[crazygringo]

> So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should.

To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit.

You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable.

I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors and nurses are. Like, if you're cutting up chicken for an hour you're not, but if you're moving from chicken to veggies you absolutely are.

[ceejayoz]

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves...

I've seen enough absent-minded nose wipes on the back of gloves at Chipotle-style establishments to be pretty OK with this take.

And that's where people are watching.

[crazygringo]

Yeah, but then something tells me they wouldn't be washing their hands instead. Which is the comparison being made.

[0xffff2]

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors and nurses are. Like, if you're cutting up chicken for an hour you're not, but if you're moving from chicken to veggies you absolutely are.

I think that because I was a food service worker and it's impossible to change gloves during a rush. Nitrile gloves and sweaty hands simply do not mix. There are also many more forms of cross contamination than just raw meat to cooked food.

[Eisenstein]

If you don't have time to change gloves how do you have time to wash your hands?

[ceejayoz]

It's much quicker to wash your hands.

Gloves require your hands to be perfectly dry to put on effectively.

[crazygringo]

I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

You can dry your hands on a towel in seconds. I don't know what you mean by "perfectly dry"...? Like, nobody needs to blow-dry their hands before putting gloves on or anything.

[ceejayoz]

I do a medical procedure several times a week that requires gloves.

If you don't flap your hands around for 30+ seconds, any remaining moisture from handwashing (or sweat) makes them stick to your skin and you wind up fighting them (and about half the time, ripping a hole). A towel is not enough.

[crazygringo]

I variously use nitrile, vinyl, and poly gloves when cooking messy things at home in bulk, like chicken, bacon, etc. I regularly pull them off to do something and then throw a new pair back on. They can be kinda sweaty and it's... fine. Zero problem whatsoever sliding on a new pair.

I'm not doubting your personal experience. I'm just saying it's in no way a universal rule. I'm sure experiences will be different depending on glove material, glove size, and just the different shapes of different people's hands.

But for me and for plenty of people I've worked with earlier in my life, swapping gloves was way faster and easier than washing hands again. Plus, washing your hands like 40 times in a shift is going to dry them out. It's not great.

[gamblor956]

Food safety regulations in most states require that food workers replace gloves if they handle raw meat and switch to other foodstuffs.

But they don't generally require them to replace gloves between batches of (the same kind of) meat, or between different kinds of vegetables, or when switching from vegetables to meat, or between customers if they're on a service line. While it's recommended in those situations, I'm not sure any state mandates it.

[crazygringo]

I mean, they don't require gloves to be replaced in those situations because there isn't a good safety reason to. There's zero reason to replace your gloves when switching from dicing green peppers for a salad to picking up raw chicken. Or similarly between customers if you're just handling food, and not a cash register or anything. It's not like you're touching the customers...

[oasisaimlessly]

> There's zero reason to replace your gloves when switching from dicing green peppers for a salad to picking up raw chicken.

Typo?

[crazygringo]

No typo. That's the direction that's safe.

[rkomorn]

It seems you're thinking they're switching back and forth, but that's not what they wrote?

[energy123]

Many food service workers don't use gloves and don't wash their hands after going to the toilet, from what I have observed.

[cogman10]

> To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit.

You are supposed to. I've seen plenty of fast food places where the gloves stay on between jobs.

I'm sure there are upscale places that are better on this point.

> You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable.

If you were just working with raw chicken, that slimy feeling on your skin is a pretty good motivator for most people to immediately wash their hands. It's more than just procedure or habit, your hands feel dirty and you want to wash that off.

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors and nurses are. Like, if you're cutting up chicken for an hour you're not, but if you're moving from chicken to veggies you absolutely are.

You absolutely are supposed to. But there's a gap in what you are supposed to do vs what actually happens in practice. Especially if you get a penny pinching boss that doesn't like wasting money on gloves.

That doesn't happen so much in medicine because the consequences are much higher. But for food? Not uncommon. There are more than a few restaurants with open kitchens that I've had to stop eating at because employees could be seen handling a bunch of things with the same set of gloves on.

It also does not help that food is often a mad rush.

[kelnos]

> It's more than just procedure or habit, your hands feel dirty and you want to wash that off.

I'm not sure that's reliable across people. I'm definitely like that; whenever my hands feel the least bit dirty or oily or anything, I really want to wash them. But I've run into people who have commented on the fact that I do that, and I've learned that there are lots of people who just don't have that compulsion at all.

[cogman10]

I agree that it's not reliable.

My point is that changing gloves is something that is even less reliable and needs to be drilled in through procedure and habit. Handwashing also needs the procedure and habit, but it has the added benefit that for a good number of people there's also a physical compulsion that goes along with that procedure and habit.

[g-b-r]

That's probably the places where people would never wash their hands either

[queenkjuul]

Just typical "programmer thinks they know how to do every job, especially the ones they've never done"