May 11,2022
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that proper hand hygiene is one of the most important steps to prevent foodborne illness. Disposable gloves help ensure that individuals are cleaning their hands properly and reducing the risk of foodborne illness. Proper hand washing and wearing Disposable Medical Gloves are the most important things to prevent foodborne illness and reduce the transmission of germs. Unfortunately, while regular hygiene and gloves help reduce risks for primary infection when interacting with raw meat daily, it's still very hard to keep your hands free of bacteria even if there are no open wounds present in those hands!
Over the last ten years, there have been several Big Food exposure cases related to problems with improper glove use. One such case was a recall of over 2 million lbs. of ground beef that Jennie-O Foods had produced due to exposure to Listeria monocytogenes. Listeriosis is a serious and potentially fatal foodborne illness caused by the bacteria Listeria, which can be transmitted through contaminated food. Symptoms may include high fever, muscle aches, stiff neck, diarrhea, and vomiting. In severe cases, people can suffer from meningitis or encephalitis. Listeriosis can take up to three months after exposure for symptoms to appear, and no test is available for the disease outdoors.
It has been estimated that about 20% of all foodborne illnesses are associated with improper glove use. In some cases, it may not be possible to determine what caused your illness due to contamination by pathogens other than those which cause infection (even if gloves have become contaminated). It's still hard to tell whether your illness was solely due to not cleaning properly or contamination by other germs.
There are a few specific steps that you can take to help prevent foodborne illness, even when using gloves and proper hand hygiene practices.
1. Keep your hands clean! Ensure that you wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after every activity that leads to contamination, including working with raw meat or poultry. Even if no open wounds are present on your hands, bacteria can still spread easily if skin-to-skin contact is made. In some cases, contamination may be so extensive that hand washing is impossible. Even if you cannot clean your hands thoroughly with soap and water immediately after an activity that causes foodborne illness, make sure to clean them as soon as possible via a shower before eating or using the same cutting board multiple times while preparing raw meat/poultry products.
2. Keep all individual cutting boards used for processed foods separate from each other (even if they have been "cleaned" previously with a bleach routine or one of many cleaners). Individual cutting boards are needed to allow for each specific food item's proper handling and cooking.
3. Keep raw meats properly refrigerated. For example, consult the package to see when and how long raw poultry should be refrigerated before cooking or consuming it (such as "refrigerate after" on chicken breasts). The USDA has specific guidelines for handling meats, including different storage methods. An FMT gives you actual storage information that should assist with proper usage in preventing illness (they can set up a local branch near your area if they are not already operating in your area). It may even be that you should purchase the proper meat thermometer and store the meats after they have reached their specific safe temperature. A similar chart is available for fish at check out. This can also happen with cooked foods (as before cooking), but some risks are more quickly mitigated here.
4. Wash hands properly, as much (if not all) of a food preparation surface as possible. For example, if you are preparing raw chicken, use the same towel or another surface as little (if not all) as possible and be sure to wash it/them off properly with hot clean water before putting it in contact with cooked foods. Clean both sides of the cutting board are used if applicable because they can continue to harbour bacteria that may cause illness on another site outside your house one day).
5. Casing meats (such as beef roasting meat, turkey, and pork chops) and other products to be cooked in order of your plan for getting them from point A (which includes risk(s) if raw meat is not properly refrigerated that can later cause illness).
6. Make sure all preparations are acceptable as a safety precaution: For example, do everything right after acquiring something with an attached label without reading the small print. These will often contain warnings against handling improper ways, or one may even contain warnings against handling raw foods. Small print can contain some risks, do not ignore them.
7. Food that has been cooked should be consumed promptly and left at room temperature or refrigerated if not immediately being put away. Generally, wait no more than 2-3 hours for food to reach safe temperatures (~40 degrees Fahrenheit according to USDA guidelines).