Should you accept a sweet or a cookie when offered?

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I have noticed that most people don’t like to accept sweets or biscuit when you offer them one. If people offer you something to eat you have to calculate whether they will be offended if you don’t take it or they are just being polite. In my head I feel that if I don’t accept the biscuit or sweet I will offend people and so generally take it and mostly eat it. As long as they are not messy to look at and probably wash their hands after going to the toilet then why not? It’s the decent thing to do, the biscuit protocol. I think it is a hygiene issue if you, or they, don’t accept it so best accept it. It’s not like you turn down a free beer or a glass of wine. You notice in the supermarkets that fruit that is packaged or wrapped in cellophane generally sells quicker as customers have the reassurance that no one else has touched them. It’s a snobbery thing at the end of the day. Supermarkets won’t even accept some fruit and veg from suppliers and farm if it’s a ‘funny shape’ as they know customers are put off. Imagine poverty stricken Africans turning down potatoes shaped like pears?