My take on take on this is that its completely stupid, and I'm going to tell you all of the reasons why I think its stupid.
(Food poisoning is actually less of a first world problem, and more of a third world problem.)
First of all, is that it gives workers the false sense of cleanliness. While I would hope kitchen personnel will wash their hands after handling raw meat, or possibly contaminated surfaces or body parts, the truth is that I know a lot of people don't. But for those who do, I hope they realize that even though the likelihood of infection is low, its significantly lower if you wash your hands regularly. Once gloves are involved, I'm almost positive that the vast majority of workers will not change gloves and/or wash their hands, not realizing that there are billions of bacteria. And I really want to reiterate that wearing gloves and changing them simply isn't enough; hand washing is still necessary.
(Cholera are an example of rod shaped bacteria.)
With this in mind, brings up point number two; bacteria multiply faster in wet, warm, and dark areas. As anyone who's worn food preparation gloves or "finger condoms" knows, those things do not breathe. The fact of the matter is that bacteria multiply much faster on the hands of someone wearing a glove. The bad thing here is that if you get cut, then the moisture and excess bacteria increase your chances of getting infection. But this isn't about us, right? It's about the customers! Well, it turns out that researchers found that when you wash your hands, twenty percent of the bacteria remain. Since people wash their hands less, and bacteria multiply faster with a gloved hand, its not much of a stretch of math to see that you end up with more than you started. And of course, when you take of those gloves, you're contaminating a lot of new surfaces such as your arms, face and gloves. That can't be good for customers, right?
(A bacterium as seen up close. The singular of bacteria, is bacterium!)
And that brings me to point number three. It actually isn't bad for customers. Here's a startling statistic for you. Each millilitre of saliva contains one million bacteria. It gets better folks. Our best way of protecting against bacterial infection is to ingest bacteria. There are 1 500 000 000 000 000 bacteria living on the surface of your entire digestive tract. In fact, they're called gut bacteria, and most people are first exposed to them during birth, but we accumulate more over time as there are billions and trillions of bacteria and fungus living in the food we eat - that's actually what causes food to go bad. We have a symbiotic relationship with these creepy organisms, but if they somehow made it into our bloodstream, they could kill us. We build up a high tolerance to organisms we ingest. In fact, a lot of food allergies have been linked to c-section births, where babies did not have initial exposure to gut bacteria from their mothers. We build a very strong resistance against those first few bacteria (which likely include E. coli and streptococcus), and when exposure comes late, we grow a tolerance against food instead. Lactose intolerant? You might want to ask if you were a c-section baby.
This brings me roundly to the fourth point. Food poisoning actually is a legitimate concern. Rotting food, or under cooked meat can cause sickness, and that's a risk that we in the hospitality industry should take seriously. There are dangerous bacteria, such as salmonella, which are common sources of food poisoning. However, this just returns us to the fact that being educated about bacterial food poisoning is an important thing. We have to understand that by and large, we coexist with bacteria, and it's the harmful bacteria that we should be afraid of. Returning briefly to the last point, if you wear gloves while handling raw meat, that's a good thing. But imagine if you will, that you've been switching between soggy gloves all day. Back and forth between all different types of food. We already know that washing your hands doesn't kill all the bacteria, and that wearing gloves causes bacteria to multiply faster. So shouldn't this raise concern that perhaps we have some of those serious contaminants - such as salmonella - exposed to our gloves, and are multiplying rapidly?
(A friendly community of bacteria.)
Lastly - and this point is almost completely conjecture - we need to consider that perhaps there's an [unfounded] political or economic motive behind these regulations and laws. Again, they probably aren't good reasons, but it can't hurt to try to figure out what they're thinking. As it turns out, I have a theory about this. A lot of politicians don't have a small business background and additionally, tend to be lawyers or big business moguls prior to getting into politics. As such, they may be trying to create jobs for business and legal professionals by creating more red tape for industries. Anyone with an introductory to contemporary economics can tell you the problem with adding more taxes, and regulations is that a large chunk of money simply disappears from that economic system, and that regulations can keep businesses from being able to compete; thus going bankrupt. The double whammy to this is that the legal and business professionals are depending on industry jobs to stay in business. Less industry, means less jobs all around. Unfortunately for us, a lot if politicians and regulatory boards try to get by with common sense and ideology, rather than science and numbers.
(Just wash your d--n hands folks!)
To close, I think it has to be said that nothing can substitute washing your hands properly, and frequently. Don't be too cool to wash your hands up to several times per hour. Also, scrubbing the wrists, and underneath the fingernails. Be conscious of food, garnishes, or juices that are going bad, and dispose of them. Remember that rigorous labeling can also help keep you and your coworkers conscious of food that is possibly going bad.
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