Handling food orders without gloves

Red_Barchetta said:

phenixrising said:

Red_Barchetta said:
I wonder how many plastic gloves go into landfills every day.

Most companies who make these gloves are using biodegradable material and the Polyethylene (Poly) gloves are now recyclable. ">

That's great news. I just hope someone is picking them out of the trash can with the lettuce, tomato, cheese, and turkey bits thrown into it.

No need, most gloves used by food handlers and used in hospitals are biodegradable.

Are gloves any better than bare hands? How often are these workers who handle your food actually changing them???? On the whole, I would be perfectly happy if they just washed very frequently or enacted good commonsense divisions of labor. Gloves are kind of a moot point, since they can be every bit as dirty and germ-laden as hands. It all depends on where they have been.

Tom_Reingold said:

Tom_R said:
Thanks.
I hadn't known that there was a State Law regarding bare hand contact with ready to eat foods.
Although, I do wonder how we survived before gloves became the norm.
TomR

I believe there have been improvements in public health since the health regulations were enacted, so "survive" is a relative term. If you haven't been aware of the benefit of this rule, that doesn't mean it's not useful.

Never wrote that the law had no benefit; only that I had been unaware that the glove practice was mandated by law.

Survive? I would think that good hygiene would be more efficacious than perfunctory adherence to a law. But, then again, I had been taught from the get-go, to wash my hands.

TomR

This thread reminds me to wonder what goes on behind the closed doors of any restaurant kitchen. Probably developing breeding programs to produce baby zombies. Yum!

to summarize credit cards and food handling ....germs on money v germs on credit cards...and handling money and then handling food....

PeggyC said:
Are gloves any better than bare hands? How often are these workers who handle your food actually changing them???? On the whole, I would be perfectly happy if they just washed very frequently or enacted good commonsense divisions of labor. Gloves are kind of a moot point, since they can be every bit as dirty and germ-laden as hands. It all depends on where they have been.

However…

"The NJ State Code requires that food handlers have no bare hand contact with ready to eat foods (foods that won’t be fully cooked before serving to a customer). One of the ways that this can be done is by wearing disposable gloves."

The particular handler DID NOT wash his hands but proceeded to make the sandwiches after taking the orders. Again, its the law in NJ and if an inspector happened to be in this establishment, they would've been cited. Most food places I go to in town has a person working separately at the register and NOT preparing ready to eat food.

I was in a supermarket at the fish counter. I got raw filets and then asked for a pound of cooked shrimp... The guy reaches for the shrimp without changing gloves. I yelled at him to STOP!! And change gloves. He looked at me like I was a raving lunatic.I had to explain to him about raw/cooked contamination. After he was done I went directly to the store manager who visibly blanched when I told him what happened.

Next time get the cooked shrimp first. Duh.

It was a last minute decision, didn't think the counter guy was that inept or stupid.