Restaurant Employees Wearing Gloves, Does It Make Your Food Safe?

In my past life as an inspector I have seen many egregious food safety violations that would make your stomach turn. During a standardization inspection of a new inspector (I am a Food and Drug Administration Certified Inspection Training Officer) I saw a cook who was in the hustle and bustle of a lunch rush and was doing a great job to prevent cross-contamination. You probably are asking yourself what is cross-contamination; in brief it is separating raw and already cooked food so the ‘juices’ that contain bacteria are not introduced into cooked food. Whew…..got one technical term out of the way J. I was impressed with how the cook was using one pair of tongs to get raw chicken and another tong for raw beef, while using separate tongs to turn the meat during cooking. I explained to the inspector that I was standardizing that do not be in a rush to finish the inspection, sometimes you need to sit back and watch.

The lunch rush was winding down and the kitchen staff seemed to be happy that they could take a break. I looked over to the cook that was doing everything right and noticed he was about to leave the kitchen. I decided to see where the cook was going and he was heading towards the bathroom and I knew I could not follow him there. What I did notice before he entered the bathroom was he was still wearing his gloves. I thought to myself why not take your gloves off before you go into the restroom. The cook was in the bathroom a few minutes before he re-emerged and was heading towards the kitchen. To my shock HE WAS STILL WEARING GLOVES! I just could not believe that he would have on the same gloves and return to the kitchen and continue to cook. I asked the inspector, who was male, to please be a lookout and let me find out if there are gloves in the bathroom. I searched the bathroom everywhere and there were no gloves.

The inspector and I rushed to the kitchen after the discovery and spoke to the cook. We asked him were those the same gloves that he had on when he entered the bathroom and he stated ‘yes’, why do you ask. There is no need to go through the entre spill on how that was a MAJOR VIOLATION in this blog, but we educated him on proper handwashing, proper glove use, and when to wash his hands. The moral to this story employees sometimes wear gloves like condoms, they wear them to protect themselves and not YOU. Just because the employees at your favorite restaurant wear gloves does not automatically mean that your food is free from bacteria and or viruses. Next time you dine out observe how employees are handling your food; make sure they are doing it safely. Can you imagine if we were not there to correct that behavior?