AIBU to be surprised about Tesco employee

[Singinghollybob]

I was in Tesco earlier and an employee was stocking the unwrapped individual bread rolls, taking them from the crates and putting them on the shelf. I'm not the most germ - averse person however he was handling the rolls with his bare hands. Am I alone in thinking he should be using the tongs that are hanging below the shelves to handle unwrapped food, and wonder what Tesco's policy is?

@BadSun fruit comes with its own packaging i.e you peel it. Or else you wash it before use. I very much doubt anybody has got ill from eating a grape someone has touched. And that is just ignoring that coughs and colds are airborne viruses anyway so you are still far more likely to be ill by entering the supermarket than eating unwrapped food.

The 21st century obsession with hygiene is also why so many people have allergies. Immunity is only built up by exposure to germs.

@Alsohuman agreed.

So much plastic packaging could be done away with if people weren't so precious.

Most of us have a perfectly functioning immune system.

@Singinghollybob YANBU. They should be using gloves (light, thin plastic ones,) but gloves all the same.

The tesco problem with bread rolls never mind his hands touching grab what you need cause when he walks away every other customer is going to breathe on them cough ,lots lift and look an put them back so I wouldnt worry

@Neverever8

Good point!

I know plastic is shit but I hate buying unwrapped products. Morrisons won awards because they’ve started selling things like cucumbers without shrink wrap. I just won’t buy a cucumber from them anymore, the thought makes me feel a bit ill. I know you can wash vegetables but it’s not the point, I’m not a germaphobe but I hate the idea of it being pawed at by 100 people before I buy it.

So much plastic packaging could be done away with if people weren't so precious.

Yes!

I know you can wash vegetables but it’s not the point

Well, it rather is the whole point.

@Whattodoabout

You know that's all totally illogical? This is psychological 'hygiene', nothing whatsoever to do with actual cleanliness.

Of course it’s the point. Every supermarket should stop shrink wrapping cucumbers. How many pairs of hands does that cucumber pass through before it’s wrapped? And it’s grown in actual soil - you know, dirt.

I can remember growing up without plastic covering everything.
Yes, we had little shops rather than huge supermarkets.
Everything came in paper or unwrapped.
This was only the 70's, far less packaging on stuff.

Unless the gloves are single use changed after handling every single loaf and are sterile they probably wouldn't make much of a difference. Same goes for the tongs

how many times has fruit made you ill?

I've no idea. Firstly I wash my fruit, so probably not many. But if I didn't, I still wouldn't know, would I? But it doesn't seem to make sense to deny that it's a possibility. We're always being told to sneeze/cough into a tissue or our elbow because our hands spread germs through contact with door handles etc. But I couldn't tell you how many times touching a door handle has made me ill either!

And aaaaalso I was replying to someone saying "you're more likely to get ill from either not cooking food properly or not storing food properly rather than because someone else has previously touched it", which is very likely not true with fruit because it's mostly eaten raw and storage isn't really an issue (mould is very obvious on fruit!)

fruit comes with its own packaging i.e you peel it. Or else you wash it before use

Well yes, I'm arguing that it's sensible to wash it.

I personally think that plastic gloves are not only a waste for the environment but also often more unhygienic than not wearing gloves. I used to work between two food outlets when I was a student, one was a sandwich shop where you made up sandwiches in front of the customer wearing gloves, the other was a cafe which served hot food.

Some people in the sandwich shop would wear the same pair of gloves for the whole shift, never washing their hands. When your wearing gloves you can't tell if you have a bit of mayo or such on your hands, you just keep on going.

In the cafe no gloves were worn and hands were washed constantly, after raw food had been put on to cook, after taking money, before preparing a meal, after doing a load of washing up, or after going out to the stock room. Staff automatically washed their hands.

Appreciate that the two are different in that there was no raw food being handled etc in the sandwich shop but gloves give an illusion of hygiene and people seem to think that its some horrible secretion of the staffs hands they should be worried about when actually its cross contamination which is going to be an issue regardless of gloves being worn if there isn't a decent hand washing/glove changing procedure in place.

@LivingDeadGirlUK well quite. I have a bit of a microbiology background. And when working at a school level I.e dealing with "safe strain of e.coli" it's recommended not to wear gloves because it's easier to tell that you have ecoli in your hand than on a glove. And it's easier to wash off with antibacterial soap than just Throwing the globe in to the bin and the further environment

I totally agree with you. Gloves up to the elbow (gauntlets) have to be worn when removing hot bakery from the oven, but gloves/tongs are meant to be worn when stocking shelves, and YES gloves are meant to be worn when stocking up fruit and veg due to the risk of spider/insect bites as most come in from abroad and I AM a former Tesco filler.