People eating and drinking on the go

Auntieflo

I think one of the reasons that I don't go to a cinema any more is because of the smelly food on offer.
Just makes me feel nauseous.
Popcorn (plain) and a drink OK, but anything more, no!

My local art house cinema has nice wide shelves beside the seats for my glass of Merlot

I grumbled on another thread about people wandering round our local walks carrying take out coffee cups which inevitably they drop as litters. It’s a three mile reservoir walk - who needs coffee and snacks to do this? Generally the coffee snack brigade wander very slowly about a mile then turn back, return to the cafe for ice creams
I know I’m grumpy

Litter bothers me greatly but seeing people eating and drinking does not.

I'm surprised you haven't witnessed it RosiesMaw. People seem to be surgically attached to large takeaway cups of anything from coffee to milkshakes and bubble tea. I think the rise in outlets offering beverages of all kinds has made it easy, acceptable and a necessity for any shopping trip.

I live near a very large shopping mall which includes a huge
M & S and John Lewis, amongst many other clothes shops, and surprisingly not one of them displays a notice banning food or drink.

I consider it perfectly reasonable to disapprove of food and drink in shops. There are inevitably sticky fingers handling the merchandise and I don't think that is at all judgemental.

People drinking coffee or eating a sandwich on a train journey or outside in their lunch break is quite different, including your wonderful champagne supper on Eurostar!

Baggs

Litter bothers me greatly but seeing people eating and drinking does not.

Same here.

Baggs

Litter bothers me greatly but seeing people eating and drinking does not.

Same - although I would draw the line at people eating and drinking in clothes shops or similar.

It's not snobby, Curtaintwitcher. It's called "maintaining standards", sadly out of fashion in our "enlightened"(?) times.

I often take a drink and even a snack with me when I go for a walk.
That said, I don't consume them while on the go (Im pretty sure I would spill half my drink if I were even to try drinking while walking), but look for a secluded spot where I can just quietly sit and enjoy them while breathing in the calmness of the nature around me. If any other walkers find it odd that I do that on short walks, so be it - they should mind their own business.

At my daughter's graduation ceremony another parent sat down next to me and proceeded to eat a tuna baguette

Oh dear

Some very judgemental posts here.

I do occassionally eat in public because sometimes I just crave a lovely warm sausage roll even though the crumbs go all down my clothes!

I also, horror of horrors, eat in my car!

Just to make you feel better though, I never buy take-away coffee, just because it would give me terrible indigestion.

But come on people, we've all eaten fish and chips at the sea-side, ice-cream at the cinema, street food if we've been lucky to travel.

Take-away food and eating in 'public' is as old as the cavemen. I consider it normal human activity and sometimes it's even fun!

Also wonder about eating ‘on the hoof’ whether people wash or sanitizer their hands first?

Tucking into sandwiches or handling chips with dirty fingers…

I wouldn't do it wearing my school hat ... those rules stay with you, don't they ?

Calendargirl

Also wonder about eating ‘on the hoof’ whether people wash or sanitizer their hands first?

Tucking into sandwiches or handling chips with dirty fingers…

Surely this is their business and no-one else's. Also, just by the way, this is assumptive and judgmental.

I'm remembering a walk I did some while back with two other grans (one a 'netter', the other not). We found a well burdened apple tree on the wild land we were walking on and we picked three and ate them straight off the tree after checking for obvious signs of insect ingress. I think one or two of us might have polished the apples on our jumpers.

We'd started out with clean hands and I certainly tend to assume that fresh air is not contaminating. I suspect my friends think that too.

There seems to be a rampant and growing terror of life itself.

Chocolatelovinggran

I wouldn't do it wearing my school hat ... those rules stay with you, don't they ?

Oh yes, on the rare occasions I have sat down on a bench in a shopping centre with an M&S sandwich and apple juice, I've half expected a perfect to come along and give me an order mark!

Prefect .....
Autocorrect

My issue is with the snackers who drop litter on what until recently were beauty spots.

Years ago (1980s) l was at a London theatre and a young woman retrieved a burger from her handbag and tucked in.

I only really have an issue with people eating smelly hot food on public transport - not to mention anyone leaving their mess behind, whether on the bus/train, or in the street.

Eating in the street - in school uniform - was strictly forbidden at my schools, too. Though in fact there were far fewer places then where you could buy anything except sweets/ice cream, that you’d eat in the street anyway.

Oh yes, on the rare occasions I have sat down on a bench in a shopping centre with an M&S sandwich and apple juice, I've half expected a prefect to come along and give me an order mark!

I think this is very acceptable, sitting with a snack. What is so prevent now is wondering around eating and drinking.
When I worked in Mothercare a Costa opened in the store next door. I went to my manager to express my concern, some parents treated the store like a crèche ( another story! ) so there were children careering around and I worried a child would get scalded by spilt coffee. She laughed and said she could do nothing about it. She could have banned takeaway drinks from the store. That would have saved the hours of retrieving abandoned cups from all over the store.
Now I work in a store selling stationary, books and “pocket money toys”. It’s next door to a Greggs. During the school holidays there has been a constant stream of adults opening greggs bags to hand children greasy sausage rolls and pizzas to eat while handling the maximum amount of stock! This is usually confined to weekends.
I find it truly astonishing!
We would have had to wait outside and finish and have our hands wiped when we were children. FGS they all seem to be obsessed with hand washing when it suits them!
This just seems to be the norm as grandparents are as likely to hand over the greasy mess as the parents.

I can remember as a teen sometimes eating chips from a cone when out so this is not a new thing.

What others do is up to them, I certainly would not be so judgmental as to label another common or uncouth for eating outside.

Guiltily as charged here, I don't eat in shops though but I do dump the rubbish in a suitable bin or put it in my bag.

It doesn’t bother me, as long as any rubbish is disposed of sensibly, some it seems would have every morsel eaten at the table with a linen cloth and serviette's., woe betide any elbows in the wrong place!

I live at the seaside, so eating and drinking in the street here is the norm - and it bothers me not a jot. I honestly can’t recall ever seeing anyone eating or drinking in a shop here, but with so many visitors there is inevitably a bit of litter. Fortunately we have a large team of volunteer litter pickers who do an amazing job of clearing this.

Nowadays there are more places serving ‘street food’ and I love the buzz and the smells, but personally my preference is to be able to sit down and eat.

There’s nothing nicer than walking around with an iced coffee, in my opinion. Normally window shopping, but I’ve gone in on the odd occasion in the knowledge that if I spill anything the cost is on me.

Baggs

If you are out on a walk and choose to eat an apple say, yes, probably your hands are fairly clean.

I was thinking more of people eating after they have been shopping, handling food after touching goodness knows what.

It’s not so long ago with Covid, folk were paranoid about hand washing and sanitising. How soon they forget. Never mind that the pandemic is over, we should all still wash our hands before eating.

If this comes across as judgemental, so be it.