LTC Regulations: F371 and No Bare Hand Contact with Food, Serving Considerations

Remember, gloves are not magic. Anytime an employee touches the glove with anything that would contaminate his hands, the gloves have just been contaminated. This applies to service as well as production.

Often I see an employee wearing gloves on trayline to pick up food, rolls for example, and place them on the plate. However, the employee is also touching serving utensils, plates, rearranging the plate lowerator, putting trays in a cart, etc. Often, the employee is also opening the oven door, handling dirty potholders, taking food out of the oven, etc. Those gloves are no longer clean for handling food. Whatever contaminates were on the lowerator, carts, oven handles, potholders, etc., are now on the food and the residents will consume the contaminates when they eat the food. This is classic cross-contamination. And in this case, classic is not good!

A safer approach is to use utensils to handle food. (Be sure to use a different utensil for each food. If one food contains contaminates, such as bacteria, using the same utensil will contaminate all the food items.) Use tongs, spatulas, scoops, ladles, or whatever utensil is appropriate for the task.

If utensils are used for handling the food, gloves are not necessary for serving. Gloves create a barrier between hands and food. If the hands are not touching the food, gloves are not necessary. A major disadvantage of using gloves during service is that employees will touch food with contaminated gloves without thinking about it when they would not touch food with their bare hands.

Inappropriate use of gloves is often the cause of contaminating food during service.