Dad freaks out when mom tries to feed undercooked chicken to his kids.
A frustrated father came to Reddit for a little validation, but what he got was an internet's worth of opinions and advice. Here's the dilemma, you decide who the A-hole is:
'AITA (Am I the A-hole) for not letting our kids eat my wife’s cooking?'
sunny_dayyay writes:
I (34m) have a wife (32f) and we have two children 4f and 7m. I work as a manager at a care home and my wife owns a bakery with her mum. My wife cooks all the time because she is much better at cooking than I am, I cook sometimes. She is the one who takes care of the house, kids, and chores.
Yesterday when I came back from work dinner was ready so I plated it up for everyone while my wife was washing her hands (my kids like their food cut up), I was cutting their chickens into pieces and it looked a bit pink. I told my wife to look at it and she said “it’s a little pink but it’s fine”.
I told her I’m not letting them eat this if it’s pink, she told me to stop being a baby and it won’t kill them. I kept telling her it’s pink in the middle they shouldn’t eat that they can get food poisoning and that’s it’s dangerous for them.
She told me “if you don’t want them eating it then you can cook their dinner”. I made them cheese and ham toasties, also made her one but she didn’t eat it.
She told me she isn’t talking to me if I think her cooking is horrible. I don’t think it’s horrible, I just didn’t want our kids eating that. I told her to stop thinking she was right. So AITA?
Was OP completely in the wrong? Or was the mom being reckless?
Reddit was a little divided on this, but all of them agreed that the situation was handled poorly.
MaybeAWalrus offers advice:
YTA (You're the A-hole). Pink chicken is not dangerous if the internal temp was high enough. Also, instead of just saying 'oh honey, I am worried the chicken is a little pink, can we cook it just a little more just to be safe ?', you went all the way 'I am not serving that to the kids!!!!' and made a new meal altogether.
Chicken has to reach a temp of 165 degrees. It might still look pinkish but it's totally fine to eat. Also, the chances of getting salmonella from undercook chicken is pretty slim. The real risk is cross contamination, not undercooking.
Status_Flux responds:
OP's wife is not a professional chef, she owns a bakery. Which means she probably bakes things like pastries or bread, not grilled chicken sandwiches. Also it doesn't sound like OP's wife was sure that it had reached 165 despite being pink, it sounds like she was just lackadaisical about it and figured it was probably ok.
But LDel3 disagrees:
“It’s a bit pink in the middle” isn’t a condescending remark. OP’s wife being a baker isn’t relevant in the slightest, cooking chicken isn’t related to her profession at all. NTA (Not the a-hole) Op, it’s perfectly fine to take potential food poisoning seriously.
Eneicia says:
Heck, I got to the end and said 'Just nuke it!' I mean, it's cut into chunks so 2 minutes on high ought to take care of it.
tryagain904 wonders:
What I want to know is how come she does all the cooking, house, kids, and chores. Sound like you’re not pulling your weight.
lucifer2990 agrees:
So she runs a business, a household, takes care of the kids, and does all the chores. What do you do? Oh, complain about pink chicken and be extra about making the kids a whole new meal instead of putting the chicken in the microwave for 45 seconds. YTA (You're the a-hole).
MommyLovesPot8toes sums it all up:
In a nutshell, 'The pink chicken is not the issue here!!!'
From vivamii:
I would be so pissed if a meal I worked hard on making was thrown out just because it was slightly undercooked. This ain’t Gordon Ramsay. Undercooking things sometimes is normal, just throw it back in the air fryer/ oven/ skillet for a couple minutes and everything’s good to go. Easy.