Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

He has apparently learned nothing from the Fat Duck outbreak. He and his students continue to touch people's food with their bare hands, running the risk of fecal-oral diseases like norovirus.

Shocking! A chef touching food with his bare hands. Heaven forfend that we should ever be exposed to any germs and actually build up some immunity.

While gloves may reduce the risk of "fecal-oral" diseases, proper handwashing does as well. Gloves also reduce one's sensitivity to texture and temperature, not to mention significantly increasing the risk of cross contamination. If you accidentally place your hand on or in something on a poorly cleaned countertop you notice immediately without gloves; with gloves you may just go on your merry way, never realizing that you've got raw meat juices, soap, or some other fluid or contaminant on the outside of your gloves.

I can say with absolute certainty that the rate of food-borne illness at the fast food chain where I worked several years ago increased dramatically after the state I live in started requiring gloves. I can also say that I witnessed people wearing gloves through an entire shift without changing them, where it was regular practice to see hands washed several times every hour before.

Good points re: handwashing. It's very important. Unfortunately it's not happening nearly enough. If it did, we wouldn't be having hundreds of outbreaks every year from foodworker's poop ending up in food.

Can people cross-contaminate with gloves on? Yes. Can people cross-contaminate with bare hands? Yes. Both happen all the time, unfortunately. The purpose of the gloves is not to prevent cross-contamination. The purpose of gloves is to cover up poop on the fingers of foodworkers who don't wash their hands well after using the toilet.

To reduce outbreaks, we need to emphasize three things: employees shouldn't work when sick, they must wash their hands, and they should wear gloves (or use utensils) to handle food.

i, too, have seen many people using gloves and then going into the register to make change.

in my many years of working in the food service business, i've always stressed to my employees that a kitchen is just like a hospital.... you can never wash your hands enough.... you can't touch your hair, your eyes, cough into your hands with or without gloves .... you must always be aware of the germs you are putting out.

i've also seen people put dirty produce boxes on prep stations, also....
it's unbelievable. i've also caught an employee who was cleaning shrimp and then went to make a salad without washing his hands. FIRED.

you can train people by explaining these basic, fundamental principles...
some get it and some are as dumb as dirt.

To sfullers: until reading this thread I was convinced that you are supposed to clean your poop with a piece of toilet paper rather than with your bare hand ..... Anyway, if not washing hands properly, isn't it likely that even the gloves will be contaminated if put on by dirty hands??