HAIR! NOT THE MUSICAL

Must be the perfumes in the shampoo.

I've often wondered the same thing.  Sort of like swallowing your saliva normally, as opposed to spitting in a glass and then drinking your own saliva a second later.  Or dog poop  vs human poop on the street.  Maybe humans carry the same parasites and are subject to the same diseases more than to those of animals?  apparently disgust at rotten things and worms is predisposed genetically and helps us not get poisoned. 

In any case, disgust triggers are like fear triggers, they aren;t necessarily related to things that are actually dangerous, but have evolved because these things tend to be dangerous - like fear of the dark or loud noises. 

Sorry 

I don't like dog hair, or cat hair, or frog fur in my food any more than human hair.

Put a hat on

sweater that dog!

I'm not a fan of hair in my food either, and especially not dog hair.  I know what my dog rolls in when she's out and about and well I don't want that on my dinner plate. 

Owning a cat = hair in the food occasionally. It happens, I just pick it out.

I think in general people are wussies.

Uhh....  Just taking a couple of stabs in the dark here.....

Being a guy, for some reason, all of my life I have been "responsible" for un-plugging sink drains, tub drains, etc.  First as a kid, now as a Dad and a cafe owner.  Nothing more revolting than fishing out wads of soapy hair.

Professionly speaking, finding a hair in your food at a restaurant is the oportune time to ask for discounts, free replacements, or some other form of "reward"  Just think back to all those old "Seinfeld" episodes....

Foodpump.. I'm a girl and i seem to end up doing the gross chores and well I just do it.. yeah it grosses me out but well.. I cloth diapered when my kids were babies and OTHING is grosser than baby poo on flannel.. well at least for me anywayl   Ewww ... nice flashback.  And well I made my kids cloth diapers...  They were super expensive and we were poor and I knew how to sew so ... I made their diapers...

At home my dog grosses me out.. she rolls in goose poo laden fields and she chases everything that runs.. bless her she's a siberian husky with an overactive prey drive. 

Ok all this, but the question is, and it may not be your case, and it's not mine, but people will complain MORE about HUMAN hair than DOG hair, and Durangojo wanted to know why. 

It's not about reasoning here, being grossed out is not usually rational even though we can come up with some explanation after the fact. But what comes to mind when you get someone else's hair in your food.

Any ideas, esp from those who are more grossed out by human hair? 

All of this reminds me of the old story about making elephant stew. The ingredients list was something like:

1 elephant

1 bushel Spanish onions

200 pounds carrots

500 pounds potatoes

etc.

etc.

etc.

2 rabbits (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

The recipe goes on to tell you how to prep the elephant, and cook the whole thing. The rabbits are optional because......most people don't like hare in their food.

if there is Cat hair in the food it's a persons fault, if there is human hair in the food it's the persons fault. If anyone thinks either one of these is acceptable, let us know so we don't stop over your house for Christmas dinner....................ChefBillyB

You obviously don't have a cat for a pet. Their hair literally floats and my cat shed constantly. I would have to vacuum 24 hours a day to keep the house cat hair free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChefBillyB 

if there is Cat hair in the food it's a persons fault, if there is human hair in the food it's the persons fault. If anyone thinks either one of these is acceptable, let us know so we don't stop over your house for Christmas dinner....................ChefBillyB

We can accept that from a professional chef in a professional kitchen - however in the home kitchen?  You can say throw out your pets and shave your head, or expect the home cook to wrap their hair in hairnets and change their clothes before cooking.  Not very realistic.  The sterile kitchen is a bit too obsessive. 

Anyway, maybe someone with some knowledge about laws on food safety at the industrial level can say for sure, but i remember reading that there is a certain amount of vermin traces including droppings allowed per kilo of flour and other foodstuffs we buy. 

Anyway, no one has ever refused my dinner invitations, despite my cats and my haphazard housekeeping skills.  I often get people crashing my christmas party!

ewwwww - - I don't eat hair - mine, yours, the dogs, cats, rats..... it gags me.  come to think of it, i can't eat alfalfa sprouts either!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChefBillyB 

if there is Cat hair in the food it's a persons fault, if there is human hair in the food it's the persons fault. If anyone thinks either one of these is acceptable, let us know so we don't stop over your house for Christmas dinner....................ChefBillyB

Acceptable? Probably. Desired, no. I think the distinction was made from restaurant to home, and in a restaurant I do find it less acceptable. Would I let a cat hair ruin a great dish I just made, hell no! I'd pull it off and get down to eating! I probably inhale more hair from my cat than I realize. That being said, I keep kitchen sanity pretty high on my list and I've never had a cat hair in my food.

I expect good sanitation from any person who invites me to dinner, if I found a cat hair on my plate I would be pissed. Animals have their place, its not on my plate............We have 3 cats, two dogs, two cows, 12 pigs, 18 chickens and no %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% of mice sh-t is ok in my kitchen GGGEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ChefBillyB...P.S. ..................... when you guys kiss your cats, remember the last place they just licked clean, hows that for the old taste buds.

Your cat kisses? Mine won't look me in the face if my face is close. I think it's some kind of lion thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChefBillyB 

I expect good sanitation from any person who invites me to dinner, if I found a cat hair on my plate I would be pissed. Animals have their place, its not on my plate............We have 3 cats, two dogs, two cows, 12 pigs, 18 chickens and no %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% of mice sh-t is ok in my kitchen GGGEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ChefBillyB...P.S. ..................... when you guys kiss your cats, remember the last place they just licked clean, hows that for the old taste buds.

The vermin parts and droppings is not in my kitchen eitehr, but apparently in some laws on food suppliers.  Take it up with the government. 

In the case of cats, I haven't found cat hair, either, in my food at home, but it could happen, with wind and shedding cats, as it can happen that a hair drops inadvertently from my shirt, since i seem to be losing it. 

The FDA's defect action levels make interesting reading.  Here's one example that involves the tolerance level for rodent hairs and excreta fragments in cornmeal. 

Corn muffins anyone?

I took the above from this site. 

http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/GuidanceDocuments/Sanitation/ucm056174.htm#intro

I'm not saying this to discourage eating cornmeal or to lower the tolerance levels, because the only way to do that would be to put even more dangerous poisons into our food, the tolerance levels of which are already too high, but to say that food is full of stuff we wouldn;t like to know about, and the only difference between a cat hair that has blown into a dish and a rodent dropping that is allowed into the flour the dish is made of is we don;t see the second. Oh, yes, and we know the cat and we don;t know the rodent.   And it;s not just stuff you cook that has tolerances - sesame seeds even allow a certain (albeit minuscule amount) of human excreta, just to give the first one i came across.  .

I just remove a hair if i see one and imagine the person's hands who touched my food have probably been in contact with a lot more things than their hair. 

Yup,

there are deeper issues at hand......hold on to your hats , everyone!

70-80% of household dust is human skin!

A typical mattress can have 100,000 to 10 million dust mites inside feeding on the 6 grams average of dead human skin a week.

Mites produce 10 -20 waste pellets per day. Females reproduce 25-30 mites per week ( just one )

Now ....what were we talking about

I am editing this because .....I hate hair in my food and I am squeemish ....human ,canine, feline.,horse...well lets just include some fish scales and some bird feathers while were at it..whatever...it just does not belong on the plate!

In this day and age feel lucky that the only thing you find is a hair. Better then e-coli or salmonella or other bacteria that you can't see.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed Buchanan 

In this day and age feel lucky that the only thing you find is a hair. Better then e-coli or salmonella or other bacteria that you can't see.

Not to mention one of the many leukemia- and cancer-producing chemicals

Siduri...thanks for the reality check!

I feel this issue is more about what we 'know' & how we 'feel' about that than any real  health risk...we have, after all, always shared this planet and that includes the real-estate inside of us.

In this world past and  present its a priviledge to have the option to reject food (or even food to reject)...its not guaranteed.

Hmmmn....does an oyster on your plate hope you brushed your teeth before dinner?

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYHeirloomer 

All of this reminds me of the old story about making elephant stew. The ingredients list was something like:

 

1 elephant

1 bushel Spanish onions

200 pounds carrots

500 pounds potatoes

etc.

etc.

etc.

2 rabbits (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

 

The recipe goes on to tell you how to prep the elephant, and cook the whole thing. The rabbits are optional because......most people don't like hare in their food.

Droll -very droll. Ha! I enjoyed that to be true 

But I'll leave the prepping of the elephant to others...

P.S.  Edit because I forgot to comment on thread - I may be weird, but will tolerate a hair in food if I'm at home and *preferably a human hair rather than animal.  Either way, they just pulled out and the meal continued.

But, if it is at a restaurant, it gives a different emotion.  Standards differ between home and businesses. But the human race has survived.  At home it is people/animals you know, but eating out is emotionally a totally different world,  A person is paying for a plate of food and not for the hair of the cook.

 

I wear a scrunchie when I cook. I also wear an apron-not to protect my clothes but to keep the food sanitary and free of hair (I have 2 pugs)

Lets all have Thanksgiving dinner in my pasture, warm your feet with the cow pies, pick our teeth with the chicken feathers. The smell of the pigs will just be a added perfume to the dinner. If cat hair is OK for the dinner guests, why leave out the rest of the farm animals. I hope the pheasant comes by, it will make a nice center piece for the table.