The Health Advocate

If you’re concerned with food safety…and who isn’t?…then you might want to think about all those cooks and food handlers who wear latex gloves whenever they’re working. We don’t see much of what goes on in restaurant kitchens, but we always see the food handlers at the market delicatessens who are slicing our cheese and meats, and we watch approvingly as they
wear their gloves, and frequently change them in front of us.

I believe we get a false sense of security about food safety, partly because we place too much
reliance on those gloves. Think about it: if a person drops something while wearing the gloves, he might pick it from the germ-laden counter or sink or floor where it dropped, without
changing or washing the gloves immediately afterward. It’s a lot easier for an ungloved cook or food handler to simply wash his hands after picking up some germ-laden object. Unless we watch them constantly how would we know if the handler or cook wipes his face or scratches his
head or covers his mouth while coughing, forgetting that he’s wearing those gloves. I doubt if many of them would deliberately jeopardize your health or their jobs, but these automatic
responses probably happen far more often than we like to think about it.

Most people eat and prepare their meals at home. Most family members who do the cooking don’t wear latex gloves. Most of them, I think and we hope, are conscientious enough to
practice safe hygiene habits when they are in the kitchen. More people probably get food-bourne illnesses in restaurants and/or from store-bought and fast food items than those who
prepare, cook and eat at home.

I’m not suggesting that we demand the end of the glove-wearing practices, but I think we should be vigilant when we see food handlers and cooks working at outdoor barbecues, festivals
and in market delicatessens. We already know that the waitresses who serve your meals and the short order cooks should not be at the cash register handling germ-laden money unless they thoroughly wash their hands before touching food again. It’s time now to focus on the safety
of glove-hygiene practices in most of our stores and restaurants.

There seem to be more food-bourne illnesses now than ever before, perhaps because the media
keeps us well-informed, and that’s good. But at the same time, one wonders why there were
so few outbreaks years ago when latex gloves were not so widely used in public businesses
or even in private gatherings. I believe hand-washing– thorough and frequent hand-washing,–is the safest and most reliable path to good hygiene habits and food safety. It also makes cooking
a lot more enjoyable with a true-hands-on approach to all those foods we love. Latex gloves
are very important in many settings, including medical and dental practices and lab work, for examples, but when it comes to food, they don’t particularly enhance our enjoyment or our
safety. In public places, we have no choice, but at home and among friends, we can cheerfully remind the cook to take off the gloves!!

Written by,

Sylvia H