Shigella outbreak in Lombard

The number of people sickened after eating at a Subway in Lombard is up to 78. The source of the contagion hasn't yet been identified.

http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/streamwoo ... g-outbreak

Five Dollar Poop Long

Personally instead of those gloves they wear when making sandwiches I'd rather see them right in front of me use a sink, steamy hot water and soap. If I sat at a sushi bar and saw the chef use gloves I'd walk out.

kenji wrote:Five Dollar Poop Long

Personally instead of those gloves they wear when making sandwiches I'd rather see them right in front of me use a sink, steamy hot water and soap. If I sat at a sushi bar and saw the chef use gloves I'd walk out.

Agreed. Gloves are the biggest B.S. attempts at safety in the food industry, and I too am tempted to walk out of anyplace where the cooks wear them.

Kennyz wrote:

kenji wrote:Five Dollar Poop Long

Personally instead of those gloves they wear when making sandwiches I'd rather see them right in front of me use a sink, steamy hot water and soap. If I sat at a sushi bar and saw the chef use gloves I'd walk out.

Agreed. Gloves are the biggest B.S. attempts at safety in the food industry, and I too am tempted to walk out of anyplace where the cooks wear them.

When I was the manager at a Burger King in Gainesville, FL, I almost got into a fight with a customer because of our glove-less policy. His whopper wasn't made correctly so he came to me. I went to the back, washed and sanitized my hands, then made his whopper and delivered it to him. He then threw a fit because I didn't wear gloves while making his whopper and I tried to explain why we don't use gloves. I ended up having to call the cops and banned the guy for life. I then ate his whopper as he was being led out of the store. I have now used the word whopper so many times that it has lost all meaning. whopper. whopper. whopper.

There are some situations, though, where gloves are required, aren't there?

leek wrote:There are some situations, though, where gloves are required, aren't there?

Like during a full body cavity search?

Fujisan wrote:

leek wrote:There are some situations, though, where gloves are required, aren't there?

Like during a full body cavity search?

I took a big sip of ice tea right before I read your post.

My nose is dripping and my keyboard is wet and I'm coughing!

Not to get too far astray here, but while I'm totally on board with the "food service gloves are BS" crowd, I can't think of any reason why they'd be worse than simple handwashing. Is there something that isn't occurring to me?

Dmnkly wrote:Not to get too far astray here, but while I'm totally on board with the "food service gloves are BS" crowd, I can't think of any reason why they'd be worse than simple handwashing. Is there something that isn't occurring to me?

I think gloves provide a false sense of security. In practice, they're often considered a magic cloak of protection, when in reality if they're not worn and changed properly, they're at least as dangerous as not washing hands. I've seen people wearing gloves go from money-handling to food prep without even thinking twice about it. Perhaps the same employee would do the same thing even if bare-handed. Who knows. But in the end, it's not people's hands I want protection from, it's cross-contamination. I don't get the feeling that everyone who wears gloves actually understands this and do sometimes get the sense that those who wear them feel that wearing them alone is enough to prevent any issue from occurring.

=R=

leek wrote:There are some situations, though, where gloves are required, aren't there?

In theory, bare hands are never supposed to come in contact with ready-to-eat food. You can use bear hands while chopping raw ingredients, butchering a hog, etc... but once you're ready to plate that food, you're supposed to use a utensil or glove-covered hands.

In practice though, what Ronnie wrote above is exactly right. Gloves are for show, not for real protection. They give consumers and regulators a visual sense that the establishment cares about safety. You can see gloves on a cook, but you can't see whether those hands have been recently washed. But the problem is that a glove-covered hand that just scratched an ass is no safer than a bare hand that did the same. And with a bare hand, you're more likely to notice the ass crud and want to wash it off your index finger, whereas while wearing a glove in a busy kitchen, you'll just move on with plating the salmon that's late getting out to Table 5.

Kennyz wrote:In practice though, what Ronnie wrote above is exactly right. Gloves are for show, not for real protection.

Went to a national chain sub sandwich shop a few years back, aside from having the worst bread, pillow soft and sour from over yeasting, the sandwich makers gloves looked as if they had been on for hours, if not days, his personal hygiene was not all that good either. I noticed all this as I was paying for the sandwich and, as there was a line, simply paid and left. After a moments hesitation, I was hungry, I decided to eat the cost rather than the sandwich and tossed it in the nearest trash.

Enjoy,
Gary

Kennyz wrote:In theory, bare hands are never supposed to come in contact with ready-to-eat food.

??

Sushi/Sashimi and a sushi chef.
Bakers
candy
Fresh fruit
salads

kenji wrote:

Kennyz wrote:In theory, bare hands are never supposed to come in contact with ready-to-eat food.

??

Sushi/Sashimi and a sushi chef.
Bakers
candy
Fresh fruit
salads

Laws vary from state to state, but in NY - at least in the late 90's - this was the law. Obviously, enforcement is variable.

Kennyz wrote:You can use bear hands while chopping raw ingredients ...

I know the Bill of Rights gives us a right to bear arms, I just never realized that it also included the hands.

I always think of gloves as something to protect the wearer.

On the other hand, we don't know that this is necessarily an issue of restaurant worker sanitation. Shigella is among the bacteria that can be spread on poorly washed produce.

Last fall a young man had gloves on and was filling bags of popcorn. I walked over to him and told him I was the sanitation nazi. "Young Man", I say, "wearing gloves is great, but touching your face and hair while wearing them and then going back to the popcorn is not."

Food Safety News implies that this outbreak was caused by sick foodhandlers.