Washing Those Hands

[weinoo]

So, I'm at one of the few places where I buy salumi, cheese, olives, things like that. A small place; not a Fairway or a Zabar's or even a DiPalo's. It's a one person shop. So, the guy is waiting on someone before me, finishes up her order, rings her up, she pays, he takes the money, gives her change and then starts waiting on me.

Without washing his hands. Without putting disposable gloves on (which, if you're not using new ones every time, are worthless).

This time, I did nothing. Sometimes, I'll just walk out without even ordering. What would you do?

[HungryC]

I'm not a germaphobe by a long stretch, but it is indeed completely gross when someone handles money then food without washing. Money is the dirtiest thing around, for pete's sake. If I really liked the establishment, I might politely inquire about money handling & food...make up some hook about "flu season" to ease into the conversation. (Though we all know proper sanitation is important year round.)

[weinoo]

Well, either that or just scream "wash your friggin' hands, douche."

[NancyH]

This kind of thing happens a lot at Cleveland's West Side Market. Also - when buying smokies or other meat and they don't put a clean paper on the scale before weighing the order - grosses me out!

[JBailey]

So you feel better when the swinging door into the kitchen of a restaurant closes and you don't see their sanitation and food safety practices?

[weinoo]

So you feel better when the swinging door into the kitchen of a restaurant closes and you don't see their sanitation and food safety practices?

Yes.

[gfweb]

For what its worth, the number of germs transferred by his hand to your food is small and really really unlikely to cause a food borne disease in you unless he has cholera or salmonella and assuming you are going to eat it right away. (Transfer of nasal viruses and hepatitis is different, but that's not what we are talking about exactly). The real risk is that those dirty hands handle the cold cuts and tuna salad, transfer bacteria to them, where the small numbers can grow into a problem with a little time if they aren't kept cold or hot appropriately.

Above all this is a management failure; which is how I'd address it.

[llc45]

I get especially irked when someone is already wearing plastic gloves to handle food and then takes the money with them on. Just don't bother pretending to be sanitary for heavens sakes! I used to get stomach bugs alot and noticed a marked decrease that correlates with cooking at home alot more, including when I stopped getting deli sandwiches for lunch while working. Cutting back on gluten and cutting back from full time to go back to grad school have done wonders for my stomach problems.

[Mjx]

I leave. This is something I actually notice: Money is incredibly filthy, and I can't afford the luxury of an E. coli or other infection. I have a really low tolerance for people who don't wash their hands.

A single instance of hand-to-food-contact may transfer realtively few pathogens (although they do reproduce), but this sort of food item gets handled repeatedly, and a failure to wash hands suggests a general indifference to hygiene. I know some people who consider the casual attitude towards hygiene more 'real' (a single round with E. coli is generally enough to rid people of that picturesque view).

[DanM]

I politely let them know that it is a violation of health codes and to redo my order. If I'm really pissy, I will call it in. I have been tempted to tell them that I work for the health dept and that if I ever see it happen again, I would have them shut down for unsafe food handling processes.

Dan

[barbarataylor]

I would ask him to put some gloves of something like that

[MelissaH]

I won't go to the one bagel place in my town for exactly that reason: same gloves handle money and food. Ew.

MelissaH

[Toliver]

If you like the food, don't leave. Speak up. If the food isn't worth the bother, or if the guy/owner gives you lip, leave.

I was at a Subway sandwich shop and the woman making my order put the plastic gloves on and then the phone rang. She answered it with her gloved hands and after the call she was about to start making my sandwich when I asked her to put on new gloves since she had just handled the phone. She looked sheepish (like she should have known better and got caught) and did put on new plastic gloves.

[patrickamory]

I just don't care about it. The whole handwashing / glove thing feels completely like a routine to make us feel better.

The real hygiene issues are what happens on the farms, at the meat processing plants, and in transport. That brief moment at the retail counter is unlikely to make any difference.

I also believe we live in an hyper-hygienic society where we probably aren't exposed to enough casual germs. Do you think they washed their hands or used clear plastic gloves at the French farmers' markets where Elisabeth David and Richard Olney shopped in the '60s and '70s?

[weinoo]

I just don't care about it. The whole handwashing / glove thing feels completely like a routine to make us feel better.

The real hygiene issues are what happens on the farms, at the meat processing plants, and in transport. That brief moment at the retail counter is unlikely to make any difference.

I also believe we live in an hyper-hygienic society where we probably aren't exposed to enough casual germs. Do you think they washed their hands or used clear plastic gloves at the French farmers' markets where Elisabeth David and Richard Olney shopped in the '60s and '70s?

Do you think that Richard Olney and Elisabeth (sic) David washed their fruit and vegetables when they got them home?

[sparrowgrass]

I work in the courthouse, and there is a little coffee shop right across the street. Their food is lousy, but they are convenient. However--when the guy behind the counter makes change for someone and then reaches into the bread bin for my croissant without washing his hands--convenience is not enough. I don't know where those hands have been! I am not a germophobe, but that was a bit too much. If you are going to work barehanded, you better be washing every few minutes.

When I go to the fair, and the fundraiser booth guy makes change and then makes my sandwich with the same GLOVES, at least I know (or maybe just hope!) that he hasn't been to the bathroom with those gloves on, and that he probably hasn't picked his nose or cleaned his ears with those gloved fingers. A few germs picked up off the money don't bother me too much--I am going to take my change and then eat my sandwich without washing my hands.

[JeanneCake]

Sigh. We all need baseball caps that say "Board of Health" on them when we order food in person. Not that I think that will change anything. I wash my hands constantly and it drives me nuts when I see others who don't. I actually don't mind someone putting on fresh gloves to make my sandwich and then ringing it in and after the transaction, taking the used gloves off and tossing them.

ETA: because the sandwich is wrapped or bagged before they start to handle the money...

Edited February 25, 2011 by JeanneCake (log)

[Mjx]

I just don't care about it. The whole handwashing / glove thing feels completely like a routine to make us feel better.

Speak to a doctor or a nurse: washing your hands properly before handling food is one of the simplest and most effective ways of controlling the spread of disease.

The real hygiene issues are what happens on the farms, at the meat processing plants, and in transport. That brief moment at the retail counter is unlikely to make any difference.

I also believe we live in an hyper-hygienic society where we probably aren't exposed to enough casual germs. Do you think they washed their hands or used clear plastic gloves at the French farmers' markets where Elisabeth David and Richard Olney shopped in the '60s and '70s?

When it comes to produce, which you can wash at home, or things that are cooked before serving, you may have point, but the discussion here is about ready-to-eat items; with those things, hygiene matters.

I have friends who have a relaxed attitude towards this sort of thing, and sometimes, I get really fed up with having to listen to upadates of their symptoms, when they go through yet another bout of food-borne disease contracted at the same dump that infected them last time... I mean, I'm sympathetic and all, and as happy as the next person to interrupt my lunch to field a call detailing projectile vomiting, dry heaves, and 'I think there's blood in my diarrhoaea, now', or tremulous requests for 'more toilet paper', but I'm irked by the stupidity involved in their continuing to patronize places that staffed by people who clearly have no concept of hygiene, particularly given the fact that there are plenty of places that have different people to wrap the food and take your cash.

In major cities, at least, 'casual germs' now tend to include some really fun stuff, like cholera (check out the CDC site). Washing hands or putting on a clean pair of gloves before handling food is a good idea. It may not be incredibly macho, but who cares? Neither is being curled up in the foetal position, while your friend yells at you to shut up already, and go to the doctor.

[ambra]

I hate seeing people touch my money and my food. It makes me wonder where else they put their hands. The odd thing about where I live is, they require you to where a plastic glove to choose and bag your unwashed often filthy fruits and vegetables. Yet, when the employees unload them, they don't where any gloves at all. Yes, I know the chances of 1000s of people transferring their sick germs is higher than the one vegetable guy, but consdering how often people come to work sick........

[Snadra]

After too many local encounter with staff who use gloved hands to pick up food, handle money and who knows what else (my favorite was the time I bought raw chicken at a Butcher and was handed raw-chicken-juice-laced change) I have concluded that many people wear gloves to keep their hands clean, not my food and change uncontaminated.

[Karri]

Yes ready-to-eat items that are prepared on-site are risky, -but- the fact of the matter really is that unless the person handling his/her hair, the money, the ingredients, does not carry any bacteria that are harmful, there really is no danger. To catch E-Coli from someone else means that this person needs to first drink sewage, or by some other miracle find an apple that fell into a pile of horsecrap and eat it... This whole "food-poisoning" mania that has been going on for so long is truly irksome.

It really isn't easy to catch one of these germs, and if you do, it sure as hell isn't from someone else, unless they are a part of that 0.0001% who are salmonella carriers with no symptoms. Germination periods and somesuch aside, you can also only catch E-Coli if the person who has it, 1. Came to work with explosive diarrhea. 2. Went to void, and wiped without paper (yes, you need some actual poo on your hands to carry the bacteria), 3. Did not wash their hands after AND did not dry them. Drying is as important as washing, because bacteria grow on wet hands exponentially faster. And number 2 applies to carriers also. It is much more likely to catch a stomach bug from unprocessed products straight, since the bacteria might be there to begin with, but then again that guy with the money in the other and your cheese in the other hand was just out of luck...

P.S. I have eaten at some really shady places, I ate riverclams off a streetvendor in South Africa, they had been standing in the sun for an hour, but they smelled really delicious. Oh and they were raw... Never had a stomachbug. In a way I agree with what was said earlier, since autoimmune diseases are pretty much nonexistent in 3rd world countries, there when a baby drops their pacifier they don't boil it for 3 hours. Antibodies are natures way of keeping you healthy, if you never develop any, then the common flu will kill you...

[gfweb]

Y To catch E-Coli from someone else means that this person needs to first drink sewage, or by some other miracle find an apple that fell into a pile of horsecrap and eat it... This whole "food-poisoning" mania that has been going on for so long is truly irksome.

It really isn't easy to catch one of these germs, and if you do, it sure as hell isn't from someone else, unless they are a part of that 0.0001% who are salmonella carriers with no symptoms. Germination periods and somesuch aside, you can also only catch E-Coli if the person who has it, 1. Came to work with explosive diarrhea. 2. Went to void, and wiped without paper (yes, you need some actual poo on your hands to carry the bacteria), 3. Did not wash their hands after AND did not dry them. Drying is as important as washing, because bacteria grow on wet hands exponentially faster. And number 2 applies to carriers also. It is much more likely to catch a stomach bug from unprocessed products straight, since the bacteria might be there to begin with, but then again that guy with the money in the other and your cheese in the other hand was just out of luck...

P.S. I have eaten at some really shady places, I ate riverclams off a streetvendor in South Africa, they had been standing in the sun for an hour, but they smelled really delicious. Oh and they were raw... Never had a stomachbug. In a way I agree with what was said earlier, since autoimmune diseases are pretty much nonexistent in 3rd world countries, there when a baby drops their pacifier they don't boil it for 3 hours. Antibodies are natures way of keeping you healthy, if you never develop any, then the common flu will kill you...

This is complete nonsense and you are wrong about any number of areas.

Every single one of us has E. coli in our intestine. Some of us may have bad strains that we tolerate, but others won't..esp those who are already impaired like the elderly and the very young.

You have no real knowledge about this topic. Your own experience, which has been blessed by good luck if not good judgment, is no substitute for tested facts.

[Karri]

Right, let's get this started:

1. "Certain strains of E. coli, such as O157:H7, O121 and O104:H21, produce potentially lethal toxins. Food poisoning caused by E. coli is usually caused by eating unwashed vegetables or undercooked meat"

2. Nowhere and I mean nowhere does it say that humans can carry bad strains that are tolerable, and yes, we all carry e-coli, but what I am talking about is the gutblasting E-Coli, aforementioned.

3. The bacteria in a childs or an elders stomach -naturally occuring- is not going to kill them, or is it?

4. "Transmission of pathogenic E. coli often occurs via faecal-oral transmission.[24][34][35] Common routes of transmission include: unhygienic food preparation,[34] farm contamination due to manure fertilization,[36] irrigation of crops with contaminated greywater or raw sewage,[37] feral pigs on cropland,[38] or direct consumption of sewage-contaminated water."

5. "Dairy and beef cattle are primary reservoirs of E. coli O157:H7,[40] and they can carry it asymptomatically and shed it in their faeces." - apple and dung theory

6. Can't be bothered to copy paste this whole thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli

edit: Here's another one. http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/FastFacts/pdfs/ecoli_F.pdf

Edited February 27, 2011 by Karri (log)

[Edward J]

Interesting topic, all comments duly noted.....

I spent the early 90's in Singapore, which has a good reputation for a clean city. The western hotels and restaurants had very stringent health codes and inspections--to this day I still don't know why the health dept requested a 2 hr rated fire wall around my walk in cooler and freezer, but I digress.

As a westerner I was shocked, thrilled, and held in awe of the "wet markets", the local markets that sold meat and produce. Gloves? pffft.

Pork was sold fresh, hanging up under a tin roof in the hot sun. A meat grinder was always at the ready, being used every now and then, and also kept in the hot sun. The fish guys were always friendly, cutting and cleaning fish to order, shoving money into their crusty aprons, smoking and scratching their legs where the rubber boots chafed on the calves.

The Halal guys wasn't much better, selling semi-frozen goat that was hung up next to naked 100 watt lightbulbs...

Produce? Trucked in fresh from the airport, mainland Malaysia, or the seaports. Trucked in via open flat bed trucks....

And yet.. And yet no one died. No one got sick. I never got sick. My parents ame and visited us, and they never got sick. Tourists "in the know" came to S'pore to get healthy again. Oh there were outbreaks, some eejit putting in 20 times the amount of sodium benzoate needed in fresh noodles, bad milk powder. Stuff like that.

You get grossed out in Mom and Pop delis? Then don't go.

Everyone has eyes. If there's only one guy behind the meat slicer and cash register, then you know what's going to happen.

[gfweb]

I'm not going to go back and forth with you over food safety.

But I will point out that the bad strains of E coli you note are not the only bad bacteria in the world. Normal gi bacteria can cause mischief too as can staph aureus from the skin if it gets to grow in food.

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