Gloves for Food Service - False Security?? (a minor rant..)

I actually prefer to see cooks using gloves, the only person who does not use gloves at the restaurant where I work is the grill man, but everyone else does. While I can understand your concern about the possibility of the lack of handwashing, wouldn't you rather that said person HAD gloves on if you were not too sure if they did not wash their hands?

I completely agree with DMT.

I, too, have seen too many food handlers think that they're being sanitary, just because they're wearing gloves. Too little hand washing and too little changing of gloves.

When your hands feel "chickeny" you don't need anyone looking over your shoulder to remind you that you need to wash up before handling veggies or cooked items or even clean surfaces. When you can't feel anything on your gloves, it's purely a matter of iron discipline.

Without that discipline, gloves simply give the illusion of safety. :(

I think gloves give a faulse sense of secutity. You will clean you hands more often if you do not have gloves.

The latex or vinyl on a pair of gloves can carry and transfer bacteria just as good as a pair of unwashed hands......

the health department requires gloves for handling ready to eat foods, hands still have to be washed and gloves changed, i believe they allow the use of tongs as long as bare hands arent touching the food, yes, big brother watching out for us

I understand what you are saying..I wash my hands constantly and also change my gloves every time I touch something differant, I have expierenced unfortunatly the results of cross contamination...each cook at the restaurant where I work has a bucket of quat-sanitizer to clean after chicken, beef, fish..we all have safe food handler certificates..

D,

Sure makes sense to me.

All a certificate means is that you know better. Restaurants and
food service establishments have now passed medical facilities in
the use of latex gloves. I would rather see employees put gloves
on when they use the restroom than wear 20 pairs thoughout the
day in the kitchen. Restroom doorknobs, handles, and the floor bother
me more than the slight chance of cross contamination. Its not a
given that all chicken is contaminated. Good habits of washing hands,
knives, cutting boards, and equiptment, is to me the battle. I feel
its gotten out of hand. I personally rarely use gloves. Even when I
work with food that may cause odor on my hands. Ripping the gills
out of fish, cutting seafood, meat, chicken, onions, garlic, etc. Its
absolutely about touching the food for me. Gloves get caught or stick
to your knife when cutting, just can't work with gloves. Its become
more about the cook keeping his hands clean than cutting back on
cross contamination and contamination. What did we do before latex
gloves? Probably the same thing we did before cell phones!!!

Carry a roll of dimes and keep an eye out for pay phones?

BTW, I pretty much agree with you on everything you said. When I visit the deli I frequent to get a sandwich, I ask the preparer to remove the gloves, which s/he's been wearing for who-knows-how-long. In some places - not this one - I've even seen the dirt on the gloves - an ugly brown-black color, strongly suggesting they've been used for quite some time. So much for health department regulations.

Shel

We are required to use them and we cannot use latex.
I especially like when an employee correographs sp? a little number to flick them off and the end up hitting the bench or other surfaces turned inside out:D We don't have a problem with changing them since I have not been able to find a decent brand of non latex gloves that don't tear when you're putting the things on.
Next, body condoms:lol:

Have you looked at disposable nitrile gloves? Do a Google on "Nitrile Gloves" and see what you get. Mechanics use a version, and they are used by doctors for medical exams. I've used 'em a bit over the yeras and found them to be strong.

Shel

gloves are one thing - but towels scare me more!

True story -

My husband and I are eating at the family owned local dive. We get a seat at the counter with a great shot of the kitchen area. Directly in front of us is the hot line where they keep the often used mashed potatoes, veggies ect that they use to plate up the meatloaf special or whatever the blue plate special is. We are right over the line - so close we can reach out our hand and grab a glump of potatoes. Absolutely no sneeze guard or barrier of any kind. After getting over that little horror, I start watching the cook on the grill station . . .

He is making chicken sndwiches, burgers and such. No gloves, no hand sink in a 40 mile radious. We watch him pull the raw chicken out of the cooler (by hand) and plop it on the grill, same with the burgers. Then he turns right around and wipes his hands on a towel and puts the LTO on a sandwich and plops it into the window. Then he uses tongs to flip the chicken, prepares a few more sandwiches, uses the chicken gutted towel to wipe off the counter space in front of him before he sets down the next bun to be topped. Of course, he continues to use that same towel to clean his hands, counter and God knows what else through lunch.

The question is: Are we safer eating the sandwiches, or the food off the hot bar that has been exposed to customers all day. Good Grief! The place is jammed all the time, but I wonder how many people go home and experience "flu like" symptoms each day. The towel thing has GOT TO GO!

Moral of the story: My husband happily scarfed down his burger - completely oblivious, and I couldn't eat a thing. All I could do is watch that dang towel to see where else it would touch. Of course, as we are getting up to pay, the cashier is busy, so the line cook steps up to the register to cash us out. UGGG :cry:

I guess it is a matter of personal preference..not to mention that this is what our Chef wants as well.

Sweet Pea, maybe it was a towel loaded with bleach?

I think we have become accustomed to write off the symptoms of injesting food with harmful bacteria as something that's associated with eating.
I find it awkward when someone who has spent time in the closet room and then bolsters about how that was wierd! Then remarks on how good that meal was last night. As Lewis Black would say Wa,Wa,Wa,Wa,WHAT????
Shel, thanks for the lead. I will look into those gloves. I had a feeling I would have to go outside the food purveyors to get something good. Just another case of adding a new vendor, to get something of quality.
pan

phatch - If only that were the case. But alas, no.

I work in the medical field, where there has been a HUGE move in recent years to eliminate latex gloves and all other latex-containing products, due to life-threatening latex allergies in an increasing segment of the population.

Am I hearing that latex gloves are commonly used in food preparation? :eek: I would think that this would be a significant liability concern for restaurants, much more so than the obscure eggplant allergies that were recently discussed in another thread.

as a whole gloves are nice...

it does not help if the cutting board is dirty, full of cracks or first you cut chicken, than fish without changing the boardand knife.
what about the PRODUCTS themselves that you are working with? mayo, cream...
doesn't help much iff you wear gloves and next to your station is an open overflowing trash can.
how about storage of fooditems in the cooler / refridgerator/ any chance of cross contamination there already BEFORE you even touch the products.
Her in russia there is no law about one - way / latex gloves, it is nice to see people wearing them.
it definitely helps if you handle beets, peel potatoes or onions. but that is maybe more for the protection of your hands.
on the other hand an untreated nick or cut can harbor also germs or worse stuff...
by the way, it interests me personally: how often do you (foodhandlers. service staff) have to go for a sanitaion check up?
here in moscow we have to go for aids, tb, all other STD's and a few more things. basically the good doctor is poking and checking every orifice if all is ok.. every six month to one year, depending what it is.THAT i think is also very important, that you have healthy employees who are not caughing over the sandwich while working with gloves....
than you get a nice little booklet with all the stamps inside.
and god help you if the inspector finds out that you 'bought' the stamps and did not realy go to the medical checkup.

Use nitrile gloves. We use them at work, and they are infinitely better than latex. They have very good tensile strength. The only thing latex gloves are good for is rolling boudin balls :) , absolutely worthless when it comes to handling and cutting meat. The only time we use gloves at school is for ready-to-eat foods, but people are constantly reminded about sanitation procedures to instill proper discipline.

gloves

I dont use them except when working with food coloring, sometimes chocolate, and when I have a wound on my hand.

I hate them. They take the fun out of working with food and I believe they hinder good sanitation practices.

I believe that workers who wear gloves wash hands much less frequently than those who don't.

With the generally hectic pace of the professional kitchen I do not think it is in the interest of public safety to make hand washing more of a hassle.....which is what gloves do.

Gloves are contaminated just as easily as hands. Yet you cannot wash gloves.

As far as health check ups. Generally in the US the rule is: You are not allowed to be in the kitchen if you have: a fever, diarhea, vomiting, soar throat, jaundice.

The only diagnoses that would prevent you from working with food would be salmonella and hepatitis A. (obviously anyone with E-coli shouldn't be handling food, but that wouldn't generally happen anyway)

As far as STDs I dont know of any restrictions. Those with HIV/AIDS are not restricted. And in the US HIV status is considered confidential.

eeyore

I, personally, wash my hands constantly. The only time I like to see, or use gloves is when I have a wound (even bandaged) on my hand- for both my and consumer's safety- no wound/food contamination. I also have set up at home and at my school, a spray bottle of bleach by the sink for meat cutting boards. And I change cutting boards as needed. I also try to use tongs, spatulas, etc. for serving- most people don't have a problem with someone handling their raw food, but seem to have a problem with the cooked.
Sweet pea- you have erased all guilt that I have for the bizzillion towels I go through.(ok slight exaggeration, but...) The chef teases me because I am constantly grabbing a new towel. I would have been grossed out also!

Even Stephen- You mean we HAD lives before cell phones??? LOL don't tell the teenagers that......

to be honest, i prefer latex gloves over the crappy vinyl (or worse yet, the "plastic bag" variety of glove). Not only are they much more durable, but they give you more tactile sensation in your hand as opposed to not feeling a THING in the vinyl gloves.

I don't mind wearing gloves and switching them out everything I contemplate the word dirty, but it drives me nuts that I can't feel anything as opposed to using my bare hands and just washing them 90-11 times a day.

shel,
We broke open our first case of the nitrile gloves. They got quite a warm reception. I ordered a couple of boxes of the 10 ml for sugar. I had to blow a small piece today and the 10 ml over cotton created a much better heat barrier then the latex.
Thank you for the tip!!!
This is why I really like it here at CT.
panini

I also prefer Laytex gloves, but I'm interested to see how these nitril gloves work out. Keep us posted.

Absolutely not. People just touch everything with the gloves. They are generally far more contaminated than clean hands.

We've used a good number of different gloves at work. I prefer the vinyl gloves over all of them. But...all vinyl gloves are not created equal.

The first thing you will want to do is order the correct size. Someone who has large or X-tra large hands can't use a medium. However, the reverse shouldn't be a problem.

I wish I were able to look at work and see what Vinyl gloves we have, but I won't be back for a little while yet. When I get there...I'll post the brand.

We've had some vinyl gloves that seemed to explode every time you attempt to put them on...and other vinyl gloves that perform quite well. We've also been forced to try the "deli gloves" too...yuk! Nitryl gloves worked out great for strength, fit and feel, but took away too much of your tactile feel away. They are nice though!

Don't forget that you could call the companies up and get some samples sent too. Just be sure to tell them you would like a small working sample for ALL your employees to use. Sending four gloves just won't give you a "feel" to their performance.

good luck,
dan

Gloves

Personally I hate the feeling of latex anywhere on me, I won't use it unless forced to. I have a habit of keeping hand sanitizer in my apron because I hate the way my hands feel after handling food, especially raw meat. Hand sanitizer is a quick fix till I get over to the sink to wash them. Do many people use the hand sanitizers in the restaurants? I swear by it at home, I won't even wash my coffee pot without sanitizing my hands :blush:

No Ive never used hand sanitizer. Ill have to think about that. Im a little afraid that, like gloves, it will give people a false sense of security. And Im curious about the risk of over-use of hand sanitizer leading to so-called "super bugs". But I wonder if it is any different than using quat sanitizer.

eeyore