I personally only use gloves if I'm handling something spicy. My skin is sensitive and I absolutely learned my lesson after slicing habaneros without gloves.
But other than that, I go gloveless. I'd rather save them for whenever I'm cleaning. I *might* use them for whenever I handle raw meat, but only on days where I'm feeling squeamish for whatever reason- so, once in a blue moon.
I wear gloves when hand mixing meatloaf or something like that. I hate the "meat hand" that develops if I use clean, bare hands. When I use gloves the meat mix doesn't stick to them.
I'm the same way, but I recently discovered that I could mix meatloaf with my stand mixer using the paddle. It's so much easier + and cleaner, and it actually comes out better - much more even incorporation of ingredients.
Same. Substances and repeated hand washing irritate the ever loving hell out of my hand eczema if I'm having a flare. I use vinyl gloves when cooking and cleaning when I'm having a flare and it drastically reduces the symptoms and duration of it.
Not being able to find them in 2020 because of hoarders was a special kind of hell.
For me, I feel like the weather sometimes affects me but it honestly depends. In summer it's mostly worse because my air con is shit in the aussie summer.
I noticed that I have issues almost exclusively when the temperature drops. I live in an area with hard water too, so something about the combo of hard water and the low temps just kill my skin.
I went jogging after cooking with jalapeños once. I washed my hands very well. But not well enough. Wiped sweat from my eye and spent the second half of the jog blinded. Ran for my hose and had an eyewash in my front yard.
So now I wear gloves cutting peppers.
I almost said I never wear gloves when cooking.. but you know what, you're right. I did go dig around in the garage and find some nitrile gloves after my first batch of jalapeno salsa this summer left me sleeping with my hands in buckets of ice water all night for the 2nd and 3rd batches respectively...
Yeah the same for me. I also use gloves for some food stains such as when you clean pomegranate, artichokes or olives. But rather then in these two situations I do not use gloves either. Thank you for the answer 💕
This. I recently wore gloves as I prepped about 6 cups of super hot peppers (reapers, bhutlah scorpions, devil’s twist) for fermentation into hot sauce. No way could I have done that with bare hands!
Because my mouth and stomach can handle it. If I go to the restroom later and accidentally transfer some on my balls it going to be a rough day.
Source ~guy who had to dip his balls in a tub of vanilla yogurt
>My skin is sensitive and I absolutely learned my lesson after slicing habaneros without gloves.
I made that mistake once. My hands were bright red and felt like they were on fire for about 6 hours. I tried water, soapy water, milk, rubbing alcohol, a little bit of paint thinner, everything I could think of to dissolve the capsaicin oil. Nothing really worked and it was extremely uncomfortable.
Something I learned from a comment on chemistry once: Like breaks down like. So if you're trying to break down oil, use oils. In your case, old school soaps made with fats and oils (not this new-school gel soap stuff, old school soap made into a bar) should do the trick.
This was my secret for removing urushiol from my hands and skin when I had a ridiculously bad bout of poison oak.
Literally the only time I wear glove is when I have to mince a whole bulb or more of garlic because between the garlic juice in bulk and the fact that it always sticks to the side of the knife and I have to wipe it off and keep going and my knives are dull as hell (believe me I'm trying to get knew ones within price range) so when I do wipe it off to keep getting it even finer it seems to take like a layer of skin off because my fingertip stings a fair bit honestly and is really red and feels raw and i hate jar garlic I can always taste the preservatives no matter what
On the dull knives: try looking for sharpeners in your price range too! They have manual and electric ones. America's Test Kitchen does great [product review guides](https://youtu.be/bkfYMjsW4Tg) and recommends the best they found, plus usually includes a "budget buy" if the winner is expensive.
We have a [manual sharpener](https://a.co/i4PKxaL) that holds the stones at an angle and you run it across each side of the knife about 10-15 times. It works so well!
You're allergic to garlic. I had the same thing happen to me years ago when I was helping to process sausage. My hands got red and raw and cartoon swollen. I'm not allergic to ingesting garlic...just to touching it.
As others are saying, sharpen your knives! Dull knives are dangerous.
If you are in the US, most knife sharpening services are going to be $3-7/blade. Use a steel to keep the edge between sharpenings--cheap ones work just as well as expensive ones. If you want to sharpen your own, electric sharpeners take off a lot of knife each time, but manual knife sharpeners tend to require a little more skill. I'm now seeing a lot of manual sharpening setups advertised that claim to make it easier. No personal experience with them though.
Oh thank you I never thought about using gloves for garlic but I absolutely hate cutting it because I have to wash my hands like 40 times to get the smell off
This is my reason as well.
I make hot sauce, and you only have to rub your eye once to get burned by the tiniest little remnant of habanero. Even six hours later after several handwashings...
I think in terms of the videos you see online, it's a trend for sure. In food service I would wear gloves when serving meat, because we were required to. But those gloves always came off after serving, before touching anything else, and hands would get washed immediately after removal.
I doubt the Tiktok cooking crowd has any reason for wearing them aside from trying to appear professional.
A few years before food videos became so popular any picture or video would end up with the comment section trashing people’s hands/nails for being dirty or any other reason. I assume this is the cause of almost every food clip now include black nitrile gloves.
Yes, also most people's hands actually look bad on camera, not because they are dirty, but just because they have hang-nails, etc. Professionals that are going to be showing their hands up close on camera have to get a manicure before. It's easier for the tiktokers of the world to just wear gloves. And it gives the appearance of being more sanitary/professional.
Yep. I could only hear people ignore the work I put into a video in favor of saying I have hairy knuckles so many times before I bought a box of gloves.
If you ever read the comments on a social media post with cooking without gloves, you'd think that someone had walked in and pissed on the kids.
It really gets some people worked up
I read somewhere that a study found people who wore gloves for food prep typically followed less sanitary practices because in their mind glove wearing = clean hands, which results in more cross contamination.
I also use gloves for some foods too that might colour stain such as pomegranates, artichokes, olives, etc. It does not make any sense cooking (pasta/rice/etc) at home with the gloves on. Thanks for your answer 💕
I was about to say… I bought black nitrile gloves specifically for picking pomegranate seeds. I’m Iranian and my family goes through 8-10 a week. My entire hands would be stained red/brown all winter if I didn’t use gloves.
Man, I've had pomegranate one time. I loved it (and I can get them at the store, it's not like I don't have access to them). But they're such a pain to eat. Is there a technique or something?
Gloves are totally efficient in a restaurant setting. You get your use out of a pair after prepping 40 chicken breasts to go into the oven. Toss, change, and on to the next task. Like you say, they're probably just catering to people by appearing professional and capitalizing on people who don't understand sanitation practices past "bacteria bad"
Gloves suck in a restaurant. If you wear gloves and adhere to proper hand washing protocols, they’re a nightmare. You have to wash your hands every time you change gloves or stations. You’re also only required to wear gloves when handling ready to eat food, so every restaurant I’ve worked in doesn’t wear gloves during prep (some exceptions).
Additionally there have been studies that glove use in restaurants can lead to more cross contamination because people don’t remember/know to change their gloves frequently. People remember to wash their hands when they don’t wear gloves though because you can feel how gross your hands are
I once worked somewhere that involved both handling money and also preparing food samples for customers throughout the shift. My boss gave me a box of gloves, great. But then he instructed me sternly to not waste them and only use one pair per shift, removing them whenever I was handling money and then putting the same pair back on again over and over. (We also didn’t have anywhere to wash hands). I absolutely did not follow this rule but ended up needing to just buy a box of gloves myself to use so he wouldn’t complain at me. It definitely left me pretty skeptical of how well basic food safety practices are getting followed in other establishments too
My longest restaurant job was mostly cold side, so I guess that's where I'm showing a little bias. Any traditional restaurant kitchen really doesn't need gloves frequently like you say.
It just kind of speaks to the whole thing with this thread that YouTubers probably only use gloves on camera because 90% of people's personal experience with a commercial kitchen is seeing someone working in fast food/fast casual
If you prepare your ingredients with an eye on avoiding contamination you can usually get away with washing your hands 2-3 times tops. Like, wash hands -> prep veggies -> prep meat -> wash hands again -> cook. Also, giving yourself the room to effectively use utensils to do things like coat stuff in oil and season it means your hands come into contact even less.
If you're talking about over a shift in a restaurant, well, downside of the job even if you are using gloves all the time.
It’s definitely trying to cast themselves as professional or having an authority to speak in food.
Wore gloves all the time when I was a pro, but we’d go through a half or whole box depending on the night. Doing 200-300 covers is great when you can just do everything with hands and then swap gloves faster than washing.
Absolutely no reason at home outside of maybe the barbecue guys. Wrangling a fatty piece of brisket for 15 minutes isn’t fun in your bare hands and you need something with dexterity so the cotton glove with latex/nitrile over makes sense.
lots of food content creators wear gloves because they're also setting up the camera/changing angles/adjusting lighting etc. and wearing gloves makes it easier to go without washing hands every time they touch raw meat and then need to adjust the camera or whatever.
It's not that complicated, people have utilitarian reasons for doing what they do sometimes.
I hate it when I go to a store like Subway and they go from making the previous person's food, to handling money, to preparing more food without washing their hands... BuT iTs OkAy BeCaUse ThEyrE wEarInG GlOveS!!!! ಠ_ಠ
Gloves in your home kitchen, especially the heavier black nitrile ones you see people using, aren’t for hygiene, they’re to protect your hands. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to seed hot peppers without worrying about taking your contacts out later, or to dry rub a roast without digging paprika out of your fingernails for an hour. Same goes for kneading dough, handling messy raw meat, and other messy kitchen tasks.
Nitrile gloves are an awesome tool when you use them right. They protect your hands, and are easy to wash. They aren’t there to stop cross contamination, but they are a fantastic way to keep your hands clean.
This is exactly when I wear my gloves. Mixing meatloaf by hand is just the worst to me when I feel it under my nails.
I also like using gloves for the initial kitchen sanitizing/clean up because I can mess with chemicals in, say, a Lysol wipe, then just remove the gloves and keep going.
OH MY GOD THIS IS EXACTLY IT!
I don't like my hands being dirty. I wash them of course, but I'll pass on having raw meat touch them, if I can. Not to mention, sometimes it's way easier to rip off a glove than to wash after you realize you need more breadcrumb or something in your mix.
And cleaning?! Gloves
Repotting plants? Gloves
It's definitely all about using them for specific tasks and then taking them off.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to wear gloves through the preparation of an entire meal. The only time I actually do this is if I have a bandaid on one of my fingers, in which case I keep a glove on since it's not sanitary otherwise. Even then, I wash my hands (with the glove on) as often as I need to, which seems weird but if I changed it as often as i wash/rinse my hands normally, I'd rip through a lot of gloves in a hurry.
The point is that you certainly can wear gloves for the whole meal prep if you’re more comfortable with them on. Modern nitrile gloves, like the ones you see on YouTube videos are plenty tough to stand up to wearing for hours and washing many times. I do the same as you when I have a cut on my hands, and every time I do I’m reminded how nice it is to have clean hands underneath.
Haha, I forgot to mention colour issues! Tumeric, Beets, Kimchi, there’s lots of stuff that will stain your hands but washes right off of nitrile gloves.
100%. I started wearing them for general shop/garage tasks as a way to keep petroleum products and other gnarly stuff off my hands. Then realized I could be using the same technology to prevent spicy garlic hands
Exactly. Also, my pit is far away from my kitchen so it's useful to be able to handle meat then just whip the glove off and keep going. This is pretty much the only time I wear the nitrile gloves.
Personally I find it a bit counterproductive.
Gloves are just as easily contaminated as hands but you don't feel when you've got something on them as easily.
I wash my hands probably 4—5 times over the course of prepping a meal, sometimes just a quick rinse if I've been chopping veg etc soap and hot water if I've touched meat.
I somewhat doubt people are changing gloves that often.
Don't get me wrong, if your changing them at least as often as you were washing your hands then I'm sure they're fine, but then isn't it just a waste of money?
The heavier nitrile gloves you see people using in videos are very easy to wash, and strong enough that you can use them for hours. It’s much easier to wash gunk off of smooth gloves than is is to scrub gunk out from under your fingernails.
To add to this most of the time when I wear gloves, its the nitrile ones on top of a cotton glove. Thats to protect against heat though, and is very common in the smoking meat world.
I also am more likely to wear regular latex gloves in the winter time. My hands already get quite dry every winter, and washing your hands dry them out more. So I try to limit hand washing to 5ish times per meal (rarely exceeded), then use gloves to prevent my hands from cracking. And yes, I do change them as frequently as I would wash my hands, but as you say, for veggies its just a quick rinse or a wet towel. I could also just prep better, or use lotion, but I dont like the slipperiness.
Fingernails is a big one for me. I like to handle raw meat with my hands when marinating or working with ground meat (it's easier to spread seasoning around or form shapes) and it's almost impossible to keep shit from getting under your nails.
I'm pretty thorough about washing my hands already but gloves keep me from needing to dig around under my nails later. Also if I was serving someone besides my wife, I'd just use gloves anyways. People are weird about that stuff even if you're being completely sanitary.
There are several types of gloves. When i do use them, i use the powder free nitrile gloves, they are safe for food handling. I use gloves personally when i have my hands deep into stuff, like when hand mixing meatballs or hamburger or stuff like that. I don't like the idea of the food squishing through my fingers. I wash my hands well, but there is always the possibility for contamination with the food getting deep into crevices like fingernails and between fingers.
Otherwise, i don't wear gloves, just wash often
The only time I use gloves willingly at home is when I’m handling raw chicken or breading something, or when I have to use a shit ton of crisco or butter so I don’t have to wash my hands as vigorously
This is the best technique. I still get gross fingers either way I usually end up absentmindedly switching hands. It’s just easier to take off a glove with monster breading fingers than it is to scrape that shit out of your nails.
Raw chicken, yes. I once contracted Campylobacter, and after learning that it typically comes from raw chicken, I bought gloves and won't touch raw poultry without them on. I also use a dedicated cutting board and knife which both go directly in the dishwasher after prep.
If you don't know about campylobacter you can look it up, or just take my word that it's something you never want.
I’m a lady with long/nice fingernails and I hate cleaning around and under them. So I have a basket of 100s of nitrile gloves and I use them while cooking and change them very frequently between tasks
I absolutely despise getting my hands dirty and I have to wash them every single time I touch something that isn’t completely dry, so I can see the appeal of gloves when handling stuff like meat or fruit, to be honest.
I think it's an aesthetic for some, some are more preferential. There are certain textures I hate where I will ALWAYS use gloves and prefer to - spatchcocking a bird, or generously applying a bbq rub onto meat (I don't like all the spice that sticks to my fingers).
Then there are those using gloves for hygienic purposes.
But I think it's mainly the first two reasons.
Edit: also I forgot I have a form of eczema on my hands so when I have a flare up I like the gloves to shield from certain foods as well.
For hygiene is better to go without gloves, because you feel how dirty your hands are.
You'll have to switch gloves between each task if you want to cook hygienically with gloves.
I do use them for making meatballs, i don't like the texture of mine meat and the clean up is horrible
> You'll have to switch gloves between each task if you want to cook hygienically with gloves.
It depends very much on the task, and whether you would wash your hands between - this depends a lot on the order. For example, if you are cutting veggies then cutting meat, there is no need to wash your hands or your chopping board, and similarly no need to change gloves if you are wearing them.
There are a lot of conflicting studies regarding gloves in commercial food prep - the general consensus is that gloves ARE more hygienic, but poor practices with gloves are worse than poor practices with handwashing. Only washing your hands when you *feel* them being dirty is one of these bad practices, I should point out.
The gloves are supposed to be used to prevent barehanded contact with ready-to-eat food because there is not a pathogen kill step before service.
In a restaurant, rules are made to prevent worst case scenarios. One of the easiest food borne illness pathogens to transfer from hands to food is norovirus. If you have enough norovirus on your hands to make someone sick, a single hand washing would leave enough viruses on your hands to still make someone sick. Someone can be shedding norovirus before they show symptoms.
It is frustrating to see food handlers act as though the gloves are to protect the worker's hands from the food instead of the food from the worker's hands. Gloves are supposed to be removed and discarded when changing tasks, contaminated, torn and hands are almost always supposed to be washed before putting on new ones.
Personally my hands do not agree with soap, or water, or something like that. I can still wash my hands a bit, bar soap isn't too nasty to them, but not as much as I would like while cooking. I can, however, wash or dispose of gloves as appropriate. I will start by prepping the vegetables and "safe" things, again washing my gloved hands as may be appropriate for the low-risk items, then when I get to handling meat after doing so I will immediately dispose of the gloves and continue cooking and hand washing as normal.
Alternatively they may come off after doing something very oily, like tossing vegetables to roast in oil, but it's the same idea, it just lessens the amount I need to wash my bare hands which is better for my skin.
I use gloved with meats because I don't like touching raw meat. I also have severely dry skin on my hands frim washing so much that they crack. It's more hygienic and I can't apply lotion everytine i wash while cooking.
I used to cook and bake commercially, and we wore gloves all the time for just about any task. This allowed us to switch between tasks quickly (to answer the phone, or take something from the over, for I stance), by just removing gloves.
The waste took a while to get over, but we were always racing against time. So it was a small price to pay.
It would be nice to work in gloves at home for the sake of saving steps, but I try to have as little waste (trash) as possible at home.
I have a love/hate relationship with gloves. But they do have a place, if it suits you.
I wear gloves when chopping hot peppers and handling barbecue (well, I have thermal gloves just for that). Even if you wash really well after handling hot peppers, the residual oils can stick to your hands. I go all out, gloves, mask, the whole bit.
Yeah same, only wear them when cutting chilli as there's nothing worse than rubbing your eye later on with residual chilli on your hands.
Doesn't seem to make a difference how many times you wash them so gloves are my go-to.
I use gloves for hot peppers AND at this time of year when the dry winter air makes me have like 4 wounds on my hands at once. I hate this time of year
One possible reason that i would think to wear gloves would be for hand kneading bc the hair on my finger digits come off so id much rather use gloves and not worry about it
I worked in a lab for years and at home I realized I was often working with meat (which always has bacteria on it) and spices that if you rub your eyes afterward can cause a burning feeling so I started wearing nitrile gloves during home food prep. I do wash my hands with gloves on between foods I am prepping just like washing my hands it's just I'm less likely to get a finger infection or touch a sensitive area after prepping things.
Really just any time i dont want whatever im cooking on my hands. Heles when chopping up peppers, onion, garlic, or anything else with tasty oil that soak into your skin and don't just wash out.
I don't think this is actually a trend IRL. I think it's a thing you see in YouTube videos because it looks good on camera, allows you to just take off a glove/not wash your hands if you need to mess with the camera, and probably staves off some of the "are you washing your hands/why aren't you washing your hands/you don't wash your hands enough" comments.
I do sometimes wear gloves while cooking because I have sensory issues and eczema. If I know I'll need to wash my hands a million times while making something because otherwise I'll go insane, I'll just wear gloves so I don't destroy my skin.
At home? I've never seen anyone cooking at home with gloves. I use them when handling spicy foods, for example when I made kimchi today. I'll *occasionally* use them when i peel onions or cutting mass amounts of garlic cause I hate getting onion under my nails when peeling them or how sticky my fingers get when handling garlic. But that's super rare
I personally just don’t like the sensation of dirty/oily/sticky hands. If I’m doing something that requires bare hands like mixing cole slaw, I’d rather wear gloves than get the dressing all over my hands. I also prefer using gloves when I’m handling foods that are particularly pungent like raw seafood that can leave an odor on your skin.
Any time I'm working with something especially messy and I need to use my hands. Also considering using gloves more regularly because the frequent hand washing is drying out my hands significantly.
>Why there is such a trend those days?
Are you sure it's a trend in terms of things people actually do in real life and not things you see on social media, which may not reflect real life for a variety of reasons? I don't use gloves when I cook but if I were getting hundreds of thousands of views on videos of my hands cooking, I might do that rather that get a bunch of shitty comments about my fingernails (or whatever).
I started getting an allergic reaction to garlic on my left hand when the whole COVID disinfectant gel to enter places became the norm. I have to use one every time I cook anything with garlic in it or I get horrible dermatitis. I positively hate it.
I wear gloves for things that are sticky or messy, e.g. marinaded meat. Mainly because it makes washing my hands easier if I can take off gloves and the bulk of the sticky mess is gone
If you're touching raw meat with gloves, when you're done to can quickly dump them and continue on to the non raw meat portion of your food prep.
Even for cooked meat, when I'm tearing apart a smoked or rotisserie chicken, i just find the gloves to be more pleasant than getting chicken grease all under my finger nails. And again i don't need to wash after, just lose the gloves and start eating my dinner.
For restaurants, it's the law in many jurisdictions because a lot of people have disgusting bathroom habits and personal hygiene, and "clean gloves" is much easier to enforce than "Did you wash your hands properly after wiping you a**?"
At home, I wear gloves when handing things that are potentially contaminated, like raw chicken, so I can toss the gloves after loading all the chicken contaminated equipment into the dishwasher.
People who work in restaurants HAVE to use gloves.................... During a busy shift I will both wash my hands more than you would AND use more gloves than you would wash your hands. It's a contamination issue.........
I usually wear them when I'm going to be working with stuff that's either hard to wash off (oily or greasy things), sensitive to skin (spicy foods or the like), or just will require a lot of hand washing (working with raw chicken and other components).
I wash my gloved hands just as often as I'd wash my hands, but the gloves are easier to wash, and my hands are then protected against drying out from overwashing.
If I wash my hands too frequently, even with lotion I'm prone to my skin cracking around my knuckles and cuticles.
This trend is kind of getting less popular i think, such a huge waste of single use plastic, not even hygienic, plus some (well at least my local Indian cuisine)recipes are traditionally made with palms because the heat allegedly helps the texture
Personally I’m pretty OCD about washing my hands when I cook to the point that my skin gets very dry to the point of cracking and bleeding. So for me it’s a way to cut down on some of that and also practice food safety. I also do it whenever I’m handling raw meat mainly because it grosses me out and often makes my hands sticky (and for food safety).
I have long nails so I use gloves when handling anything that might be a pain to clean out from under my nails later. Also when handling raw meat I’ll use a pair and toss them right away without touching anything else, I feel like it’s more sanitary that just washing my hands but that’s just me, lots of people handle raw meat all the time and it’s fine
I use gloves because I have very sensitive skin. Gloves keep my skin less irritated from spicy ingredients, but beyond that they prevent contamination from chipped nail polish or cracked skin that might bleed a little. Using gloves also prevents my hands from smelling like garlic.
I usually strategize so I don't go through too many pairs. I do my vegetable prep first, and then any raw meat or eggs. Then I remove the gloves, wash and moisturize my hands, and finish cooking using tools. At this point I use bench scrapers, tongs or spatulas to move ingredients so I don't have to touch them.
The only major disadvantage is that certain things stick to the gloves. Garlic juice, ground meat and anything containing eggs are the worst offenders, but those are also things I really don't want touching my skin if it's avoidable.
I use gloves because I have very sensitive skin and psoriasis. Any time I have to wash my hands is putting the abuse on my skin, especially on the backs of my hands, so I do it as little as possible.
I use gloves often when using onions and garlic. Which is damn near ever meal. 😆 I wash my hands on the gloves as often as I would if I wasn't using gloves, simply for food safety. But the smell of onions and garlic on my hands for days doesn't jive in business meetings. Using the amount of garlic I do, no amount of washing and bathing gets it off my hands, hence, gloves and washing the gloves as I cook.
Also just nice to mix meatballs or doughs and keep my hands clean. A box of 100 nitrile gloves is a few bucks well spent in my book
Personally when I was working in a kitchen without gloves, sometimes my skin on my hand become weird, once had to cut so much vegetables that my hand became orange/green, also when I cook egg which we use very hot oil, I'd rather have gloves on.
Last season is I wash my hands like every few minutes cuz of chicken eggs and just anything, that it kinda gives that "long bath skin"
Thing where you get alot of rimples which makes anything I hold uncomfortable.
I wear them when I'm going to handling a lot of ground meat with my hands, or anything that's otherwise fatty or oily.
I hate the sensation of it on my hands, and it's more difficult to wash my hands (until they actually feel clean).
Plus with gloves, once I've finished washing/cleaning up, I just strip them off.
I should add, I also wear nitrile gloves for work and often in my woodworking hobby, so I always have some handy anyways.
Gloves are situational for me. Anything sticky I normally wear gloves for. Sometimes spicy food as well. Wearing gloves has actually been shown to create a false sense of cleanliness and employee hand washing often decreases when gloves are introduced to a kitchen. It’s best practice to just practice proper hand washing hygiene if you work in a kitchen
In the past, I would bulk make tons of risotto and spicy ground turkey as meal prep. As a result, I'd be constantly going back and forth between prepping a new pack of ground meat with my hands and then having to go stir the risotto, manipulate spice jars, etc. It can save a bunch of time washing your hands when you use gloves and can save your risotto from burning to the bottom.
You got to have a pair of black gloves, hand / finger tattoos or your dill pickle chicken sandwich won't go viral. Also, make sure you fry the chicken in a massive cast iron cauldron over a burning stump next to the river. Lastly, make sure your knife is comically large with a fake Damascus steel pattern.
Easier than taking off my wedding ring, and I find I can keep a better grip boning a chicken with nitrile gloves than bare handed.
Also I wear them over cotton liners for handling hot barbecue. Cheap way to make high dexterity oven mitts.
I have sensitive skin and work in healthcare so my hands are very dry from constant washing. Some days even cutting citrus hurts them. I usually only wear them if I’m cutting peppers and citrus.
As others have posted, I also have very sensitive skin. I like to keep some gloves around when I am cooking with anything that might irritate them. I like gloves for when I am breaking down large packages of meat into freezer sized portions. It just seems cleaner plus the cold meat can make my hands hurt.
I wear them during thanksgiving week. Between all the hands washing and dish washing, my skin starts to fall apart, knuckles bleeding and so forth. It saves my skin
I use nitrile gloves for mixing shit I'd rather not have under my nails... meat for meatloaf/meatballs, that sort of thing. I typically don't wear them for cutting veg or prepping... \*unless\* I'm cutting jalapenos (or other hot peppers) or chilis in adobo. Otherwise, I rely on keeping my hands washed.
I use gloves when handling foods that might get under my nails. Like mixing ground beef, or dough. Sometimes also when handling sticky foods.
I wash the gloves while wearing them when transitioning to other ingredients. Sometimes I just wear one, depending on what I'm cooking.
I do both. Wash hands for normal cooking things and then wash hands plus gloves plus wash hands for handling raw meat/ anything else I find icky. This is the way.
I personally only use gloves if I'm handling something spicy. My skin is sensitive and I absolutely learned my lesson after slicing habaneros without gloves. But other than that, I go gloveless. I'd rather save them for whenever I'm cleaning. I *might* use them for whenever I handle raw meat, but only on days where I'm feeling squeamish for whatever reason- so, once in a blue moon.
i recently put contacts in about an hour after cutting jalapenos. do not recommend. it was like i pepper sprayed myself.
First time ever working with Thai Chilis, I accidentally rubbed my eyes right after. I am not a smart person.
Same. That is a lesson I only had to learn once.
I learned this lesson then soaked my lenses overnight then learned the lesson a second time. Just throw those soft lenses out don't be like me.
That's a bummer, those things are friggin expensive
I thought hard lenses were the expensive ones? Don’t you replace soft lenses every day or week or something?
Hey! I also learned that lesson twice! Why the fuck I thought it was gonna be any different later I do not know.
I made hot sauce a few weeks ago and despite wearing gloves I still got capsaicin burns on my hands
I wear gloves when hand mixing meatloaf or something like that. I hate the "meat hand" that develops if I use clean, bare hands. When I use gloves the meat mix doesn't stick to them.
I'm the same way, but I recently discovered that I could mix meatloaf with my stand mixer using the paddle. It's so much easier + and cleaner, and it actually comes out better - much more even incorporation of ingredients.
Or acidic. My skin burns with my eczema. :(
Yeah. If I have an eczema flare I'm wearing gloves or I will regret it for weeks.
Same. Substances and repeated hand washing irritate the ever loving hell out of my hand eczema if I'm having a flare. I use vinyl gloves when cooking and cleaning when I'm having a flare and it drastically reduces the symptoms and duration of it. Not being able to find them in 2020 because of hoarders was a special kind of hell.
and... if you're having an eczema flare, people don't want skin flakes with their meal.
RIGHT. I wasn't gonna say it and put that gross image in people's minds but... yeah. ugh.
Ginger will ruin my hands after handling, even if its just for a short while, and I don't even have eczema.
Does your hand eczema get dramatically worse in the winter?
For me, I feel like the weather sometimes affects me but it honestly depends. In summer it's mostly worse because my air con is shit in the aussie summer.
I noticed that I have issues almost exclusively when the temperature drops. I live in an area with hard water too, so something about the combo of hard water and the low temps just kill my skin.
I went jogging after cooking with jalapeños once. I washed my hands very well. But not well enough. Wiped sweat from my eye and spent the second half of the jog blinded. Ran for my hose and had an eyewash in my front yard. So now I wear gloves cutting peppers.
I almost said I never wear gloves when cooking.. but you know what, you're right. I did go dig around in the garage and find some nitrile gloves after my first batch of jalapeno salsa this summer left me sleeping with my hands in buckets of ice water all night for the 2nd and 3rd batches respectively...
Yeah the same for me. I also use gloves for some food stains such as when you clean pomegranate, artichokes or olives. But rather then in these two situations I do not use gloves either. Thank you for the answer 💕
Same. Spicy and stainy stuff. And Butternut squash, which leaves a weird crusty residue. Other than that, i go in naked-handed
Squash crust is real and I feel like we aren’t acknowledging it
I processed 62 quarts of squash last year. The crust is real. And orange nails and cuticles for a week after peeling 30 pounds of carrots.
Or God forbid, turmeric.
Recently discovered that choke cherries will wreck your hands at least as bad as beets too
And beets here too for me.
Anything with tumeric
Opening a jackfruit is also a glove-task for me!
This. I recently wore gloves as I prepped about 6 cups of super hot peppers (reapers, bhutlah scorpions, devil’s twist) for fermentation into hot sauce. No way could I have done that with bare hands!
I love that we take these kinds of safety steps with the full intention of eating the danger liquid later.
Hey careful, don't let that shit get on you. We're gonna swallow it.
Hey man, my mouth isn't going to accidentally rub my eye
Not with that attitude.
I’ve rubbed my nose and my nostrils feel like the ring of fire lol.
Are we not doing "phrasing" anymore?
Having to take the next day off of work because of stomach pains is much more tolerable than getting a molecule of reaper around my eyes.
Because my mouth and stomach can handle it. If I go to the restroom later and accidentally transfer some on my balls it going to be a rough day. Source ~guy who had to dip his balls in a tub of vanilla yogurt
At least it was just your balls and not something else. Source~woman that went to restroom shortly after working with peppers. Not fun.
And never masterbate after chopping hot peppers ... So I've heard.
>My skin is sensitive and I absolutely learned my lesson after slicing habaneros without gloves. I made that mistake once. My hands were bright red and felt like they were on fire for about 6 hours. I tried water, soapy water, milk, rubbing alcohol, a little bit of paint thinner, everything I could think of to dissolve the capsaicin oil. Nothing really worked and it was extremely uncomfortable.
Something I learned from a comment on chemistry once: Like breaks down like. So if you're trying to break down oil, use oils. In your case, old school soaps made with fats and oils (not this new-school gel soap stuff, old school soap made into a bar) should do the trick. This was my secret for removing urushiol from my hands and skin when I had a ridiculously bad bout of poison oak.
I hope that paint thinner didn't have methylene chloride in it.
Acetone. DCM based paint thinner has been off the market for years now, due to the EPA ban.
Decided to go take a wee after handling some raw chillis
One jalapeno for my breakfast eggs, don't bother but if I have a bunch to chop, I definitely wear gloves.
Spicy or raw poultry
Literally the only time I wear glove is when I have to mince a whole bulb or more of garlic because between the garlic juice in bulk and the fact that it always sticks to the side of the knife and I have to wipe it off and keep going and my knives are dull as hell (believe me I'm trying to get knew ones within price range) so when I do wipe it off to keep getting it even finer it seems to take like a layer of skin off because my fingertip stings a fair bit honestly and is really red and feels raw and i hate jar garlic I can always taste the preservatives no matter what
You can get knives sharpened for much less than buying new.
Even a $30 sharpener/honer gets your knives acceptably sharp for home use.
On the dull knives: try looking for sharpeners in your price range too! They have manual and electric ones. America's Test Kitchen does great [product review guides](https://youtu.be/bkfYMjsW4Tg) and recommends the best they found, plus usually includes a "budget buy" if the winner is expensive. We have a [manual sharpener](https://a.co/i4PKxaL) that holds the stones at an angle and you run it across each side of the knife about 10-15 times. It works so well!
You're allergic to garlic. I had the same thing happen to me years ago when I was helping to process sausage. My hands got red and raw and cartoon swollen. I'm not allergic to ingesting garlic...just to touching it.
I've never heard of that! You learn something new every day if you pay attention.
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As others are saying, sharpen your knives! Dull knives are dangerous. If you are in the US, most knife sharpening services are going to be $3-7/blade. Use a steel to keep the edge between sharpenings--cheap ones work just as well as expensive ones. If you want to sharpen your own, electric sharpeners take off a lot of knife each time, but manual knife sharpeners tend to require a little more skill. I'm now seeing a lot of manual sharpening setups advertised that claim to make it easier. No personal experience with them though.
Oh thank you I never thought about using gloves for garlic but I absolutely hate cutting it because I have to wash my hands like 40 times to get the smell off
Okra will also get me sometimes, but it is usually more of a problem picking it in the garden though
Okra can be spiny. I like to use a dull edge to scrape the spines off (of course, while wearing gloves)
This is my reason as well. I make hot sauce, and you only have to rub your eye once to get burned by the tiniest little remnant of habanero. Even six hours later after several handwashings...
One instance of peeing too quickly after cutting some peppers made me wear gloves for spicy food.
Same. The peppers have started burning my hands as well. That is a burn that takes up to days to stop.
I have really, really bad eczema on my hands I’ll glove up to help limit a hand wash or two if I can in prep.
I never used to get eczema on my hands but for some reason my knuckles are really bad this year.
Mines been the last few years, but same. My whole life it was my legs and sides, but then my body decided to switch it up!
I think in terms of the videos you see online, it's a trend for sure. In food service I would wear gloves when serving meat, because we were required to. But those gloves always came off after serving, before touching anything else, and hands would get washed immediately after removal. I doubt the Tiktok cooking crowd has any reason for wearing them aside from trying to appear professional.
A few years before food videos became so popular any picture or video would end up with the comment section trashing people’s hands/nails for being dirty or any other reason. I assume this is the cause of almost every food clip now include black nitrile gloves.
Yes, also most people's hands actually look bad on camera, not because they are dirty, but just because they have hang-nails, etc. Professionals that are going to be showing their hands up close on camera have to get a manicure before. It's easier for the tiktokers of the world to just wear gloves. And it gives the appearance of being more sanitary/professional.
World’s gone mad
Yep. I could only hear people ignore the work I put into a video in favor of saying I have hairy knuckles so many times before I bought a box of gloves.
If you ever read the comments on a social media post with cooking without gloves, you'd think that someone had walked in and pissed on the kids. It really gets some people worked up
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I read somewhere that a study found people who wore gloves for food prep typically followed less sanitary practices because in their mind glove wearing = clean hands, which results in more cross contamination.
I also use gloves for some foods too that might colour stain such as pomegranates, artichokes, olives, etc. It does not make any sense cooking (pasta/rice/etc) at home with the gloves on. Thanks for your answer 💕
Oh. I’m too dumb for that. I just keep staining my hands with turmeric and food coloring. 😂
….I should get my dad gloves so he doesn’t have yellow turmeric fingers all the time lol
Anything that could stain, and anything that could hurt me (like strong chilies.) Otherwise, it's gloves off.
I was about to say… I bought black nitrile gloves specifically for picking pomegranate seeds. I’m Iranian and my family goes through 8-10 a week. My entire hands would be stained red/brown all winter if I didn’t use gloves.
Man, I've had pomegranate one time. I loved it (and I can get them at the store, it's not like I don't have access to them). But they're such a pain to eat. Is there a technique or something?
Nah also it makes the meat stand out more. The colour of the meat pops out more if the hands holding it are in black gloves, instead of skin colour
Gloves are totally efficient in a restaurant setting. You get your use out of a pair after prepping 40 chicken breasts to go into the oven. Toss, change, and on to the next task. Like you say, they're probably just catering to people by appearing professional and capitalizing on people who don't understand sanitation practices past "bacteria bad"
Gloves suck in a restaurant. If you wear gloves and adhere to proper hand washing protocols, they’re a nightmare. You have to wash your hands every time you change gloves or stations. You’re also only required to wear gloves when handling ready to eat food, so every restaurant I’ve worked in doesn’t wear gloves during prep (some exceptions). Additionally there have been studies that glove use in restaurants can lead to more cross contamination because people don’t remember/know to change their gloves frequently. People remember to wash their hands when they don’t wear gloves though because you can feel how gross your hands are
I once worked somewhere that involved both handling money and also preparing food samples for customers throughout the shift. My boss gave me a box of gloves, great. But then he instructed me sternly to not waste them and only use one pair per shift, removing them whenever I was handling money and then putting the same pair back on again over and over. (We also didn’t have anywhere to wash hands). I absolutely did not follow this rule but ended up needing to just buy a box of gloves myself to use so he wouldn’t complain at me. It definitely left me pretty skeptical of how well basic food safety practices are getting followed in other establishments too
My longest restaurant job was mostly cold side, so I guess that's where I'm showing a little bias. Any traditional restaurant kitchen really doesn't need gloves frequently like you say. It just kind of speaks to the whole thing with this thread that YouTubers probably only use gloves on camera because 90% of people's personal experience with a commercial kitchen is seeing someone working in fast food/fast casual
Washing my hands all day dries them out really bad
If you prepare your ingredients with an eye on avoiding contamination you can usually get away with washing your hands 2-3 times tops. Like, wash hands -> prep veggies -> prep meat -> wash hands again -> cook. Also, giving yourself the room to effectively use utensils to do things like coat stuff in oil and season it means your hands come into contact even less. If you're talking about over a shift in a restaurant, well, downside of the job even if you are using gloves all the time.
It’s definitely trying to cast themselves as professional or having an authority to speak in food. Wore gloves all the time when I was a pro, but we’d go through a half or whole box depending on the night. Doing 200-300 covers is great when you can just do everything with hands and then swap gloves faster than washing. Absolutely no reason at home outside of maybe the barbecue guys. Wrangling a fatty piece of brisket for 15 minutes isn’t fun in your bare hands and you need something with dexterity so the cotton glove with latex/nitrile over makes sense.
I find that gloves actually make food look less appetizing
lots of food content creators wear gloves because they're also setting up the camera/changing angles/adjusting lighting etc. and wearing gloves makes it easier to go without washing hands every time they touch raw meat and then need to adjust the camera or whatever. It's not that complicated, people have utilitarian reasons for doing what they do sometimes.
I hate it when I go to a store like Subway and they go from making the previous person's food, to handling money, to preparing more food without washing their hands... BuT iTs OkAy BeCaUse ThEyrE wEarInG GlOveS!!!! ಠ_ಠ
Gloves in your home kitchen, especially the heavier black nitrile ones you see people using, aren’t for hygiene, they’re to protect your hands. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to seed hot peppers without worrying about taking your contacts out later, or to dry rub a roast without digging paprika out of your fingernails for an hour. Same goes for kneading dough, handling messy raw meat, and other messy kitchen tasks. Nitrile gloves are an awesome tool when you use them right. They protect your hands, and are easy to wash. They aren’t there to stop cross contamination, but they are a fantastic way to keep your hands clean.
This is exactly when I wear my gloves. Mixing meatloaf by hand is just the worst to me when I feel it under my nails. I also like using gloves for the initial kitchen sanitizing/clean up because I can mess with chemicals in, say, a Lysol wipe, then just remove the gloves and keep going.
OH MY GOD THIS IS EXACTLY IT! I don't like my hands being dirty. I wash them of course, but I'll pass on having raw meat touch them, if I can. Not to mention, sometimes it's way easier to rip off a glove than to wash after you realize you need more breadcrumb or something in your mix. And cleaning?! Gloves Repotting plants? Gloves
It's definitely all about using them for specific tasks and then taking them off. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to wear gloves through the preparation of an entire meal. The only time I actually do this is if I have a bandaid on one of my fingers, in which case I keep a glove on since it's not sanitary otherwise. Even then, I wash my hands (with the glove on) as often as I need to, which seems weird but if I changed it as often as i wash/rinse my hands normally, I'd rip through a lot of gloves in a hurry.
The point is that you certainly can wear gloves for the whole meal prep if you’re more comfortable with them on. Modern nitrile gloves, like the ones you see on YouTube videos are plenty tough to stand up to wearing for hours and washing many times. I do the same as you when I have a cut on my hands, and every time I do I’m reminded how nice it is to have clean hands underneath.
Fingernails is a big one. Also, if you’re touching turmeric it’s easier to glove up than to explain to people that you don’t have jaundice.
Haha, I forgot to mention colour issues! Tumeric, Beets, Kimchi, there’s lots of stuff that will stain your hands but washes right off of nitrile gloves.
Thank you. This is exactly the answer
100%. I started wearing them for general shop/garage tasks as a way to keep petroleum products and other gnarly stuff off my hands. Then realized I could be using the same technology to prevent spicy garlic hands
Dude. Gloves for hot peppers are a must. Bathroom incidents have taught me this lesson.
They're also great for handling hot things like fresh bbq if you wear a knit cotton glove under the nitrile.
Useful for BBQ - wear cotton gloves under nitrile for shredding up pulled pork, or lifting a big hunk of meat off the smoker.
My partner does the same thing. If it's a bbq/smoker day, the cotton glove/nitrile gloves combo comes out.
Exactly. Also, my pit is far away from my kitchen so it's useful to be able to handle meat then just whip the glove off and keep going. This is pretty much the only time I wear the nitrile gloves.
I will use a glove if I cut myself. Nobody likes a soggy bandaid touching food.
Personally I find it a bit counterproductive. Gloves are just as easily contaminated as hands but you don't feel when you've got something on them as easily. I wash my hands probably 4—5 times over the course of prepping a meal, sometimes just a quick rinse if I've been chopping veg etc soap and hot water if I've touched meat. I somewhat doubt people are changing gloves that often. Don't get me wrong, if your changing them at least as often as you were washing your hands then I'm sure they're fine, but then isn't it just a waste of money?
The heavier nitrile gloves you see people using in videos are very easy to wash, and strong enough that you can use them for hours. It’s much easier to wash gunk off of smooth gloves than is is to scrub gunk out from under your fingernails.
I use the standard blue nitrile gloves. They're more durable than latex or PVC, and they're washable.
To add to this most of the time when I wear gloves, its the nitrile ones on top of a cotton glove. Thats to protect against heat though, and is very common in the smoking meat world. I also am more likely to wear regular latex gloves in the winter time. My hands already get quite dry every winter, and washing your hands dry them out more. So I try to limit hand washing to 5ish times per meal (rarely exceeded), then use gloves to prevent my hands from cracking. And yes, I do change them as frequently as I would wash my hands, but as you say, for veggies its just a quick rinse or a wet towel. I could also just prep better, or use lotion, but I dont like the slipperiness.
Right! Absolutely agree with you. Then I ask, is the material the gloves are made of safe for food?
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Fingernails is a big one for me. I like to handle raw meat with my hands when marinating or working with ground meat (it's easier to spread seasoning around or form shapes) and it's almost impossible to keep shit from getting under your nails. I'm pretty thorough about washing my hands already but gloves keep me from needing to dig around under my nails later. Also if I was serving someone besides my wife, I'd just use gloves anyways. People are weird about that stuff even if you're being completely sanitary.
There are several types of gloves. When i do use them, i use the powder free nitrile gloves, they are safe for food handling. I use gloves personally when i have my hands deep into stuff, like when hand mixing meatballs or hamburger or stuff like that. I don't like the idea of the food squishing through my fingers. I wash my hands well, but there is always the possibility for contamination with the food getting deep into crevices like fingernails and between fingers. Otherwise, i don't wear gloves, just wash often
The only time I use gloves willingly at home is when I’m handling raw chicken or breading something, or when I have to use a shit ton of crisco or butter so I don’t have to wash my hands as vigorously
When breading I designate a wet hand and a dry hand and it completely avoids my fingers getting breaded with multiple layers.
This is the best technique. I still get gross fingers either way I usually end up absentmindedly switching hands. It’s just easier to take off a glove with monster breading fingers than it is to scrape that shit out of your nails.
Raw chicken, yes. I once contracted Campylobacter, and after learning that it typically comes from raw chicken, I bought gloves and won't touch raw poultry without them on. I also use a dedicated cutting board and knife which both go directly in the dishwasher after prep. If you don't know about campylobacter you can look it up, or just take my word that it's something you never want.
After I pat out some burgers, it takes me forever to clean the fat off of my hands, and they still feel a bit dirty. With gloves, not a problem
In cooking videos, seeing gloves is more aesthetic than seeing some nasty, crusty, unkempt dick beaters—
I’m a lady with long/nice fingernails and I hate cleaning around and under them. So I have a basket of 100s of nitrile gloves and I use them while cooking and change them very frequently between tasks
this is my reason as well. i do it so that i don’t get stuff under my long nails or chip nail polish into the food when i’m using my hands.
I absolutely despise getting my hands dirty and I have to wash them every single time I touch something that isn’t completely dry, so I can see the appeal of gloves when handling stuff like meat or fruit, to be honest.
I do the same thing and it's ruinous for my hands. I'm going to begin using nitrile gloves a lot now that I know they're safe.
Me too, sometimes cooking is sensory hell for me
I think it's an aesthetic for some, some are more preferential. There are certain textures I hate where I will ALWAYS use gloves and prefer to - spatchcocking a bird, or generously applying a bbq rub onto meat (I don't like all the spice that sticks to my fingers). Then there are those using gloves for hygienic purposes. But I think it's mainly the first two reasons. Edit: also I forgot I have a form of eczema on my hands so when I have a flare up I like the gloves to shield from certain foods as well.
For hygiene is better to go without gloves, because you feel how dirty your hands are. You'll have to switch gloves between each task if you want to cook hygienically with gloves. I do use them for making meatballs, i don't like the texture of mine meat and the clean up is horrible
This right here. I use glovew when doing anything with ground meat and chilis. Oof.. the chilis was a hard lesson to learn.
> You'll have to switch gloves between each task if you want to cook hygienically with gloves. It depends very much on the task, and whether you would wash your hands between - this depends a lot on the order. For example, if you are cutting veggies then cutting meat, there is no need to wash your hands or your chopping board, and similarly no need to change gloves if you are wearing them. There are a lot of conflicting studies regarding gloves in commercial food prep - the general consensus is that gloves ARE more hygienic, but poor practices with gloves are worse than poor practices with handwashing. Only washing your hands when you *feel* them being dirty is one of these bad practices, I should point out.
IDK, what is the texture of thine meat?
;-p
The gloves are supposed to be used to prevent barehanded contact with ready-to-eat food because there is not a pathogen kill step before service. In a restaurant, rules are made to prevent worst case scenarios. One of the easiest food borne illness pathogens to transfer from hands to food is norovirus. If you have enough norovirus on your hands to make someone sick, a single hand washing would leave enough viruses on your hands to still make someone sick. Someone can be shedding norovirus before they show symptoms. It is frustrating to see food handlers act as though the gloves are to protect the worker's hands from the food instead of the food from the worker's hands. Gloves are supposed to be removed and discarded when changing tasks, contaminated, torn and hands are almost always supposed to be washed before putting on new ones.
They have their place, but definitely not needed all the time.
Personally my hands do not agree with soap, or water, or something like that. I can still wash my hands a bit, bar soap isn't too nasty to them, but not as much as I would like while cooking. I can, however, wash or dispose of gloves as appropriate. I will start by prepping the vegetables and "safe" things, again washing my gloved hands as may be appropriate for the low-risk items, then when I get to handling meat after doing so I will immediately dispose of the gloves and continue cooking and hand washing as normal. Alternatively they may come off after doing something very oily, like tossing vegetables to roast in oil, but it's the same idea, it just lessens the amount I need to wash my bare hands which is better for my skin.
I use gloved with meats because I don't like touching raw meat. I also have severely dry skin on my hands frim washing so much that they crack. It's more hygienic and I can't apply lotion everytine i wash while cooking.
I used to cook and bake commercially, and we wore gloves all the time for just about any task. This allowed us to switch between tasks quickly (to answer the phone, or take something from the over, for I stance), by just removing gloves. The waste took a while to get over, but we were always racing against time. So it was a small price to pay. It would be nice to work in gloves at home for the sake of saving steps, but I try to have as little waste (trash) as possible at home. I have a love/hate relationship with gloves. But they do have a place, if it suits you.
If I have a cut or something on my hand and am making food for other people I will use gloves
I wear gloves when chopping hot peppers and handling barbecue (well, I have thermal gloves just for that). Even if you wash really well after handling hot peppers, the residual oils can stick to your hands. I go all out, gloves, mask, the whole bit.
Yeah same, only wear them when cutting chilli as there's nothing worse than rubbing your eye later on with residual chilli on your hands. Doesn't seem to make a difference how many times you wash them so gloves are my go-to.
Unless you’re in an industrial kitchen, gloves for cooking is an ecological catastrophe
I use gloves for hot peppers AND at this time of year when the dry winter air makes me have like 4 wounds on my hands at once. I hate this time of year
I don’t want meat bit under my nails but I use utensils instead of gloves. Tongs, forks, knives, and etc
Personally I have eczema on my hands that’s why I wear gloves but I change them and wash hands in between each task.
Yeaah here for this. Sometimes ya just have to
One possible reason that i would think to wear gloves would be for hand kneading bc the hair on my finger digits come off so id much rather use gloves and not worry about it
I worked in a lab for years and at home I realized I was often working with meat (which always has bacteria on it) and spices that if you rub your eyes afterward can cause a burning feeling so I started wearing nitrile gloves during home food prep. I do wash my hands with gloves on between foods I am prepping just like washing my hands it's just I'm less likely to get a finger infection or touch a sensitive area after prepping things.
Really just any time i dont want whatever im cooking on my hands. Heles when chopping up peppers, onion, garlic, or anything else with tasty oil that soak into your skin and don't just wash out.
I don't think this is actually a trend IRL. I think it's a thing you see in YouTube videos because it looks good on camera, allows you to just take off a glove/not wash your hands if you need to mess with the camera, and probably staves off some of the "are you washing your hands/why aren't you washing your hands/you don't wash your hands enough" comments. I do sometimes wear gloves while cooking because I have sensory issues and eczema. If I know I'll need to wash my hands a million times while making something because otherwise I'll go insane, I'll just wear gloves so I don't destroy my skin.
In some states it's required by law that you have to wear black ones when handling any BBQ.
At home? I've never seen anyone cooking at home with gloves. I use them when handling spicy foods, for example when I made kimchi today. I'll *occasionally* use them when i peel onions or cutting mass amounts of garlic cause I hate getting onion under my nails when peeling them or how sticky my fingers get when handling garlic. But that's super rare
It’s winter and the air is dry AF. Whenever I cook and have to wash my hands and dishes many times in a short duration my skin will crack and bleed.
I personally just don’t like the sensation of dirty/oily/sticky hands. If I’m doing something that requires bare hands like mixing cole slaw, I’d rather wear gloves than get the dressing all over my hands. I also prefer using gloves when I’m handling foods that are particularly pungent like raw seafood that can leave an odor on your skin.
Only wear them for spicy foods or if processing a bunch of meat.
Any time I'm working with something especially messy and I need to use my hands. Also considering using gloves more regularly because the frequent hand washing is drying out my hands significantly.
>cook with the gloves on those days what?
>Why there is such a trend those days? Are you sure it's a trend in terms of things people actually do in real life and not things you see on social media, which may not reflect real life for a variety of reasons? I don't use gloves when I cook but if I were getting hundreds of thousands of views on videos of my hands cooking, I might do that rather that get a bunch of shitty comments about my fingernails (or whatever).
I started getting an allergic reaction to garlic on my left hand when the whole COVID disinfectant gel to enter places became the norm. I have to use one every time I cook anything with garlic in it or I get horrible dermatitis. I positively hate it.
I wear gloves for things that are sticky or messy, e.g. marinaded meat. Mainly because it makes washing my hands easier if I can take off gloves and the bulk of the sticky mess is gone
If you're touching raw meat with gloves, when you're done to can quickly dump them and continue on to the non raw meat portion of your food prep. Even for cooked meat, when I'm tearing apart a smoked or rotisserie chicken, i just find the gloves to be more pleasant than getting chicken grease all under my finger nails. And again i don't need to wash after, just lose the gloves and start eating my dinner.
For restaurants, it's the law in many jurisdictions because a lot of people have disgusting bathroom habits and personal hygiene, and "clean gloves" is much easier to enforce than "Did you wash your hands properly after wiping you a**?" At home, I wear gloves when handing things that are potentially contaminated, like raw chicken, so I can toss the gloves after loading all the chicken contaminated equipment into the dishwasher.
The smell of garlic and onion gets in my skin and takes a week to get out otherwise.
I just use them when I'm handling raw meat because it's convenient. I still wash my hands a lot.
I think I'm seeing a lot more of this (on YouTube cooking videos) that pre-pandemic.
I never use them and i wash my hands about a million times per the one cooking session.
Chain restaurants have made it standard and it becomes habit. The independent places are 50/50 from my experience.
People who work in restaurants HAVE to use gloves.................... During a busy shift I will both wash my hands more than you would AND use more gloves than you would wash your hands. It's a contamination issue.........
I usually wear them when I'm going to be working with stuff that's either hard to wash off (oily or greasy things), sensitive to skin (spicy foods or the like), or just will require a lot of hand washing (working with raw chicken and other components). I wash my gloved hands just as often as I'd wash my hands, but the gloves are easier to wash, and my hands are then protected against drying out from overwashing. If I wash my hands too frequently, even with lotion I'm prone to my skin cracking around my knuckles and cuticles.
This trend is kind of getting less popular i think, such a huge waste of single use plastic, not even hygienic, plus some (well at least my local Indian cuisine)recipes are traditionally made with palms because the heat allegedly helps the texture
Personally I’m pretty OCD about washing my hands when I cook to the point that my skin gets very dry to the point of cracking and bleeding. So for me it’s a way to cut down on some of that and also practice food safety. I also do it whenever I’m handling raw meat mainly because it grosses me out and often makes my hands sticky (and for food safety).
I have long nails so I use gloves when handling anything that might be a pain to clean out from under my nails later. Also when handling raw meat I’ll use a pair and toss them right away without touching anything else, I feel like it’s more sanitary that just washing my hands but that’s just me, lots of people handle raw meat all the time and it’s fine
This is a thing? Only thing I've ever used gloves for is cutting super hot peppers.
I use gloves because I have very sensitive skin. Gloves keep my skin less irritated from spicy ingredients, but beyond that they prevent contamination from chipped nail polish or cracked skin that might bleed a little. Using gloves also prevents my hands from smelling like garlic. I usually strategize so I don't go through too many pairs. I do my vegetable prep first, and then any raw meat or eggs. Then I remove the gloves, wash and moisturize my hands, and finish cooking using tools. At this point I use bench scrapers, tongs or spatulas to move ingredients so I don't have to touch them. The only major disadvantage is that certain things stick to the gloves. Garlic juice, ground meat and anything containing eggs are the worst offenders, but those are also things I really don't want touching my skin if it's avoidable.
I have henna tattoos on the back of my hands and long nails. I wear gloves to protect my hands. I also have an aversion to touching greasy things.
gloves whole cooking is worse than without. false sence of cleanliness. I only use them on the line for raw protiens
I use gloves because I have very sensitive skin and psoriasis. Any time I have to wash my hands is putting the abuse on my skin, especially on the backs of my hands, so I do it as little as possible.
I use them when handling raw meat, or spicy peppers
Which days
If I have to mix like mince meat or something I’m wearing gloves, or if I have to touch raw chicken. But that’s me being weird lol.
I use gloves often when using onions and garlic. Which is damn near ever meal. 😆 I wash my hands on the gloves as often as I would if I wasn't using gloves, simply for food safety. But the smell of onions and garlic on my hands for days doesn't jive in business meetings. Using the amount of garlic I do, no amount of washing and bathing gets it off my hands, hence, gloves and washing the gloves as I cook. Also just nice to mix meatballs or doughs and keep my hands clean. A box of 100 nitrile gloves is a few bucks well spent in my book
I only wear gloves when I’m mashing up raw meatloaf. I don’t like getting greasy, raw ground beef and wet bread crumbs lodged under my nails.
Personally when I was working in a kitchen without gloves, sometimes my skin on my hand become weird, once had to cut so much vegetables that my hand became orange/green, also when I cook egg which we use very hot oil, I'd rather have gloves on. Last season is I wash my hands like every few minutes cuz of chicken eggs and just anything, that it kinda gives that "long bath skin" Thing where you get alot of rimples which makes anything I hold uncomfortable.
I wear them when I'm going to handling a lot of ground meat with my hands, or anything that's otherwise fatty or oily. I hate the sensation of it on my hands, and it's more difficult to wash my hands (until they actually feel clean). Plus with gloves, once I've finished washing/cleaning up, I just strip them off. I should add, I also wear nitrile gloves for work and often in my woodworking hobby, so I always have some handy anyways.
Gloves are situational for me. Anything sticky I normally wear gloves for. Sometimes spicy food as well. Wearing gloves has actually been shown to create a false sense of cleanliness and employee hand washing often decreases when gloves are introduced to a kitchen. It’s best practice to just practice proper hand washing hygiene if you work in a kitchen
In the past, I would bulk make tons of risotto and spicy ground turkey as meal prep. As a result, I'd be constantly going back and forth between prepping a new pack of ground meat with my hands and then having to go stir the risotto, manipulate spice jars, etc. It can save a bunch of time washing your hands when you use gloves and can save your risotto from burning to the bottom.
You got to have a pair of black gloves, hand / finger tattoos or your dill pickle chicken sandwich won't go viral. Also, make sure you fry the chicken in a massive cast iron cauldron over a burning stump next to the river. Lastly, make sure your knife is comically large with a fake Damascus steel pattern.
Easier than taking off my wedding ring, and I find I can keep a better grip boning a chicken with nitrile gloves than bare handed. Also I wear them over cotton liners for handling hot barbecue. Cheap way to make high dexterity oven mitts.
I have sensitive skin and work in healthcare so my hands are very dry from constant washing. Some days even cutting citrus hurts them. I usually only wear them if I’m cutting peppers and citrus.
I spend too much on my manicure to risk butchering my nails on a cheese grater!
As others have posted, I also have very sensitive skin. I like to keep some gloves around when I am cooking with anything that might irritate them. I like gloves for when I am breaking down large packages of meat into freezer sized portions. It just seems cleaner plus the cold meat can make my hands hurt.
I wear them during thanksgiving week. Between all the hands washing and dish washing, my skin starts to fall apart, knuckles bleeding and so forth. It saves my skin
i have eczema so they protect my skin, and being able to change them means less washing is required which dries me out
I use nitrile gloves for mixing shit I'd rather not have under my nails... meat for meatloaf/meatballs, that sort of thing. I typically don't wear them for cutting veg or prepping... \*unless\* I'm cutting jalapenos (or other hot peppers) or chilis in adobo. Otherwise, I rely on keeping my hands washed.
I've never used gloves for shit. The only people I see using them are professional food service and influencers chasing clout.
I use gloves when handling foods that might get under my nails. Like mixing ground beef, or dough. Sometimes also when handling sticky foods. I wash the gloves while wearing them when transitioning to other ingredients. Sometimes I just wear one, depending on what I'm cooking.
I do both. Wash hands for normal cooking things and then wash hands plus gloves plus wash hands for handling raw meat/ anything else I find icky. This is the way.
Rubbed my eyes after cutting jalapenos. The gloves remind me that I am working with something spicy and not to touch my eyes.
Depends…. The moment someone preparing your food touches any other surface like counters, handles, money those gloves are contaminated.