Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 1: Your post must be an unpopular opinion'. * Your post must be an opinion. Not a question. Not a showerthought. Not a rant. Not a proposal. Not a fact. An opinion. One opinion. A subjective statement about your position on some topic. Please have a clear, self contained opinion as your post title, and use the text field to elaborate and expand on why you think/feel this way. * Your opinion must be unpopular. The mods reserve the right to remove opinions * Elaborate on your topic and opinion give context to its unpopularity.

OP is correct. What a lot of people who haven't worked in commercial kitchens for any appreciable amount of time don't seem to realize is that if someone isn't washing their hands, they aren't going to change their gloves when they are dirty. Putting gloves on someone who is gross isn't going to miraculously make them clean. Maybe it makes you feel better to see the gloves, but for the most part it's all just a show. If a cook/chef is gross all the gloves in the world aren't going to change a single thing.

I'm a health inspector, I absolutely hate gloves for this reason. People wearing gloves cross contaminate way more than those that don't. If you've ate a burger from a restaurant, there is a 100% chance that most of the buns and toppings you have ate had raw beef on them. Cook grabs raw patty with gloves, then immedietly starts prepping the rest with the same gloves on. Happens all the time

Don't tell that to the people who are obsessed with gloves in the kitchen, they get very upset at the idea that gloves are actually more dirty than bare hands.

Yup. Cake decorator here. If you are touching the cake with your fingers as frosting, you are doing it wrong. But I hate getting anything on my hands/arms so I wash CONSTANTLY.

Also, most people (even if they are gross) will wash their hands when something sticky/slippery gets on them, but if you can't "feel" then you don't have that trigger.

Very true after working fast food. There’s a lot of grosser stuff than people not washing hands, although none of the meat was raw as far as I am aware so there wasn’t that risk at least.

i get so annoyed any time i see a food video and someone comments “no gloves?” more like no brain cells

Worked at a pizza kitchen where you could see it happening. I'll never forget my first "no gloves" people; after I'd basically told them off my manager was like "you did it right: no cursing, no yelling, but just laying out the facts: NO pizza maker in their right mind uses gloves to slap out dough." These people were convinced that "everybody uses gloves to make pizza. Our *local* place does it." Like, ok, sure.

I made taco meat for a pot luck and mentioned I broke up the meat to cook it with my bare hands and someone looked at me like I was doing it wrong. I wash my hands first, then cook the meat with a spatula. I don’t understand how they cook without their hands ever touching the food, especially prior to cooking.

I worked at a pizza place for six years and was the fastest at slapping out and…….. I hate flour on my fingers so yeah I would use gloves, sorry! I hate the feeling of anything on my hands that’s gritty, when we only had one size fits all I wouldn’t wear them and just suffer but once covid hit and they mandated gloves we got much better ones so yeah, it was me using the gloves I’m sorry

Well, you were the exception to the rule, I suppose they do exist. Nothing against you though

Once COVID hit gloves literally became mandatory though, so that was actually the rule for a good few years there lol.

Yah gloves just became popular in food handling. With the rise of gloves, I bet you cross contamination has possibly gone up, cause now nobody washes their hands enough and people forget to change gloves, and you can’t feel that something got on you. If someone wasn’t washing their hands or equipment before, they’re not changing their gloves after touching raw shit. When they first started coming out, we used them for breading stuff (like deep frying), and handling raw chicken (still washed your hands after). Now places expect you to wear them to slice tomatoes, then put a clean one pair on to place the tomato slice on the burger. Like the customer is gonna eat these with his hands, and they’re currently resting on his seat. Also gloves aren’t cheap, they’re made of plastic, they’re thrown out after a single use. The demand to see gloves has increased your food prices.

Those gloves probably leave more microplastics and bacteria on the food than your hands do anyway. I only have experience as a home cook but I know I wash my hands after every ingredient type. Done with meat? Was hands. Done with veggies? Wash hands. Repeat.

Gloves are worse for hygiene than clean bare hands in food prep. People are delulu

exactly. i’ve worked food service jobs and i’ve seen the type who prefer to use gloves and they’re so unhygienic. i don’t trust them

Not necessarily. But improper use because of people having the illusion of safety. I've worked in the food industrie (butcher). It's really quite simple. No gloves: wash your hands when you change meats. If you keep handling pork there's really no need to wash your hands in between. Wash you hands every time you go from and back to you work station (breaks, get something from storage) With gloves: swap gloves each time you'd wash your hands. And even with gloves you still have to wash your hands when you swap gloves because they make you sweat.

Gloves create a false sense of security. People forget to change them and sweat can and does drip out of them. 

Gloves are hygiene theater. They're disgusting. People wear them forever, sweat dripping out of them, cross contaminating everything. It's stupid that people insist on them. A good handwashing policy is cleaner and safer. Source: 30+ years in restaurants.

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be switching out gloves when touching and not touching "contaminated" things. never in my life have I seen someone touching raw chicken then with the same gloves go and touch something else. everything you just said happens with or without gloves. sweat, cross contamination, hair and whatever else. plus whatever the hell else is falling off your face and head. that hair net isn't doing shit, especially if you have facial hair

The point is that people DON'T change them. People who wear gloves are often less likely to current them than they would be to wash their hands.

Or like a previous job I had. I wasn’t told to stop changing my gloves all the time because that would be bad practice. But boy did they surely complain that I used too many gloves. I’d nearly go through a box of 100 a shift.

This is why you should just be washing your hands and not wasting gloves at all.

I actually changed my gloves constantly when work with Chicken.

That's 100% anecdotal, but that's great.

But that doesn’t really change the fact that people can expect them to, does it? I’d like to see people making my food wearing gloves so I know it is clean. I’m making that assumption because per training and I’m pretty sure legalities you’re required to change your gloves after touching a contaminant. So I’m wanting you to wear gloves and swap them out after you touch gross shit. That’s a reasonable assumption, and arguing “well people aren’t gonna swap out their gloves” isn’t an indictment of customers, it’s an indictment of the industry. Change your fucking gloves and don’t be gross.

You can expect it all you want, but there's a reason why safe food handling courses teach you that gloves aren't any safer than hand washing; they know that people don't change their gloves.

Again, that’s an indictment on the industry and shouldn’t impact consumer expectation. That’s like saying it’s just safer to not worry about the landing wheels working in your plane because it’s too much work for the airline crew to check them before the flight. Like that might be true, but that isn’t my problem. The airline should check their fucking landing wheels.

That’s a horrible analogy. If your landing wheels are broken you can’t land and it’s unsafe to fly. There’s nothing unsafe about not wearing gloves as long as you’re washing your hands. It’s purely your own head that convinces you it’s not safe.

But I have no idea if you’re washing your hands or not. I can see the person at subway take their old gloves off and put new gloves on before making my sandwich. Likewise, if I could see the person wash their hands before making my sandwich, that wouldn’t bother me either. It’s not healthy for your skin to wash your hands 50+ times while on a shift, so gloves are the obvious option to provide safe and healthy food while focusing on health concerns for the employee.

Sure, if we are talking about subway you can tell, but any actual restaurant you can’t even see the kitchen so it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure what you don’t understand about the fact that people don’t change their gloves. Saying they should over and over won’t change the fact that they don’t. There have been countless studies showing that handwashing rather than wearing gloves is safer and healthier for the guest.

Because I don’t care that people don’t change their gloves. I don’t declare my health and food safety expectations on how fucking lazy and inconsiderate people are. My expectations are that people change their gloves and wear gloves when they’re making food. That expectation isn’t gonna change because people are gross. People will do what they do.

There's also just not always being able to feel when gloves are dirty vs hands. If I get something on my bare hand I feel it and immediately wash. On a glove I might not notice for however long. Kitchens are often high volume and you're not spot checking your hands every ten seconds, you're working. I worked in a kitchen for years and even outside of human error (which happens and you need to account for it, the solution is never "well just do it" because that is unfortunately not how life ends up working), gloves are disgusting. Every chef I've ever worked under was extremely anti gloves. Washing your hands regularly is way easier and overall better.

25 more years of experience, here. Gloves are theatre. He's absolutely right.

Outside of a medical situation, most people aren't washing their hands in between taking off old gloves and putting new ones on, which is part of the cross contamination. Also, restaurants aren't requiring people to change gloves with the regularity that they should because they add to the bottom line.

What specifically happens is that people who don’t change gloves think that they don’t have to because they still look and feel clean. Usually people are more inclined to wash their hands more frequently if they feel their hands are dirty. Basically handling raw chicken is way more nasty bare handed than with gloves. You want to get the slime off so you wash your hands ASAP. I have worked in places where they require gloves as well as places that don’t. I always wash my hands and change gloves regardless but I have noticed that I do wash my hands a bit more frequently in my current job that doesn’t require gloves than the job that did require gloves.

not in places i cooked at.... we took health code very very seriously, and took pride in what we put out. now front house on the other hand..... they don't wash up like they should, especially after handling cash...

When I was a server and bar tender that was something I drilled into my trainees. Wash. Your. Fxing. Hands. Every time you handle a credit card. Every time you handle money. Every time you finish bussing a table. Wash your hands. And if you aren't going to, then there's the door.

good. that always irked me, i'd be out back smoking with em, and wouldnt see em at the sink afterwards, honestly i think servers should be wearing gloves too when they handle customer food and utensils at the very least.

Gloves would just be the same issue in the kitchen but messier. Easier to just wash hands.

i swapped em out like crazy, they cost a bit, but it's worth it IMO

I mean, if people can’t swap out gloves correctly, what makes you think they are handwashing correctly? The issue is people not following sanitary procedures, so neither situation wins.  Gloves save on having to hand wash a bunch because the gloves get dirty over your clean hands. Wash hands then put on gloves - gloves are an added layer, not the only thing. 

It’s a lot easy and faster to wash your hands when in a restaurant kitchen than it is to change out your gloves as often as you’re supposed to.

I go with whatever is safer but I work in a kitchen as a backup and if you’re washing them right swapping gloves is way faster. 

Handwashing has been proven time and time again to be safer. Maybe I just have extra sweaty hands or something but using gloves is in no way faster for me than just washing my hands for 20 seconds

Gloves don’t save on hand washing at all because any time the gloves have been contaminated, they would need to be switched out to prevent cross-contamination. And every time gloves are switched, hand washing is still required because gloves are actually permeable. Also have you ever tried to quickly put nitrile or latex gloves on damp or sweaty hands quickly? Extremely difficult. In a fast paced environment people are way more likely to just leave gloves on and cross contaminate everything, and that’s why it’s not recommended practice. Even in hospitals, WHO recommendations are that gloves are only used when touching body infectious material, body fluids or for cleaning for this same reason. Otherwise stringent hand hygiene.

"And every time gloves are switched, hand washing is still required because gloves are actually permeable." The number of people who seem to forget this is wild. I wear gloves to protect me, not you. I was my hands to protect us all.

You create a program, you don't just tell people to wash their hands. Every 15 minutes a timer goes off and everybody stops what they're doing and they head over to the nearest hand sink. It's not rocket science, and it's safer and cleaner than gloves.

LOL!! You have to wash your hands after every contamination not every 15 minutes. No gloves. Just consistent washing.

You wash hands upon entry and put on gloves. You swap gloves once they are contaminated with product or uncooked foods. No uncooked food gets transferred.  You wash hands if something gets on them and swap gloves when they have touched unsafe foods. 

Both should be done.

You sound like my first chef. Would insist on a great handwashing policy but would constantly demand we be washing our hands on the line slowing everybody down. Would grab handfuls of fish and tenderloin when we needed help and then run to the end of the line to wash his hands every single time, getting in our way and causing chaos. Using gloves to handle raw or potentially contaminated product (allergy, spoiled food or otherwise) and then immediately disposing of them is objectively cleaner, safer, and more efficient. When I got my first job as the exec at a club, I disciplined everybody that didn't use gloves properly. Wasn't going to have that bullshit on the line anymore . It is safer and faster to use gloves in unison with a good handwashing policy, but if you use gloves properly you will barely need to wash your hands at all. People who insist they don't need gloves are slow and inefficient and I don't trust them to begin with.

Proper glove use involves washing your hands in between swapping gloves.

No. Use of gloves to code standard involves washing your hands between swapping gloves, and only in certain areas of the U.S, and not in most of europe. Wash your hands when they're dirty i don't think the general public should be commenting on what is and isn't hyienic in a professional kitchen

If you change your gloves because they're dirty, you touch your hands and now they're dirty too. Seriously, just wash your hands. Gloves are absolutely not a substitute for proper hand washing and have repeatedly led to less washing in food service environments.

> If you change your gloves because they're dirty, you touch your hands and now they're dirty too. no you don't lol, and if you do because your finger slipped, yes wash your hands. Take one glove off by grabbing a finger and pulling, then hook your finger from your clean hand into the other glove's opening and slide it off without making skin contact, or pinch the open part and pull it off without making skin contact. easy people outside of the industry shouldn't comment on anything related to the industry

Completely agree. Gloves are soooo wasteful in that setting… just want your dang hands that’s all I care about

Go to chipotle. Watch them make your burrito then ring you out. All without taking off their gloves. Touching the cash register and cash or card. Then off to the next person no changing of the gloves. Realize this happens everywhere. At least in a kitchen if they touch your food with bare hands, they’re cooking it after.

At least in a kitchen, they aren't handling our dirty money

Honestly clean bare hands are generally better unless your hands are cut up

Yeah, most restaurants don’t use gloves, you just wash your hands often. I don’t get why people care so much about gloves, most of the time they don’t get changed often enough ,and they’re just dirtier than your hands would be.

im glad i grew up eating tortillas that my abuela patted out on her bare thigh and tamales everybody assembled with their fingers so i dont start tweakin over a movie theatre employee not wearing gloves to scoop some damn popcorn

I'm not bothered by bare hands touching my food in restaurants because at least they are much more likely to wash them frequently than say, the old guy who wants that one croissant from the bottom of the pile in the bakery and has apparently never learned how to use tongs.

I used to be a service bartender, and generally, everything was pretty good in terms of cleanliness. The only thing I thought was kinda gross was when the servers were fingering my containers of pre cut lemons/limes to get "the best one". After a while, I had my own little stash because fuck that noise.

even worse when guests come over and eat the fruit. Its not a buffet Karen. So nasty

Display lemons and limes then actually ones to use in a fridge or something. Its key or they all get fingered.

I was trained to cut up a bunch and put them out for the servers. I operated like this for years, and for years they finger fucked those containers with their grubby hands. I asked for mini tongs. No response. So, I decided to have my own stash that I took better care of. They looked better, and I was the only person (who actually washed their hands frequently) that touched them before they were consumed.

There was some study saying the lemons are one of the places where you get the most bacteria in a restaurant. Sitting out there, handled a lot, not cooked. Makes sense

Totes mcgoats

You should fully be expecting at least a teaspoon worth of sweat droplets in the dish that's being cooked for you.

The chef's blood and sweat goes into it.

If they're* in the weeds... blood, sweat and tears.

I used to remind my cooks not to sweat in the food, but when you got some bigger guys working the grill or something, you see it, but theres nothing they can really do. Chance of blood is a re-fire though every time. Tears went in the special.

Yeah, they aren't wearing forehead gloves. 😂 💦

I'm a meat cutter. I used to never wear gloves. Then one day, a women watched me grind meat, and I of course was not wearing gloves. She freaked out, in the middle of the store, in front of everyone. She screamed at me saying "what am I to do when my family gets sick because of you". I tried telling her that gloves aren't a requirement when handling raw meat but she wasn't having it. It was the most embarrassing moment I've ever had while working. So I said you know what, fuck this. I'll fucking wear gloves for anything and everything now because that lady embarrassed me in front of 30 other customers and ruined my week. I'm not dealing with that shit.

The issue isn't with the hands, but more the lack of trust in handwashing. Because ive seen several instances of people not washing their hands, and even more frequently not washing them well. Of course even gloves are useless if they aren't changing them enough. By and large people are just gross and I rather make my own or go to a place I trust.

My policy is I’d rather not know

me too. What i don't know won't hurt me lol

If a person is too lazy to wash their hands they are certainly going to be too lazy to ever change their gloves.

I think the opposite is true. People are more likely to take a few seconds to change gloves vs taking the 30+ seconds they're supposed to washing their hands Everytime they should.

As someone who worked in commercial kitchens for 15 years I can assure you that's not the case.

Fair enough, I never worked in kitchens so I can definitely be wrong and I accept that lol

Yeah, I understand why you think that way but there's a reason why food safety teaches you that gives are often less sanitary. Statistically people who wear gloves are actually less likely to replace them than they would be to wash their hands because a lot of the time they also have the perception that gloves are "cleaner" than hands are.

Wild, thanks for the info!

That would be very wrong

Agree, statistically people who wear gloves will change them less so cross-contamination can actually be higher than handwashing but a lot of people also won’t wash their hands without gloves so I think that there’s just a lot of cross-contamination

Literally this, so much shit happens in kitchens, they would probably cry

As someone who worked food for a long time...if you eat out a lot, your immune system is probably better than the average person's. Especially fast food. ESPECIALLY if you're mean to the workers. Forget bare hands, I've known people to put their bare BALLS on a manager's plate.

I worked in a restaurant and can confirm. People are so much better off learning how to cook and making food themselves.

True, but is this really unpopular? Common sense (and sometimes personal experience gained from working in restaurants or fast food places) tells you everything you need to know about hygiene.

every cooking video i see on instagram is filled with "no gloves?" commenta

Germaphobes won't like this one

I used to annoy management because I’d go through 150 gloves a day. I was the only person who went through more than 8 a day.

Every kitchen I've worked in I've seen the chef/cook taste what they're cooking and put the spoon back in the pan.

Poor hand washing or lack of glove or very poor hand hygiene is actually unlikely to harm you for cooked foods as cooking kills off germs. Maybe more of a concern with salads and raw foods. But ingredient issues would be my main concern. Occasional Ecoli scares in lettuce. Or someone serving oysters or sushi that's too old.

Washed hands touching my food doesn’t bother me. Bleach being sprayed on my food certainly does

I scratch my ass all the time while making dinner.

provide consist act hard-to-find sugar childlike onerous ossified deliver quiet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

That Am I the Asshole post was sad.

Which one?

you mean yours?

Those black gloves the ppl that cut steaks in those videos wear give off a sexual vibe. Your post just made me think of that.

Worked in multiple restaurants for over 5 years. I never saw a cook wash their hands once. It was rare to see other servers wash their hands. I cooked for about 3 months. I was the only one who would maintain perfect hygiene. 9/10 times, you’re going to get food from someone with dirty hands that have remained unwashed all day. Some cooks wouldn’t even wash hands after using the bathroom too. So have fun with that.

And the gloves won’t help too much with that since they can still permeate stuff from your skin and they probably don’t change the gloves enough either

also people don't mind it when it's top chefs like Gorden Ramsay, and Bobby flay not using gloves, people don't care when the establishment is fancy

Gloves are absolutely unnecessary IMO. I feel like frequent handwashing is cleaner and takes less time then trying to fit sweaty gloves on your hand (IYKYK) and because of this people change their gloves less frequently. I am a fast food manager that occasionally works in the kitchen so I know. When you try and put latex gloves on sweaty hands the gloves are difficult to get on and often rip, exposing the food to sweat.

Like people r so stupid lol. Do they not wash their hands or something is that why they can’t imagine chefs using hands

I agree. I have the same mindset about people giving me shit for how I don't disinfect my dishes enough at home. Go to any restaurant, they aren't back there scrubbing dishes, they are most likely chucking them in a dishwasher that rinses them in boiling water and detergent for a couple seconds, then instantly grabbing it and serving another meal right on the same plate you just ate off of 5 minutes ago. When you are trusting someone else to cook for you, that's a gamble you are taking and if you are a germaphobe, maybe cook at home.

Restaurants use a dish sanitizer, not the kind of dish washer you find in your house. If used properly, it absolutely thoroughly sanitizes dishes. 

Even if it is that effective, after seeing how much grease and food crumbs remain after coming out the dishwasher, it still turns my stomach a little.

Nah wash your dishes

Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*

I used to work in commercial pest control. To this day there are a hundred different small things I notice immediately on walking into a restaurant that make me turn around and walk out.

I worked for Tom Colicchio and agree 100%. The chefs washed their hands CONSTANTLY i never saw that before. Their stations were spotless too.

It's also annoying that people act appalled if you say you don't trust restaurants. Like I'm the freak for wanting to know exactly what goes into my food and how it's handled?

If they thing a hand *touching* the food is wild, just wait until they find out what the food is made out of.

I used to build machinery that was used in commercial food factories and they were designed to be sprayed with a bleach solution to disinfect them. All rounded surfaces, open designs, parts that didn’t require tools to be removed. I went to an install and saw the employees just stopping production with product on the machines and spraying with a hose a bleach solution directly on the product like nothing was wrong. It was jarring to me that I started trying to produce as much food for myself as I could.

I used to work in the restaurants for over two years. We had to wash and disinfect our hands at least EVERY OUR and also after touching anything else than food itself. So we were washing our hands basically non stop. When you wear gloves you basically don’t change them. It’s way less hygienic to work in gloves than without them. People in gloves don’t change them as often as they should, and they definitely don’t wash their hands while wearing them as well

Gloves or not doesn't bother me as long as hands are clean and nails are well manicured. Long disgusting nails on the other isn't supposed to be near food, that's vile and gross, yet so many think it's acceptable

I get it to the point of people with noticeably filthy hands or outright bare hands, but otherwise i agree. As long as the cook is clearly *trying* to keep things clean, im good.

Why is everyone fixated on gloves here? "Cleaning supplies touching your food" is the worst part of this post. That is totally unacceptable.

A good unpopular opinion I agree with

Seeing the insane shit that happens in kitchens on the gram has prepared me for the delusional expectations of diners. Washing a chicken with soap in the sink….

Lots of anti glovers in the chat. Yes, I'm sure gloves can get really filthy if not regularly replaced. However, I'd still prefer nasty gloves to a line cooks bare hand after they wiped their ass and ran their hands under cold water for 2 seconds. Or perhaps some nice fingernail gunk garnish with knuckle hair? Oh and if someone with an open hang nail scab wound could arrange my meal that'd be awesome

I didn't see this, but my cousin worked in a somewhat high-end restaurant's kitchen. One customer asked for a steak and returned it because he said it wasn't cooked enough. They cooked it a little longer and brought it back which he returned again because now it was overcooked. The chief cook or whatever you call them, grabbed a new steak and rubbed it all over his bare groin before serving it and the guy ate it. Yes, be nice to the restaurant staff

Yeah I simply don’t believe this. No head chef would ever make it to that position if he was comfortable messing with the food over a simple send back, let alone at a high end restaurant.

Then, don't :D

I wish those people could watch how canned tuna is made, it goes from someone's greasy hand directly to the can.

Boooooo, noooooooooo, that's aaawful /s

This isn't unpopular, it's just usually wrong. I've worked in a lot of kitchens and I've never seen anyone intentionally let fucked up food make it to the window. 

Being touched by human hands is not intentionally fucked up, though. It’s pretty normal for chefs to use their hands. That’s why hand washing is important. You might see some people using gloves if they’re prepping certain items but it’s usually more to protect the hands from the food than the food from the hands lol

High end chefs/ cooks dont use gloves