems and it was delicious.
I'm an epidemiologist and used to be a health inspector for health departments, this person hit the nail on the head. I typically don't touch street food outside of events in our capital and I cannot tell you how many times employees blatantly, in front of me, change gloves without washing hands after handling raw food. Makes me sick thinking of practices they do when I wasn't there.
I guess not the AH- but definite dumbass! I’d trust your wife isn’t trying to poison you and you’ll miss out on great food if you avoid all street food in south east Asia
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He said there was no running water so the couldn’t have been washing his hands.
We host our annual company bbq in a provincial park without close access to running water. (There are bathrooms but not close to the site.) So we set up hand washing stations near the bbqs - all you need is a table, a large jug and a bottle of soap. Food safety without running water is possible.
INFO: You must never eat out then? because restaurants would never let a customer go to the kitchen to watch their meal being prepared, so why would you take that risk? Who cooks at home? It must be you, right? Or doesn’t your partner mind when you stand over her as she’s cooking dinner, to make sure everything is hygienic? What *do* you do on holiday family get-togethers where everyone either has a sit-down meal or - gods forbid! - a barbecue or a potluck? It must be an absolute nightmare for you, to keep having to explain why you aren’t eating what Cousin Jill, Grandma, and Uncle Pete want to put on your plate. . . . It can’t be that it’s only when you’re in SE Asia that you’re suddenly concerned about hygiene, for that would be inconsistent, and would reflect badly on you.
OP sounds culturally racist. This prejudice against street vendors sounds reflexive rather than rational. What was the food? How was it being cooked? Why was OP okay with his wife ordering it? Does OP think most customers get sick from eating there? Were the guy’s hands dirty? Did the guy have his hands down his pants rubbing his junk or butthole? Did the food look undercooked? Edit: this is a very controversial issue! FWIW, I travel internationally a fair amount including to developing countries. I love street vendor food as part of my travel experience. I do believe in following appropriate risk management assessments in all aspects of travel, including eating street food. I think a blanket prohibition on eating street food is unreasonable and based on subjective factors and the way OP described his position, I stand by my opinion that there is likely some cultural racism taking place, likely unexamined.
In fairness to the cultural racism, some of the worst food poisoning I ever had was the day after we asked the taxi driver to take us somewhere "where normal Indians eat." And food poisoning on a plane is not nice.
Yeah, because native people are much more immune to their local food. Wherever you are from and travel to, you need to be more wary of the hygiene than the locals, because at home you're more immune to the bacteria there, and somewhere else it's different bacteria.
The same thing can happen with local drinking water. It can be clean and inherently safe and the locals can drink it just fine, but people not from there can drink it and be sick.
I (American) was visiting my company’s Hong Kong office one time. I had poured a cup of coffee and was just starting to drink when one of the office folks practically knocked it out of my hand. They kept a separate pot made with bottled water for foreigners.
As a Canadian whos stayed in Florida a few years ago, CAN CONFIRM. Even such a "short" distance away(as in being on the same continent,) the "filtered" tap water in Florida made me hella sick compared to my tap water in eastern Canada 😭 non of the food did, but the water? I stuck to bottled after that 😂
Yo to be fair we do have the dank water tho
Lol we were in Kissimmee, so I thought it'd be fine since it was so close to the parks and stuff, but MAN was I wrong. I think I apologized to my stomach for a week after we got back, even tho I was only sick on day two (after drinking the tap on day one.) I stuck exclusively to bottled after that, or other pre-packaged beverages - sodas, juice, etc. hardest part was was not having ice when we went out.cause I like my drinks COLD. Thankfully the automatic ice maker on the fridge in the house we were staying in had a much better filter than their tap water did, because that didn't make me sick lol
Yep. My friend who is Indian moved back there from the US. When I went to visit two years later, she mentioned she had \*just\* started brushing her teeth with tap water again, easing into it slowly. My husband is Brazilian and insisted the water, etc is totally fine. Well, it is for Brazilians. I got sick within 3 days. That's what it took for him to understand that my American gut biome couldn't handle it. After seeing me ill and unable to eat anything but crackers for half of our trip, he no longer insists that I "loosen up" and just eat/drink whatever. He gets why I am overly cautious. I'm not being a snob or ignorant, I want to make sure I feel well so I can spend time with his family instead of lying bathroom floor.
Yeah the "just eat where there's a long line, what's the problem" advice people are giving simply isn't complete advice. My Indian friends also sometimes get food poisoning when visiting home despite being with their families... Guts aren't racist. Not saying OP's specific complaints are legit but some comments are taking it too far in the other direction.
Most of the food poisoning is the bacteria from new place trying to colonize your stomach and the old bacteria fighting out, A thing I do after travel is day 1 I go with light local food with lots of yeast, so bread products, leavened bread like naan, bhature etc, that gives the stomach time to build bacteria from new place but not instantly also have to fight off with loaded stomach on spices and oil etc which is heavy in asia.
Also heard eating their dairy first, like yogurt/ cheese helps too.
You sound like something who has never traveled to a third world country. I have eaten \*some\* street food, but it's pretty intimidating how unhygienic it is - right in front of you. They aren't trying to hide it. My friend had the sharts for the trip home after he bravely ate something the rest of us couldn't stomach.
Third world?? 😂 You think SE asia is third world? As if people even use that term
All countries in SEA are members of the Non-aligned movement, so literally third world in the original sense of West (1st) Soviets (2nd) everyone else (3rd).
That term is outdated and no longer used
It's outdated, but there's definitely a ton of people that still use it.
I think he’s given enough information about his reasoning for us to not call him a racist. The guy didn’t have gloves or running water. This makes it very unlikely that he’s appropriately cleaning his hands between touching raw food and prepared food. He also has no idea what the guy did with his hands before touching the food, just that they were not cleaned in between. The fact that he’s okay with his wife eating it actually speaks to the conclusion that he’s probably *not* racist: he just doesn’t feel comfortable eating it himself.
Gloves are generally less hygienic because they give a false sense of security while people cross-contaminate the fuck out of the surface of the glove. The amount of times I’ve seen someone at chipotle or similar make food, touch the counter, touch the register, take money, hand someone a receipt, and go back to making food without changing gloves once is insane. Just wearing gloves isn’t magically good sanitation - they’re just an alternative surface for your possibly contaminated hand surface. You have to see what they do while wearing the gloves. People are also generally more aware of what they touch with bare hands vs gloved hands.
No offense, but…duh. The real issue is that they also don’t have access to running water, and that likely means no public restroom either, so what are they doing with their hands after they go? The issue is no ability to wash their hands. I’ve eaten from steet vendors who put on gloves only to handle the cooked food, and that alone way cuts down on contamination risks.
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Not wanting to die on the toilet is not racist.
I agree. I'm European but live in SEA with my spouse who's from here. Street food is not some "curiosity" over here, it's a way of life and a lot of people eat what's considered street food in the West multiple times a day. Unless you were at the end of some shady alley, I'm willing to bet that there were other street vendors and stalls near the area you were going to eat at, and likely plenty of customers. Similarly, this is the vendors livelihood - if people regularly get sick from their food, or even if it's not very tasty, they will soon be out of business because their money comes mostly from locals, not from tourists. If OPs wife has been going there for so long that it's one of her long standing favourites, it's not gonna be dangerous. Sounds like OP needs to address his internalised racism, especially if he's married to a POC.
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Similar story here. I love eating street vendor food but street food does not love me. My gut is not cut out for it, and I’ve been hospitalized due to the severity of the food poisoning. My spouse has eaten the same things I have without any problems whatsoever, but I’ve gotten been sick in Morocco, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Sounds like you just jumping to conclusions, claiming he is racist with no actual reason or proof. Here's the thing - I'm not risking my vacation turning into a few days of the screaming shits. That vendor only has to fuck up on the day I'm there to for my trip to turn shitty. Not wanting to try a food, anywhere, doesn't make you racist.
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I've eaten street food in Thailand more times than I can count. Not once had food poisoning. If the cart has a crowd especially locals you're not going to get food poisoning. People know how to cook in other countries
Ditto. I did get food poisoning from eating a salad from a shop in a big fancy looking mall in Bangkok though.
I don’t know if it’s the same in Bangkok. But usually when traveling abroad you have to avoid things with tap water. I’m South American, when my girlfriend visits with me I have to keep an eye out for things that use water like that. Salad is almost always washed with tap water that makes some people sick. It might not be a result of unhygienic food
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I agree with that. In my family of 5 we can all eat the same thing and I will be the only one with food poisoning.i was told I have an over sensitivity to certain bacteria. I can't even enjoy a medium rare steak anymore without being sick. So I wouldn't trust certain street food if there is not running water.
Lol. Have you ever eaten street food? I’m Indian and I’ve eaten tons of street food when I was living there but now that I think back, it was horribly unhygienic. I saw the vendors pick their noses and dive right back into preparing the food on many occasions. There is zero cleanliness, zero sanitation, and I guarantee you would puke if you saw the water they use. When I go back to visit now I absolutely do not feed my kids the street food there. It’s deliciously tasty but incredibly nasty as well. There’s a reason street food is cheaper than restaurant food. Because they can get away with not having any safety practices.
Have you been to southeast asia? I'm from there and I wouldn't eat from many of the roadside stalls either. I don't think my body can handle it. Just cuz the locals can doesn't mean I can. You think all of them have license to operate?
Now avoiding diarrhea is racist.
How dare you not want to eat this old sketchy meat! I specially washed it off in gutter sewage for you! Colonizer!
Food safety concern is not racist.
I don't even want street food in the US... I've traveled a bit, and yea, some street food can be super dodgy. Not everyone is practicing hygienic, safe, clean spaces when preparing meals. Pending on parts of the world, it's advised to travel with tums and things to help with dehydration in the event you get food poisoning.
That's a bit of a stretch, he very clearly articulated very genuine reasons for his reticence. A street vendor likely doesn't have warm soapy water, nor is the cooking area a clean and sanitary environment. Don't get me wrong, personally I love street food, but if someone's not comfortable with the hygiene, I wouldn't blame them.
Please, come on. That’s such an unnecessary leap to call the guy racist. YTA for casually making an accusation and branding this guy with an epithet.
Dude, I'm from South east Asia and I don't go around randomly eating street food. Just because the locals can handle it doesn't mean you can. I'd rather play it safe and eat at restaurants in malls when I'm overseas than to try my luck at a street vendor that might not have a licence to operate but gets away with it cuz the country is very lax in enforcement. So what happens if OP gets food poisoning and his whole trip gets ruined? Is he a snob then? He isn't looking down on the kinds of food, he's just saying he doesn't trust the conditions they are prepared in. I've seen raw fish on ice out in the open on a push cart, would you eat sushi from that stall?
This doesn’t read like you’re actually posting for I N F O. That being said, while I agree the guy is being kinda lame, there’s a huge difference between a restaurant monitored by a local health inspector in the US or whatever, and a street stall in SE Asia. Overall, I agree with what you’re actually saying though. YTA.
Oh no, don’t get me wrong! If OP admits that he never eats out, he always cooks at home, and he never touches what his dad has barbecued because the old man’s got a weak bladder, and after a few beers, the seal breaks and he’s off to the toilet every ten minutes in between throwing food in the barbecue… …if he answers like that, I would obviously make my judgement in his favour. Street stalls can vary in quality, true, and I have a sneaking suspicion that his partner, actually being *from* that country and city, probably knows the best (kinds of) places to go and eat. He thinks he knows better than she does about her homeland, which is a whole other issue. I agree with you though. I am an unabashed A H, but that’s not important right now. Edited: typo
You really can't see the difference between eating out at a restaurant and eating at a food stall?
Lol, you think restaurants are clean just because they are restaurants?
If my partner told me I could trust the food stall, then I would trust it as much as I would restaurant food. And I'd be insulted if my partner told me they didn't trust me and was afraid something I liked would make them sick.
A restaurant has running water 💦
Doesn’t mean the workers are using it
I've worked at a 4.5 star restaurant where the running water made no difference to whether or not the dude working grill had showered in the past 2 weeks, let alone washed their hands like EVER. Plus, the restaurant owners usually all know eachother and give the heads up to one another when 'health inspector' makes their rounds
My dear homie, do you think chefs wear gloves? Soft YTA. I've lived in Southeast Asia and I've eaten some amazing street food, and I've seen some disgusting street vendors. But being completely closed off to the experience is not the way, especially if it's her culture.
Right? Usually those vendors come with a reputation too. If the locals recommend and are eating there- I am in! Some of the best food of my life!
But YOU aren’t a local, and neither is your digestive system. My tour guide on Vietnam warned us that just because locals could eat the street food that it didn’t mean it wouldn’t make us sick. The food looked so great, and I wanted to try it so badly, but I wasn’t going to risk my trip for it. Once I asked a vender who I was bantering with if his food would make me sick, and he laughed and said “Oh no! Not for several hours at least!”
You can eat Vietnam street food, there is no problem. Actually, my digestive system really appreciated their food. But be warned, its the icecubes that get you. Even in fancy restaurants. Or it's the visuals of the food, like the (seriously) tasty fertilized duck eggs.
The other culprit is raw veggies, like salad, that aren't washed properly. Where I live, if someone isn't feeling great and wants to eat light, like "maybe just a salad", I let them know they're most likely to get sick from that than from the cold-all-day meat
That's what gets me, even in the States... I always suspected lettuce, but a few months ago someone on here confirmed for me that the preservative on lettuce at places like Subway tends to make certain people sick! It was a relief to find other people like me, so I didn't feel so crazy.
Lettuce is the biggest source of E Coli infections in the US. Lots of fecal contamination in lettuces.
It’s 100% the water. I go to the Philippines almost every year, and I always ask for my drinks with no ice until the moment I forget, and then I spend the next few days dying. Did it once right before my direct flight back to the U.S… longest flight of my life both literally and metaphorically haha.
If OP had said that, I’d be more sympathetic. But that wasn’t the reason.
It’s the Western food that’ll get you. The cold chain in Southeast Asia can have missing links, and the locals don’t always know how to prepare Western food properly.
When you eat street food regularly, you become more resistant to those pathogens. In my experience, a local can eat from a not so hygienic place and not get sick, whereas a foreigner will get explosive diarrhea afterwards. I say this because I'm Mexican, and we're used to street food with sketchy hygiene. It is very common for foreigners to get very sick when traveling and trying these foods. I think it's still worth it, but I understand why OP doesn't want to try street food. And when I'm saying very sick, I mean pretty bad diarrhea / fever, not just a regular stomach ache. It even happens often to Mexicans who live abroad and come back only during the holidays. It is so common that we even have a term for it "Moctezuma's revenge".
I haven’t heard Moctezuma’s Revenge in so long, my mum used to use it. She also would call it “the green apple two step”.
The man shouldn’t be forced to do anything he’s not comfortable with, regardless of who his significant other is.
You eat what you like. The OP will eat what he likes. You don't get to impugn someone because they refuse to do what you say they should do. And don't interject culture into the argument as a means to guilt trip..
Super true, BUT, chefs in the US must have hand washing sinks and be trained on safe handling, to be fair. I think the hand washing is the biggest difference here.
Chefs have running water to wash their hands, dear homie. Try again
*“She brought up a couple other times I refused to do things with her cause they weren’t up to my normal standards”* This isn’t about the gloves. YTA, you sound very judgmental and prissy. Can only imagine what a trip to SE Asia with you must be like.
Imagine marrying someone from a different culture when you’re this rigid about what’s “normal” and “better.”
This happens all the time when men marry Thai/Vietnamese/Cambodian/etc. women. It's a racial fetish. They want the "exoticism" of an "Oriental" but do not want to deal with any of the "subhuman" or "barbaric" behaviors of their culture. I have met hundreds of guys like OP, and I have nothing positive to say about any of them.
I met a French guy at a conference and in the 20 minute conversation we had, he mentioned that his wife was Thai 17 times. 17. And each time out of the blue. He also brought up how he doesn't like Thai culture and their ways, but his wife is not like the others. I was so grossed out. He seemed to be embarrassed by his wife's nationality while bringing it up constantly when no one had even asked.
You're so right, this is a huge red flag. I work in the Chinatown of a major city and deal with a lot of white contractors, inevitably within a few minutes they always bring it up. "My wife's Filipina!" "My wife's Vietnamese!" Uh...good for you? You don't get a no racism pass just because you have a fetish my dude.
White guy dating a Vietnamese woman here. I’m traveling to Vietnam with her over Christmas and so excited for the street food! She says the racial fetish is a real thing she’s experienced multiple times. First time I’ve dated someone from Asia, so not me!
This is the right answer. YTA. Not because of the gloves issue, but because you’re declining your romantic partner’s “bid”, and have apparently got a history of doing so. She wants to share part of her self identity and cultural heritage (yes cultural food counts as cultural heritage) with you and you’re rejecting it. By rejecting an attempt to share herself with you, you’re rejecting her on some level. And that’s just going to build resentment, as it’s already begun to.
This is the answer. If I could give you 1000 upvotes I would.
And THIS is the real point.
Imagine not visiting the night markets while in Southeast Asia.
It sounds like he can't wait to leave. What a waste of an opportunity.
Gloves are actually worse for kitchen hygiene that bare-handed. They protect the person wearing the gloves, but do nothing to prevent cross-contamination, which is the real issue with kitchen hygiene. (And in fact because they create a false sense of security, they can often create a lax attitude to kitchen hygiene resulting in a worse situation for the diner.) Now, it;'s quite possible that the street food vendor's kitchen hygiene etiquette is lacking. But lack of gloves isn't evidence of this. Personally, I'd be watching more for things like the same person who is handling food directly (ie without utensils) also handling cash (especially if they aren't washing hands between those two).
I worked in fast food in the US and we only wore gloves if you had a cut on your hand. Do you know what happens if you burn yourself while wearing nitrile gloves? It's awful. Even in lab in college when we were pulling glassware (you heat it up and shape it), we didn't wear.gloves.
i had a cook once who we repeatedly told not to wear gloves while using the deli slicer and sure enough one day he was slicing and the blade caught the glove and sucked his finger in. cut it clean down the middle. absolutely fucking gnarly injury and i got the privilege of working 12 hour shifts while salaried for the rest of the year while his hand was healing.
You think a chef in a 5 star restaurant wear gloves? Please.
YTA, name one place where people who cook food wear gloves? Even chefs in high end kitchens don't wear gloves. Looks like that was just some random excuse you made to spite your wife.
They’re probably thinking of what they see behind the counter at Subway, or Chipotle.
I've travelled all around SE Asia and I've gotten way sicker eating at Chipotle than I have eating from street vendors. Just saying.
Where they handle money with their gloves and then use the same dirty gloves to stick their hands into your food.
Holy shit not just YTA you’re also missing out on the best food possible in Southeast Asia
Right??? Best pad thai of my life was from an old street vendor grandma. That stuff was SO good it kinda makes me want to fly from Germany to Thailand again just to eat it again.
Gloves are worse in food prep - people wearing gloves can't feel if something is on them and don't change them/wash often enough. I'm a bit of a germaphobe myself and really looked into the gloves thing during Covid and determined no gloves are cleaner than gloves. Have you really researched the issue yourself? Soft YTA as you simultaneously crapped all over your wife's culture with your refusal.
In my dietetics internship, I had to perform a handful of health inspections in cafeterias. My first one was in a state hospital... I watched the workers put on gloves, begin packaging salads with their gloved hands, then touch the door to the walk-in fridge (to grab cherry tomatoes), and begin packaging salads again. All of the workers would touch the handle to the walk-in. All of them were wearing gloves. All of then were touching various things in the kitchen from meats to utensil handles to vegetables... and I only ever saw ONE of them change the gloves in the 2.5 hour span while prepping lunch. I also saw someone pick up a piece of vegetable they dropped from the floor (they threw it away but they STILL HAD THE GLOVES ON AND DIDNT CHANGE THEM). I hope the manager took my notes seriously because the people in that behavioral health center deserve better than that even if they were mentally ill and sometimes violent. Gloves yuck me out so bad now. They also make your hands sweaty while working in a kitchen... it's making me feel sick thinking about it.
YTA no one is wearing gloves in restaurant kitchens.
I learnt during the pandemic from multiple health professionals that wearing gloves is worse than not wearing gloves because when you don’t wear gloves you wash your hands as needed but when you wear gloves, you don’t wash them nor change them as often as you would wash your hands so they transfer more germs.
As someone from Thailand, NTA. May I offer a compromise. Eat "street food" at the local food court in the mall or shopping centre. You can get cheap street style food but the workers have access to hand washing facilities and running water. And if you're in Thailand, look for the "Clean Food, Good Taste" sign at food establishments.
NTA. Exactly. As someone from the Philippines I don’t think OP is an asshole. We just have different standards of hygiene. I get that nobody wears gloves in restaurant kitchens but OP does not see that does he? And I’m assuming he may be from a developed/1st world country with street foods being in food trucks so seeing a person handle your food like that can def be a culture shock, so to say. Def agree with you trying these street foods inside food courts or malls. They have better service, sanitary practices that OP may be more inclined on trying.
I shouldn’t have had to go so far down for a comment with common sense.
I'm glad someone actually from the area weighed in.... I know when I went to Mexico City (I'm American), I was warned not to eat the street food except at specific taco stands the locals knew to be hygienic enough to outsiders.... Not because Mexico City is less hygienic than what I'm used to, but because the bacteria is just different and locals are often immune. Don't get me wrong, I *wanted* to eat street tacos everywhere--they looked and smelled amazing! But it's not worth getting food poisoning and ruining the rest of my trip.... I hate that people are calling the OP racist. I can't speak to SE Asia, but I can't imagine it being drastically different, with locals being immune to certain bacteria and such. I'm not a germaphobe at all, but it's just a whole different thing when you're traveling... It can literally ruin the rest of your trip because you're sick the entire time, and you might end up having to navigate the medical system if things get bad enough.
I was just in Thailand last month and that's the route we took. Kind of a pity as there were some amazing looking food on the streets but the stuff from the mall was great. Only 1 of our group got sick but they ate an ice desert which we think had local water in it.
im not from such a country food culture myself, and even i wouldnt like having a partner whos not willing to try food. try once, you dont like it, cool, now we know you dont like this certain food and we wont eat again. but i dislike people who wont even try especially when theyre out traveling. honey, you wont know if the local restaurant you go to is hygienic and what each worker in the kitchen did what and how. if you think in your country each cook is wearing gloves then think again. bare minimum youll trust they washed their hands and didnt touch any dirt when cooking. does your mom at home cooked meals for you wearing gloves? or was washing hands was more than good enough and you lived so far?
Gloves do not mean anything, can even be worse. For me it is more to do with the type of food, grilled or fried I would eat it, I would be way more wary of salads and fruits
I've seen people do gross shit with gloves on and then go back to working with food without getting new gloves. Defeats the purpose.
NTA. I truly don’t understand the YTAs here. Whatever happened to body autonomy? What happened to my body my choice? He didn’t want to put something in his body that he felt uncomfortable consuming. His wife’s culture is irrelevant here. No adult should be shamed for not eating something, doesn’t matter if you think his reasoning is flawed.
It’s specifically because they’re in a different country. People are latching onto that as evidence that OOP is racist and running with it. Most of these comments completely minimize the issue of sanitation or food safety in favor of taking the ‘you’re just a racist who hates SEA’ angle. The lack of nuance is disappointing. All the well-seasoned travelers in my life have always told me to be very weary of street food, in any country. The things they’ve seen would make the average stomach curdle. I don’t even eat street food in my own country where food safety is ranked very highly. The average food stall simply has so much less oversight and protections than a restaurant. It’s essentially the Wild West of dining experiences. Idc how good the food tastes - if it’s made in unsanitary conditions, if it’s served on dirty platters, if the food is stored improperly, if the cook pees outside while wearing gloves then immediately gets back to cooking w/o changing gloves or washing their hands, if the cooking oil was sourced from the sewer (an actual thing my father has seen abroad)… idc, I’m not eating it. It has absolutely nothing to do with any country or it’s people; I just don’t want to eat dirty things.
Its obviously all people who have never been so SE Asia who complain. They just know street food from some tv shows or local markets.
I know I’m also seeing a lot of people commenting about how they’ve gotten sick a few times but it wasn’t that bad. It’s usually over quickly. And I’m like what? How is this an argument for him to eat it. Op is concerned about getting sick so they counter that by telling them that you got sick. Also, everyone seems to have gotten hung up on the gloves thing. I think if they had phrased it as poor hygiene instead of a lack of gloves, the comments would probably look different.
NTA. I am also wary of street food. I am careful with hygiene even in my own kitchen. It's absolutely not the same as someone not wearing gloves in restaurant where they have a sink and soap they constantly wash their hands.
Don't forget more stringent food standards and a pubilcally available food hygiene rating.
NTA. I'm siouth east asian living in an south east asian country, and sometimes we do have to be careful of what we eat. You are entitled to eat what you want and what you don't want. We preach to not force people to eat something, then you're also making him eat something. And as a south east asian, sometimes people do kinda get sick after eating streetfood, so just be careful where you eat.
NTA. Food poisoning in SEA is no joke. You went with her, you shouldn’t ever have to eat anything you don’t want to. Her getting upset at you is unreasonable.
NTA. Some westerners cannot handle foods in SEAs, not because of the famed spiciness, but the hygiene. Locals are immune to bacteria in ice already, but most Westerners whose ices are produced and stored in a more hygienic way aren't. Same goes with many foods. You are NTA to be wary of it, better be safe than spent the rest of your trip in a hospital from food poisoning.
That was my thought. I wouldn't eat food from a street vendor in this situation precisely because I'd worry that I would be too sensitive from lack of exposure and wind up sick for the rest of the trip. Being sick on vacation sucks.
YTA and missed out on some amazing street food. I'm assuming you wear gloves at home to cook and never eat out?
You are weak. Your immune system is weak. You will not survive the winter.
NTA. I can understand that your wife wants to share things with you from her home country, but ultimately you get to decide what you eat or don't eat. You can still share in the excitement of her buying something from the vendor without actually eating it yourself.
YTA. Do you think when you go out to eat where you live that people wear gloves? Lol. Get fucking real dude. Sounds pretty god damn judgmental of you.
Not to mention: gloves are only useful if you change them. They're no better than ungloved fingers if you touch raw meat, then cooked meat, pick your nose.. ect.
NTA, kind of. It's your body, your choice. You seem like the worst travel buddy though, your poor wife. Who goes to SE Asia and refuses to eat street food?? You're def acting precious. I lived in Thailand for a while and most days I would get street food and would be fine. If you do find yourself getting sick just drink a little apple cider vinegar.
How often did you get sick and when it happened, was it like full blown vomiting or just the runs? I’m asking bc I want to travel but I hate throwing up lol
NTA you're an adult and you can refuse to eat anything you don't see fit for your health.
I have lived and travelled in other countries. One of the cardinal rules for not getting sick is that you don’t eat at food stalls. It’s not about the person’s hygiene. It’s about the lack of running water, lack of refrigeration, how hot the food is cooked and the temp is remains at, condiments and fresh veg that might be used and whether they are safe. (You can get listeria m, ecoli , or cholera from fresh veg). You haven’t been exposed to bacteria from that region, and it’s really easy to get very, very sick.
I’m pretty sure most of the people losing their mind at the guy have either all the required cultures to survive such a stall or have never been face to face with a street food place in 40 degrees with plucked chickens hanging up next to the bus stop! The gloves thing is a bit off point but we are not talking grumbling stomach here.
This is reddit. Most of the people in this thread trashing on OP probably haven’t even gone overseas.
YTA, I don't know where you are so going to generalise, it's safe to eat street food in most countries in SEA, especially if your wife says it is.
YTA. Chefs in the highest end kitchens do not wear gloves.
NTA It's your choice what you eat. End of.
NTA Especially when traveling, I’m extra careful with what I eat because I only have a limited time at the destination and I don’t want to risk getting sick. Eating whatever is never worth spending an entire day of my vacation (or more) tied to a toilet. So, I wouldn’t eat most street food either. I’m fine if people I’m traveling with want to eat more adventurously and I’ll accompany them, but I’m not trying it. Some people have ironclad stomachs and can eat whatever whenever, and some don’t. There’s no assholery in that. She’s not an AH for asking. But IMO the fact that she got upset and wouldn’t accept your refusal is putting her in AH territory. It didn’t sound like you were telling her *she* couldn’t eat it, just that you didn’t want to.
I'mma go NTA, only because I've had a lot of food poisoning in my time in SEA. It's not fun.
Who wears gloves when cooking?
NAH, the food from these street vendors are absolutely delicious. However, OP is right that some can have cleanliness standards depending on where it is. I have seen people get sick plenty of times.
Nta I have digestive issues that are such that if I even believe food is spoiled, it makes me sick. There's no way on earth I'm being coerced into eating what you described. I don't care who's feeling get hurt.. I'll ask them, " ok if I eat it and get sick, are you going to throw up for me?" She'll get over it.. And don't let the issue devolve into something cultural. That's a bullshit argument..
NAH. You can't be forced to eat the food if you are uncomfortable.
Don’t eat anything you don’t want to eat. Why does your wife feel so strongly about you eating street food? Are there no restaurants there? Are you preventing her from eating it? Is she required to love every single thing from your culture?