Safe shaking by our fav pres ever!
I’m proud to report that workers in the food industry have known about this great way to protect yourself when meeting/greeting others.
The reasons now, as they where then, are evident.
Even a hug is safer than contacting a moist warm surface with another and then inadvertently brushing one’s own mouth, nose or other bodily pathogen pool.
When I was a young cook, aka “chef”, back in the late 1980’s I first learned about food safety from a fellow chef and food safety teacher in the Baltimore, Md area. Another teacher that same night, later hired me as a chef in a local hospital.
At that point I was already hooked. If the food I helped served was not safe, it was not good.
We all knew back-then that we should never touch Ready-To-Eat food with our bare hands before serving it. But the industry push-back was strong then as it is now. Witness all the “chefs” willing to touch their Ready-To-Eat food preparations with bare hands on TV and the Internets. It’s just plain gross. But I digress.
We cooks found a way to help protect the foods by using utensils and food-safe disposable gloves. And to protect each other, we quickly learned that rather then shaking hands (which could be in a clean glove) with our friends it was easier and safer than shaking hands.
We all know why, now more than ever, we should all elbow bump from now on!
-Joe Otterbein CCFS, CPFS, FMP, PCQI
