Do disposable gloves guarantee safe food?

A pair of single-use foodservice gloves is a tool that can help ensure safe food. Like any tool, it is only effective when properly used. Having dirty hands beneath the gloves, not changing them frequently, cross-contaminating by handling both raw and ready-to-eat foods, handling cash with gloved hands, or not changing them after touching one’s face, clothes, hair or other parts renders them ineffective and not necessarily better than clean bare hands. Conversely, changing gloves frequently and using them properly can be safer than bare hands as the barrier prevents pathogens missed in handwashing such as those found under a wedding ring or fingernails from contaminating food.

Many municipalities require gloves or another barrier such as wax paper, tongs or a serving spoon when handling ready-to-eat food. In others, while it may be perfectly legal to, say, mix a pasta salad with one’s bare hands, the effect of doing so is off-putting, unsavory, and just not a smart strategy: put some gloves on.

In all, given the context—handling food that will presumably be cooked to a safe temperature and clean hands, you are in the right and the comment is unfortunate and hopefully will not sway readers away from dining with you.