Finding hair in your food

I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but what do you do when you find a piece of hair (not yours) in your food from a restaurant? I get so disgusted and so disappointed at the same time b/c I don't really like the idea of finishing the rest of my dish. If I am dining at the restaurant, then I'll say something to my server, but I really hate it when I discover it much later after the fact (like the next day in my leftovers or when I open my carry-out at home)!

Not all hair is created equal.

In the worst of circumstances, sending the food back with an appalled look is in order, possibly required. In the best of circumstances, I suppose it's up to your tolerance level (I'm sure some fish it out and keep eating), but you're certainly within your rights to alert your server and send the food back, regardless of when you discovered it.

although it is disgusting, and taints the rest of the dish, I just take the hair out, and move on. But then again I am not one to send a dish back, or complain to a waiter, or manager. I typically chalk issues like this up on my imaginary scorecard, and most likely will not return.

I've gotten dishes with what was clearly an eyelash, and since that's pretty unpreventable, I just swipe the bugger aside and keep eating. If it's anything else I send it back. Even if they just take it out, muss up the dish a bit and send the same thing back at least I can tell myself it's different. But I also take out my imaginary scorecard.

We once found a fly cooked into a dish, but it was found in the last fork full. We mentioned it at this point to the waitress, who said "well you ate it already". This was not in the US.

leek wrote:We once found a fly cooked into a dish, but it was found in the last fork full. We mentioned it at this point to the waitress, who said "well you ate it already". This was not in the US.

Back in the day I worked in a company cafeteria @ a major computer manuf. office building. A customer came up, and had found in his steamed corn a worm of some type, cooked. The chef told the customer since it was cooked it was essentially just protein...... you should have seen the customers face. I went in the back and laughed my ass off.

leek wrote:We once found a fly cooked into a dish, but it was found in the last fork full. We mentioned it at this point to the waitress, who said "well you ate it already". This was not in the US.

Once at a chain restaurant I found a fly cooked into my grilled cheese sandwich. I couldn't have been more than 6 years old but I have never gone back to that chain and remember it vividly. It was a very sweet bite, I looked down and saw the rest of the fly. For a six year old girl it was traumatic. We did have it sent back but I wouldn't eat anything else there.

Hair doesn't bother me at all. Not unless it makes up the bulk of the dish. I don't quite understand why it elicits the disgusting reaction from so many people. It doesn't seem to me to be any less sanitary than the chef handling your food with his own hands.

Hair in the food elicits an automatic gag reflex from me. Not sure why, really; it's not any worse than any number of other things that can be (and likely are) in food. Still, one solitary hair and I am done eating for the night.

Even if it's my own.

aschie30 wrote:Not all hair is created equal.

On my last bite of monkfish at Meritage (they're closed now, so I can say this, right?) I found a long blonde hair... My colleague's reply, "Hey, better long and straight than short and curly."

It's funny... cause it's true...

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:Hair in the food elicits an automatic gag reflex from me. Not sure why, really; it's not any worse than any number of other things that can be (and likely are) in food. Still, one solitary hair and I am done eating for the night.

Even if it's my own.

Why, that reminds me of an incredibly disgusting story that haunts me to this day!
I was wee, maybe 8 or 9 or so, eating a peanut butter and jelly sammidge in my room, when I realized there was a hair in my mouth. Gross enough as it is, but when I pulled it out, there was a giant wad of half-chewed sammidge stuck to it. That was the end of lunch, and the end of pb&j for quite a few months, as I suspect it may be for many of you.

To further the theme: The cat is always jumping up on the table when I'm eating, and Pie Dude is always admonishing me for letting him do that. "You're going to get fur in your food!" For some reason that doesn't bother me as much. Maybe because I know where the cat's been, and I can't say that for cooks. Perhaps it's because I'm demented.

Agh. I don't want my dog's hair in my mouth because I know what he's rolled in

Kitty does not roll. He luxuriates.

People with cats, have a special tolerance to hair in the air. I have a few people's homes I will not visit for dinner because of it. I am a dog person, although dog hair does float through the air, my lab didn't walk on the countertops.

I found (years ago) what amounted to a hair ball in a cookie at Lutzes Pastery. When showed to the manager there was a comment about the chef having a kitty in the kitchen. I could never go back after that.

I'm with those that just pull it out and keep eating. No biggie.

Now, I once found a piece of fingernail in my salad. That was gross. But, I ate it anyway. (The salad, not the fingernail.)

Binko wrote:Hair doesn't bother me at all. Not unless it makes up the bulk of the dish. I don't quite understand why it elicits the disgusting reaction from so many people. It doesn't seem to me to be any less sanitary than the chef handling your food with his own hands.

Personally, I prefer to see a chef handle my food without gloves. Gloves give people a false sense of sanitation. For instance, If you get dirt on a glove you don't feel it and are less likely to wash your hands. Likewise, without gloves you might be more likely to wash your hands more often. One of the places I've worked at actually studied these habits by using the CCTV cameras in the kitchen. After studying the tapes from about a week, we officially got rid of the gloves.

Flip

I knew a woman who would wear the same gloves ALL DAY. She would go to the bathroom, wash her hands with the gloves on, and return to work.

As for the fingernail, it must be a new green convenience. You pick up the discarded nail and pick your teeth, daintily leaving your own nails free of pork, or whatnot. (Right?)

As for the labrador on the countertop: if said lab is up on the countertop, and nobody sees it since they're away at work, does he still leave a pawprint?

We have two cats and the sheddiest dog you've ever seen, and yet the sight of a single hair in my food ends a meal for me. I'm also not sure why, I think it's partly a texture issue, but for whatever reason, my brain goes into total gag mode and I can't eat another bite.

I work with a woman who used to bring baked goods for everyone on a regular basis that always had big clumps of cat hair in them. Nobody knew how to tell her (and there was a lot of debate over whether we even should tell her- allow her to continue to waste her time and money, or seriously hurt her feelings? it was a terrible feeling), until finally someone who'd worked with her for years pulled her aside and told her that people were uncomfortable eating her treats when they had so much cat hair in them. Her cats are no longer of this earth, but she didn't start baking again. I can't say I blame her, I wouldn't either. But I'll tell you, even as a cat lover, I just could not eat those cookies.

This thread is making me flash back to my time spent at a horrible corporate job that sucked the soul and did not compensate accordingly. So my lunch hour was usually spent eating ramen noodles marginally healthed-up by the addition of cheapo frozen vegetables of a brand I will not name. That lunch was depressing enough on its own, but it got much much worse on the one day when I picked out a few hairs here and there, thinking they belonged to my cat, then turned over a hunk of veggies to find a giant clump of gray fur.

Most of us cat owners do wash the counters before preparing food on them, knowing that our cats walk on them when we're not around.

When I find hair in my food, I just pull it out and pretend I didn't see it. Obviously, if there was an excessive amount (say, more than 2) I would have a chat with the server/manager, whoever. I don't think that's ever been an issue.

This thread reminded me of an incident I experienced many years ago. On my way home, I got off the El and stopped into a chain sandwich shop to grab some lunch. Got a tuna sub. Arrived home and began to eat. First bite contained something hard that scraped against my tooth. I pulled the object out of my mouth and discovered it was a shiny piece of curly metal from a dishwashing "scrubbie." OK, I can sort-of see how that could happen. I shrugged it off and went for bite number two. Second bite yielded a long, jet black hair. (Mine is reddish-brown.) So much for lunch. What was going to be next? A bloody band-aid? It was years before I was able to eat at that chain again. (Not a huge loss, but still...)

leek wrote:We once found a fly cooked into a dish, but it was found in the last fork full. We mentioned it at this point to the waitress, who said "well you ate it already". This was not in the US.

Can I ask which country this was? Are you sure it wasn't supposed to be part of the dish?

abe_froeman wrote:Most of us cat owners do wash the counters before preparing food on them, knowing that our cats walk on them when we're not around.

And disinfect with some strong Lysol stuff. I'm not taking any chances!

hungryinchicago wrote:

leek wrote:We once found a fly cooked into a dish, but it was found in the last fork full. We mentioned it at this point to the waitress, who said "well you ate it already". This was not in the US.

Can I ask which country this was? Are you sure it wasn't supposed to be part of the dish?

It was France, in Normandy. I am pretty sure housefly isn't a usual addition to ratatouille. It was the restaurant that was part of a B&B - and there were so many flies buzzing around this place it seemed practically like staying in Amityville My husband said to the waitress (he was not nearly as fluent then as he is today, but he did say it in French) "this fly has cooked himself into the ratatouille."

It's really hard to say what to do, generally I just sort of stop eating, something about hair in my food, no matter how irrational it is, makes me a bit queasy. I think if it was more than one strand I might say something.

Several years ago we were out having dinner and my mother found pieces of a broken glass (looked to be the bottom of a water glass) in her steamed vegetables. When I brought the manager over and brought it to his attention he said "Oh do you want a free dessert or something?" He sort of missed the whole picture of how bad it would be for a patron to swallow a piece of glass. We paid for our drinks and left shortly after while he was still head scratching at what the big deal was.

Hmm, sometimes I have difficulty determining if it's my hair or someone else's. In some cases, I've been grossed out only to find out it was my own hair and really couldn't complain.

It's never intentional and really hard to avoid (except hair nets, but are those required?)

I'd probably take it out, avoid the area it touched, and move on.

Not only can I not continue eating after finding a hair in my food (automatic gag reflex as has been mentioned upthread by someone else), I am constitutionally unable to return to the establishment where the infraction occurred--ever.

And on top of that, if I see a chef or cook without headgear leaning over the food, I assume something from their noggin is going to land on my plate. This doesn't prevent me from eating, but I get a bad feeling about it in the pit of my stomach and have trouble enjoying the meal.

If I see a headgear-less food preparer touch their hair, I am equally freaked out.

The glove bit is horrible. I have seen people make sandwiches and then make change in them.

I have seen gloved fingers go into eyeballs to remove eye crust and that eye pus stuff.

I have seen staff bring water to the table by holding my glass with a crab-like grip at the rim.

This morning, I was given an empty coffee cup (where the coffee is self-serve) by a cashier who had her thumb on the outside of the rim and her four fingers down inside the cup.

Like everybody, I have seen how America goes to the bathroom, with most people not washing their hands, which is why I am so easily grossed out by all of this.