# Pro Cooks Thoughts On This...?



## HumbleHomeCook (Feb 28, 2021)

I really like the YouTube channel Travel Thirsty and was watching the newest video today. I've seen a lot of eyebrow raising stuff on there for sure but this video was shot in New York city. Now, I'm not a food prude and I wholeheartedly recognize there is a lot I don't want to know about my groceries and food and I'm not a food safety fanatic. That said in the beginning of this, it appears the dude preps the chicken and then continues wearing the same gloves for everything he grabs there after. There is a quick blip where he may have changed gloves but the salt stuck to his fingers makes it seem like the same gloves.

I mean, the salt I guess you could say nothing's going to survive in there but dude handles all kinds of stuff.

If it is indeed the same gloves, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this. Happens all the time, get over it? That wouldn't fly with me? Other?



Food looks damn tasty though.


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## ragz (Mar 4, 2021)

For context I work in fine dining, and have also worked in more casual spots in my early days and I can say that is 100% gross. Hack moves through and through. HIm just putting the ingredients on a cutting board, that he used to cut chicken no less, is bad enough. Let alone all that rawdogging he does to his mise.


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## DavidPF (Mar 4, 2021)

HumbleHomeCook said:


> the salt I guess you could say nothing's going to survive in there


I may be wrong, but I think there are quite a few things that easily survive salt. It would sure be nice to be able to sanitize things just using really salty water, but I don't see it getting recommended.


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## KengataKollektor (Mar 4, 2021)

He’s contaminating everything. This is kitchen nightmares level stuff, in 15 years I have never seen someone that bad.


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## M1k3 (Mar 4, 2021)

HumbleHomeCook said:


> I really like the YouTube channel Travel Thirsty and was watching the newest video today. I've seen a lot of eyebrow raising stuff on there for sure but this video was shot in New York city. Now, I'm not a food prude and I wholeheartedly recognize there is a lot I don't want to know about my groceries and food and I'm not a food safety fanatic. That said in the beginning of this, it appears the dude preps the chicken and then continues wearing the same gloves for everything he grabs there after. There is a quick blip where he may have changed gloves but the salt stuck to his fingers makes it seem like the same gloves.
> 
> I mean, the salt I guess you could say nothing's going to survive in there but dude handles all kinds of stuff.
> 
> ...



Laziness. He can take the gloves off before touching the spices for one. Plus other stuff.


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## DavidPF (Mar 4, 2021)

M1k3 said:


> He can take the gloves off before touching the spices for one.


There seem to be people who somehow believe "I have gloves on" means "therefore, contamination is impossible".

Or the laziness, yeah.


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## MarcelNL (Mar 4, 2021)

not a pro cook but I can tell you that there is not enough salt in the world to cure this mess...YUCK.

but what do they feed chicken to get two fillets the size of a goose, and who eats all of that on one piece of flatbread


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## Tristan (Mar 4, 2021)

Ugh that’s just disgusting. Then the salad bar...


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## chiffonodd (Mar 4, 2021)

I guess technically he could've changed gloves any time the camera shot changes, which is quite often. If not, though, that's hella gross.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Mar 4, 2021)

chiffonodd said:


> I guess technically he could've changed gloves any time the camera shot changes, which is quite often. If not, though, that's hella gross.



Yeah, it was the salt stuck to his fingers and then subsequent wetness that makes me think he didn't change gloves.


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## ragz (Mar 4, 2021)

HumbleHomeCook said:


> Yeah, it was the salt stuck to his fingers and then subsequent wetness that makes me think he didn't change gloves.



Thought so to. Def the same nasty ass gloves.


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## YumYumSauce (Mar 4, 2021)

Watched the 1st part and skimmed thru the rest. It's basic food safety 101 to wash hands and change gloves after handling raw meat. 

Very easy fixes. Not hard to change gloves. Even better coulda mise'd out the spice seasoning before handling the chicken. And use tongs for placing raw meats on the grill. 

Stuff like this makes me facepalm and gives a bad name to the industry.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Mar 4, 2021)

YumYumSauce said:


> Watched the 1st part and skimmed thru the rest. It's basic food safety 101 to wash hands and change gloves after handling raw meat.
> 
> Very easy fixes. Not hard to change gloves. Even better coulda mise'd out the spice seasoning before handling the chicken. And use tongs for placing raw meats on the grill.
> 
> Stuff like this makes me facepalm and gives a bad name to the industry.



To allow a camera crew from a well-established YouTube channel to film and publish tells me that it's pretty common place at that joint.


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## DavidPF (Mar 4, 2021)

MarcelNL said:


> what do they feed chicken to get two fillets the size of a goose


They create a horribly disproportionate breed of chickens.


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## MarcelNL (Mar 4, 2021)

Using steroids or are those Day-glo chicken


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## Bigbbaillie (Mar 4, 2021)

I have worked in professional kitchens for 6 years and I can definitely say this is pretty above average gross. For being a normal prep situation like this though there is definitely no excuse for what this guy is doing, he has coated all of those spice containers with salmonella as far as I'm concerned. 
Although I think a lot of you home cooks would be surprised about how dirty professional kitchens can be. When you are busy on the line you don't really have time to wash your hands every time you take a portion of steak or fish out of the cooler, and it's usually too hot to wear gloves without them turning into sweat bags. Not saying that this is standard everywhere, but standards of cleanliness can vary GREATLY from restaurant to restaurant.


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## DavidPF (Mar 4, 2021)

Bigbbaillie said:


> When you are busy on the line you don't really have time to wash your hands every time you take a portion of steak or fish out of the cooler


This certainly isn't personal, and I don't even know which side of the employer/employee equation you're on, but "don't really have time" is the same excuse the guy in the video would make, and anyone who "doesn't have time" is either grossly overworked or lazy - and from what little I've seen, I'd say it's most likely overwork, i.e. an intentionally short-staffed kitchen. The excuses change as you go "higher up the ladder" - budget constraints, competition, etc - but none of the excuses really matter in the end. If a restaurant is that busy, they can afford another cook.

There does have to be a reasonable limit somewhere of how much handwashing must be done, and there is such a thing as overdoing it, but the sort of apologetic theme of your post shows that you know the reasonable amount of cleanliness is quite a bit higher than what happens.

It's deplorable if someone who wants to do the right thing might end up out of business if they do it, but it's more deplorable to decide to do the wrong thing. (Isn't it?)


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## Bigbbaillie (Mar 4, 2021)

DavidPF said:


> This certainly isn't personal, and I don't even know which side of the employer/employee equation you're on, but "don't really have time" is the same excuse the guy in the video would make, and anyone who "doesn't have time" is either grossly overworked or lazy - and from what little I've seen, I'd say it's most likely overwork, i.e. an intentionally short-staffed kitchen. The excuses change as you go "higher up the ladder" - budget constraints, competition, etc - but none of the excuses really matter in the end. If a restaurant is that busy, they can afford another cook.



I know I am a pretty clean cook, and I'm not trying to say that being unsanitary is excusable. Like the video above is disgusting. I'm mostly just trying to bring to light to the home cooks here that some restaurants are dirtier than they think in a lot of cases. I have worked part time at some places that have turned out to be super gross, where the owners wouldn't even buy linen service to have towels for cleaning (this job did not last long). But customers still love their food. I have also worked places that are super clean, but by conventional standards the cooks do things that customers might see as dirty. For example, reusing tasting spoons (or cake testers) or grabbing SAFE proteins like steaks barehanded during service without washing hands. Little things like that don't really determine the cleanliness of a restaurant though, it's more about food storage, labeling, and the regularity/rigorousness of cleaning.

You are definitely correct that in a lot of cases it is overwork though, that is an industry standard to some extent from what I have seen. 12+ hour days aren't that abnormal at a lot of places. But a lot of restaurants also don't have the space/money to just "hire another cook." In many cases kitchens are poorly fit into old homes/buildings that aren't designed to have a professional kitchen in them. I have worked in multiple restaurants where hiring another cook to help on the line would just create infinitely more problems than it would solve.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Mar 4, 2021)

Bigbbaillie said:


> I know I am a pretty clean cook, and I'm not trying to say that being unsanitary is excusable. Like the video above is disgusting. I'm mostly just trying to bring to light to the home cooks here that some restaurants are dirtier than they think in a lot of cases. I have worked part time at some places that have turned out to be super gross, where the owners wouldn't even buy linen service to have towels for cleaning (this job did not last long). But customers still love their food. I have also worked places that are super clean, but by conventional standards the cooks do things that customers might see as dirty. For example, reusing tasting spoons (or cake testers) or grabbing SAFE proteins like steaks barehanded during service without washing hands. Little things like that don't really determine the cleanliness of a restaurant though, it's more about food storage, labeling, and the regularity/rigorousness of cleaning.
> 
> You are definitely correct that in a lot of cases it is overwork though, that is an industry standard to some extent from what I have seen. 12+ hour days aren't that abnormal at a lot of places. But a lot of restaurants also don't have the space/money to just "hire another cook." In many cases kitchens are poorly fit into old homes/buildings that aren't designed to have a professional kitchen in them. I have worked in multiple restaurants where hiring another cook to help on the line would just create infinitely more problems than it would solve.



I think your and other's answers are honest and realistic. As I said in my initial post, I know things happen. I'm a careful home cook but I don't have separate poultry boards or plastic or what have you.

I believe that God gave us thumbs and set us on our path so that we would one day discover peanut butter. Having done so, I think he more or less checked out, feeling like his work is largely done. In other words, for me, peanut butter is divine. And when I happened upon the standards it has (ya know those pesky mice in those peanut bins), I sorta freaked out, but then went back to licking the spoon and it quickly passed.


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## Oshidashi (Mar 4, 2021)

Well, at least the customer gets to eat a really tasty sandwich before the food poisoning kicks in. Someone should forward this video to the NYC Health Dept.


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## orangehero (Mar 4, 2021)

anyone catch the part where the raw meat gets on the bread as he's cutting it for the toaster? i would bet the cooks in this place are third world immigrants just trying to make a living trying to churn out sandwiches which is not surprising but what is surprising is the owner probably just said make the sandwiches ridiculously huge, let this guy film his dirty kitchen, presumably reviewed the footage, and its put up as an "amazing" destination. also that fry oil hooweee i can smell it through the screen.


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## big_adventure (Mar 5, 2021)

HumbleHomeCook said:


> I believe that God gave us thumbs and set us on our path so that we would one day discover peanut butter. Having done so, I think he more or less checked out, feeling like his work is largely done. In other words, for me, peanut butter is divine. And when I happened upon the standards it has (ya know those pesky mice in those peanut bins), I sorta freaked out, but then went back to licking the spoon and it quickly passed.



Little known fact: my kids and I consume 31% of the peanut butter in France each year. When I go to the States, I bring a mostly-empty suitcase, and come back with kilos of the stuff. The price difference makes it worth it.


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## MarcelNL (Mar 5, 2021)

Our 2 oldest kids probably account for another 30% of the EU peanut butter consumption....bought 2 kilo jars a week or so ago and one is already empty, the other halfway down.
With what international travel probably will cost in a bit I can bet that buying peanuts wholesale and making your own (added benefit is that you control what goes in) adds up real soon...

At home I do use different boards for proteins and vegies, I also swap or wash boards when I'm cutting Veg before washing. It's not that difficult to keep some simple sanity rules once it's in your system, I'm by no means skittish about hygiene but going through food poisoning once was more than enough (since that 3 day episode I cannot even see fish with cheese, it was a stupid combination anyway but still...).

It should be fairly easy for the restaurant, be it the owner or the individual worker, to stick to some very basic and sensible rules, isn't there a sanity course folks ought to have taken (if only so they cannot claim ignorance) when opening up food related business? Personally I don't care about the lesser 'evils', like reusing a spoon, the major food safety issue boxes should IMO always be ticked and to me there are no excuses for not obeying those elementary rules.


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## big_adventure (Mar 5, 2021)

I use generally one giant board for everything BUT...

1. When cutting or peeling veggies either without washing (onions for example) or pre-thorough-cleaning i do that over a flexible board then dump it and wash it. 

2. I almost never do meat or poultry at all.

3. I sometimes do sashimi but...

4. Any meat is prepped after veggies and after the board is again washed. 

These things aren't that complicated.


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## tomsch (Mar 5, 2021)

It's been since college since I worked in a kitchen but I do all the cooking at home. My wife makes me use a completely different cutting board for poultry and I end up washing my hands multiple times with Dawn dish soap. Watching this made me cringe but I'm sure this may happen more than we would like to think about.


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## Ochazuke (Mar 5, 2021)

So not trying to defend the video, but if things like that bug you, you probably shouldn’t eat out anymore. 

Most kitchens (even “high end” ones) aren’t staffed with diligent professionals of the highest caliber; they’re staffed with people who couldn’t get jobs anywhere else. Sure, there’ll be a couple of folks that love the industry, but 80% are people who couldn’t care less. Like, if you have an employee who shows up and isn’t high, they’re a keeper. And if they can consistently put out food that doesn’t get sent back I can pretty much guarantee they’re not going anywhere, even if they don’t change their gloves as often as they should. 

I’m not saying that behavior is okay, I’m just saying that most managers don’t get that far in their ability to set up a culture of hygiene when employees change so frequently and half of them have way worse problems than washing their hands. I guarantee if you’ve eaten out, you’ve eaten way worse than that.


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## ian (Mar 5, 2021)

Re the video, it could be that he washed up after handling the chicken. People are citing the salt, but I'm not sure how that's indicative of anything, since he could have washed before handling the salt.

He does seem to touch the raw top of the chicken while it's on the flat top and then proceed to touch all the raw ingredients in sight though.... yikes.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Mar 5, 2021)

ian said:


> Re the video, it could be that he washed up after handling the chicken. People are citing the salt, but I'm not sure how that's indicative of anything, since he could have washed before handling the salt.
> 
> He does seem to touch the raw top of the chicken while it's on the flat top and then proceed to touch all the raw ingredients in sight though.... yikes.



He certainly may have but those gloves look wet from the chicken and the salt is sticking to that moisture. That's how it looks to me.


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## ian (Mar 5, 2021)

If he washed them, they would also be wet! The benefit of my doubt is strong.


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## MarcelNL (Mar 5, 2021)

Ochazuke said:


> Most kitchens (even “high end” ones) aren’t staffed with diligent professionals of the highest caliber; they’re staffed with people who couldn’t get jobs anywhere else. Sure, there’ll be a couple of folks that love the industry, but 80% are people who couldn’t care less. Like, if you have an employee who shows up and isn’t high, they’re a keeper. And if they can consistently put out food that doesn’t get sent back I can pretty much guarantee they’re not going anywhere, even if they don’t change their gloves as often as they should.
> 
> I’m not saying that behavior is okay, I’m just saying that most managers don’t get that far in their ability to set up a culture of hygiene when employees change so frequently and half of them have way worse problems than washing their hands. I guarantee if you’ve eaten out, you’ve eaten way worse than that.



I know you are right, and still I hope things in many places in the EU are better than this in the restaurants I choose...ultimately it probably is good to be a home cook not even being able to eat out at all even if I wanted to currently ;-)


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## Hassanbensober (Mar 5, 2021)

I do this sort of work almost daily and I wear the same exact nitrile gloves. After handing sticky protein like chicken or fish I cannot imagine anyone would not switch out the pair’s before touching the next thing. You can’t really wash your hands with gloves on or you’ll end up swimming.
Not defending the video either but I think this was just edited together with the best of intentions but the gloves kind of steal the show. It’s just a unflattering edit. 
The food looks great IMO


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## Delat (Mar 5, 2021)

big_adventure said:


> Little known fact: my kids and I consume 31% of the peanut butter in France each year. When I go to the States, I bring a mostly-empty suitcase, and come back with kilos of the stuff. The price difference makes it worth it.



This traveller is a kindred spirit except for hot cheetos.


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## DavidPF (Mar 7, 2021)

Bigbbaillie said:


> overwork though, that is an industry standard to some extent from what I have seen.


I know you are a clean cook - you wouldn't be discussing it otherwise, or at least not in the intelligent way you have. And I understand the limitations that many people and places are under.

This little quote is the part that bothers me, because I know you're telling the truth, and I absolutely can't blame you for it, and you can't do anything to fix it, and at the same time "industry standard" is the most worthless cop-out ever. I am fully aware that it isn't you who causes it to be that way; that doesn't make it OK for the industry standard to be wrong.


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## Bigbbaillie (Mar 7, 2021)

@DavidPF I totally agree with you. Professional kitchens can be pretty brutal sometimes especially if you aren't working in a quality restaurant. It's dirty, injuries are common, you have to work through most of them, it's super hot, some of the people are just drugged out all the time, overall it can be very toxic depending on where you work. I mostly was referring to the overwork as standard as opposed to uncleanliness, because that varies a lot from place to place. Usually front of house cleanliness is pretty telling to the general state of the BOH cleanliness though.


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## Keith Sinclair (Mar 21, 2021)

I'm sure most here have gotten sick eating out.
Working in the business many years know how it happens.

At Hotel we had to take food safety class. Taught at the hotel. To this day observe safety rules in cooking & handling food.


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## Chuckles (Mar 21, 2021)

I agree that many cooks do not understand food safety. They need to be taught by somebody. When you are interviewing you make a point of saying that the operation takes pride in cleanliness and food safety. Then when they start you have another hourly cook go over all the standards in the kitchen with them. Then you hold them all accountable. If they still won’t do it then they have to go.

If you sit somebody down and tell them that you are concerned that they are going to start a food born illness outbreak and they won’t change, then they are in the wrong line of work.


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## DavidPF (Mar 21, 2021)

Chuckles said:


> If you sit somebody down and tell them that you are concerned that they are going to start a food born illness outbreak and they won’t change, then they are in the wrong line of work.


It's not you we need to be concerned about, nor that new cook who you sometimes need to have a sit-down with, but the many many _employers_ who by your standards are in the wrong line of work.


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## TSF415 (Mar 21, 2021)

I only watched the first minute and haven't read any comments so far but that was absolutely horrible. If one of my employees did anything close to that I would have pulled him immediately and if they did it a second time I'd get rid of them.


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