Woman sparks debate by giving kid red wine pasta sauce

When we come to parenting, everyone does it differently.

But one woman was left bewildered after she got berated for feeding her pal’s child one of her favourite pasta dishes whilst the was babysitting.

The issue? The sauce had red wine in it…

The babysitter popped some red wine in the pasta (Credit: Alamy)

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Sharing the ordeal in a post on Reddit, the woman said she offered to do the mother a “special favour” by babysitting her eight-year-old son whilst she was busy.

“Upon reading it she got really angry,” the woman said. “[She] said that it was totally inappropriate for me to serve a child wine sauce.”

The babysitting friend went on to explain that alcohol “almost entirely boils off” when sauce is left simmering, however, the mum didn’t want to hear it.

“She said that she does not want her kid consuming any amount of alcohol, and that I was really irresponsible for not asking her permission first,” she went on.

Red wine sausage pasta? Don’t mind if we do (Credit: Alamy)

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“She said that it’s common sense to not feed someone else’s kid something with alcohol in it without asking permission.”

Now, of course, every parent is entitled to set their own boundaries for their kid, but it’s certainly true that using alcohol in cooking is highly unlikely to cause any kind of intoxication, if you ensure it has long enough to boil off.

To ensure you do it in as kid-friendly a manner as possible, the Baby Centre advises: “The longer the cooking time, the more the alcohol evaporates and the lower the alcohol level will be.

“And if you simmer a stew with wine, cider or beer for 90 minutes to two hours, most of the alcohol content will be burned off. Some alcohol may remain, but not in any quantity that’s likely to harm your baby.”

Some experts avoid cooking with wine altogether if you aren’t slow-cooking your food, but it really is at the parent’s discretion.

The kid absolutely loved the boozy sauce (Credit: Alamy)

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“I think your coworker needs to do some research on how alcohol is used in cooking for flavour. It is not harmful at all,” said one person after reading the Reddit thread.

As another wrote: “You did nothing wrong, the alcohol boils off and there isn’t that much in there to begin with.”

“If [your] coworker can’t be grateful for minding and feeding her child, she can go ‘wine’ to somebody else,” joked a third.

However, some were on the mum’s side.

“Just apologise and don’t serve kids alcohol-based food without asking first. It’s that easy,” said one.

As another concurred: “I bet she just was feeling protective of her kid, I can understand that, especially as a knee jerk reaction.”

It looks like the jury is still out on this one…

Is it bad that all we can think about is red wine and sausage pasta right now? We’ll have some, please!