Eeuuww ...

[Robin Garr]

62 Percent of Restaurant Workers Don't Wash Their Hands After Handling Raw Beef
And seven other disgusting new facts about restaurant food.
—By Dana Liebelson |Mother Jones | Fri Dec. 13, 2013

About 3,000 Americans die every year from foodborne diseases, and more than 120,000 are hospitalized. Recognizing that restaurants and delis are the source of more than half of foodborne illness outbreaks, health specialists for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) went inside the kitchens of hundreds of restaurants across 10 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Iowa, Rhode Island, and Tennessee) to determine which practices could be making people sick. They released their findings this month.

The results aren't pretty. Many workers lack basic knowledge about food safety, don't wash their hands enough, and serve undercooked meat. Employees commonly show up to work when they're vomiting, because they fear losing pay and leaving the restaurant understaffed. ...

Read the full story online ...
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/ ... g-bacteria

In my kitchen you wash your hands before you handle food and after you handle food. Takes all of the guesswork out of it.

I'm addicted to gloves when handling meat and espessially poultry. Even at home!

In my kitchen you wash your hands before you handle food and after you handle food. Takes all of the guesswork out of it.

Ronnie, who ensures that this policy is being followed? I am just curious, because you, as the owner, probably have a different effect on employees when you are on site compared to the manager on staff.

That's kind of the best part. My employees get a full accounting of why food safety is absolutely a zero tolerance issue in my kitchen and any food safety violation is grounds for termination, particularly flagrant disregards like hand washing. Oddly enough, and maybe because of this, it's never been an issue. I think, most of the time, education and stressing the importance seems to work for me.

It's also a tell when I've hired a new employee, if they go straight to the hand drink before starting work, I know I've hired wisely.

You have to make food safety a team philosophy and mind set so that it's automatic rather than something that has to be enforced. It's a challenge, but doable. I'm lucky to have another owner who is there when I am not, so someone is always keeping an eye on things.

there's a Frontline episode coming in the spring related to food supply and bacteria which is going to be hair curling.

this was part 1:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... -bacteria/

this is from 2002: Modern Meat
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/

Frontline - The Trouble with Antibiotics

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... tibiotics/

FRONTLINE investigates the widespread use of antibiotics in food animals and whether it is fueling the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance in people.

I wash my hands before and after, like a surgeon. To the elbows.

I just like to get to know the meat. Massage it some and catch some little bones, tendons, fat, etc. missed in production. There's this tactile thing, like making fresh pasta that makes me happy.

The biggest danger of using gloves, and I see this all the time in the fast food industry, is workers who feel insulated by putting on the gloves and then proceed to touch their faces, counters, etc... while still working with the meat! Sort of defeats the purpose. Hand washing is the key.