"Dee.Dee" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Nathalie Chiva" > wrote in
> message
>>>
>>>You'd be luck to never see the inside of a restaurant kitchen, or
>>>even watch them assemble your fast food burger - most assebly and
>>>much of the cooking is done with bare hands.
>>
>> And rightly so too - hands are essential in cooking, and I certainly
>> use my bare hands quite often while cooking.
>> Funny what shocks one. I wouldn't have even noticed the use of bare
>> hands in this case - seems so normal to me!
>>
>> Nathalie in Switzerland
>
>
> I always think, "Where have these fingernails been?"
>
> I use my bare hands, too, but when I do messy jobs, I always don the
> gloves. So much easier than washing the oils and bread dough off hands.
> Dee Dee
>
I'm not put off at bare hands in the kitchen, as long as the hands are kept
sanitary. If handwashing is done whenever the hands are contaminated (even
by just touching the face or hair), and general good hygene is followed,
bare hands worry me no more than gloves. Bear in mind that the food service
person wearing the gloves is just as likely as the bare-handed person to
have touched their hair or face with the gloves. Frequently, they handled
the gloves extensively just putting them on, which passes any contaminants
on the hands to the gloves. Some frugal kitchen workers will try and stick
with the same pair of gloves for as long as possible, and they end up more
contaminated than bare hands would have been, since it's so much easier to
wash hands when not wearing gloves.

A local bakery opened a few years ago, and I was really eager to support
them. They sold soup and sandwiches as well, and while I was standing in
line to buy my pastry, someone bought some soup. The person at the register
took the money, made change, and then went to gt the soup. She ladled a soup
into a cup, then took a small container of chives from the frdge. she
pinched some chives with her fingers, put them in the soup, then sort of
rubbed her fingers together over the soup to get all the chives off. I
nearly hurled. There was no handwashing in that whole process, AND she let
us see it. I turned and left, never went back, could not eat anything made
there now if you paid me.

Our local health department regulations require gloves for touching any food
that's not going to be cooked after you touch it. But unless the person
running the kitchen makes sure that gloves, and bare hands, are kept
properly sanitary, then the gloves don't matter. In fact, I'd generally
perfer bare hands with very frequent hand washing.

Cheers!
Mo