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A big part of my job is to seek out restaurants doing new and exciting things, film them doing it, and blast that out to the internet for all our fabulous readers to enjoy. A big part of the response I get from that is “EW, why is that person not wearing gloves??” and “his/her hands are GROSS!” when chefs take to food barehanded. And while in many places the law requires anyone handling food in restaurants to wear gloves (or at least that they do not touch food with their bare hands before serving it), not all chefs choose to adhere to the rule.
Here’s why that’s not the biggest deal in the world…assuming, of course, they are maintaining a perfectly sanitary kitchen and food service.
People are less likely to wash their hands while wearing gloves.
A 2011 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention summed it up pretty succinctly:
Workers wearing gloves when hand-washing should occur were less likely to wash their hands at that point than were workers who were not wearing gloves at the same point. For example, workers who were wearing gloves while preparing raw animal product were less likely to wash their hands when they were done than were workers who were not wearing gloves.
The study concluded in turn that those who wear gloves in a kitchen just don’t wash their hands as often as those who don’t wear them. And hand-washing is the most important measure for preventing the spread of problematic germs through a kitchen.
They also don’t change their gloves in between doing cross-contaminative activities.
Fresh Foods Department Manager Timothy Fisher told FOODBEAST in 2017 that not only are people who wear gloves washing their hands a lot less often, but they’re also not usually changing their gloves in between food prep actions. Just because you’re wearing gloves, it doesn’t make it acceptable to go from handling raw chicken to fresh vegetables…and yet, it happens all the time, both in lieu of hand-washing and/or a change of gloves.
Gloves are easily punctured.
For those still convinced rubber kitchen gloves are the most secure way to prevent germs from spreading, a 2018 report from Food Quality & Safety notes “50-96 percent of glove punctures go undetected by wearers, with the potential to release tens of thousands of bacteria from internal glove surfaces to food.”
Food Safety magazine found a similar number: “When inappropriate materials are used in food processing or service environments it becomes apparent that they are operating outside of their functional envelopes, and hence, breaks, punctures and leaks lead to contaminated food product,” the mag explains. “Studies in the health care field have shown that 50% of the time, glove wearers fail to notice glove punctures.”