MIL 62 F thinks refrigeration and reheating food repeatedly, is completely safe. I 34F am sick for 3 days now
Need help navigating this situation with MIL
I've been married for more than a decade now. I gave birth to my second child 4 months ago. Since then I've been having some digestive issues. And I try to be careful, I eat freshly cooked meals or atleast the ones refrigerated properly.
My MIL has been staying with us since my baby was born. And tbh she's great. She did all of the cooking for first 1.5 months. Then we started cooking together.
2 days back, my husband and I had some errands to run. I fed the baby, dropped our oldest at school and went out. When we came back, mil had already prepared lunch. I had it. And 2 hours later, I had diarrhoea. Since I had only home cooked meal, I asked mil about it. She said she had prepared spicy dal, by using yesterday afternoon's cooked tur dal, which she refrigerated and reheated again in the evening. She insisted that Since she had put it in refrigerator by eod the day before, Dal wasnt the problem.
The next day, I had to go to the bathroom 7 times. I was tired and frustrated. Told mil not to recycle yesterday's, reheated dal repeatedly. She didn't say anything.
3rd day now, I'm still not well. Im taking medicine, but not completely recovered. Anything I eat, I've to run to bathroom within 1-2 hours. Im breastfeeding and this could impact my milk supply. In my frustration I again told my MIL not to prepare such dal or atleast inform before, so that I can skip it. Tbh my tone wasnt the most respectful.
She got angry. Told me I'm not being respectful to elders. That I got sick from having mango, kachori from the day before I had dal. She says I should do all the cooking, and she won't enter kitchen. And that none of the other family members got sick (My eldest didn't have that dal thank god.) That Im accusing her of giving me stale food. She's been doing the same thing for 40 years and noone got sick, etc. This became an ego issue.
I tried to calmly tell her that with high summer temperature, food gets spoilt earlier than usual. Its better to err on the side of caution. Especially with elderly, new mothers and kids. I've heard of people dying from eating food that's not refrigerated properly. She became even more angry after hearing that and is giving the silent treatment.
My husband agrees with me, but he feels I should be more respectful. I feel this is a safety hazard and the gravity of the situation warrants my reaction.
I honestly want to start cooking solo from tomorrow. Partly cause I dont feel I can't trust her, and partly cause I know she reacted the way she did cause I need her help. My husband feels MIL only said that in anger, and doing that will escalate this fight.
I need some outside perspective. Am I being unreasonable and hormonal? How should I handle this, without damaging my relationship with mil. Thanks in advance.
Edit- So people seem to have not understood how the dal was cooked. Mil had prepared toor dal with cumin tempering on Tuesday for lunch. Then kept in fridge at 4pm. We took it out reheated for dinner. Leftover was kept in fridge again at night. Then on Wednesday the leftover dal was added while preparing fresh dal. This was spicy and I didnt know old dal was mixed in. Otherwise I wouldnt have had it. I became sick at 4-5 PM. 2-3 hour after having dal. I have upset stomach since.