For example:
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When you open a fresh jar of peanut butter do you only work through one side until it is completely empty then start on the other side?
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Or when you get those shallow tubs of hummus does it have to make it back home undisturbed? Then one of the baggers at the grocery store shoves it sideways into the bag completely ruining the symmetry.
Unless you are talking about wild game meat the need for gloves means the butcher and the rancher fucked up.
You shouldn’t need gloves for beef, pork, chicken, or farmed game animals. You should only need to wash your hands after handling.
Wild game has additional requirements due to new diseases that spread via skin contact and parasites. If you are dressing or processing a deer you need to be wearing gloves and probably a mask for the later.
Can you quickly tell me why we need gloves and masks for deer? To protect us, I assume, rather than to protect the meat. I’ve never seen this done (in UK or Germany) whilst hunting so am now intrigued as to whether I’ve been taking unnecessary risks for a long time…
Yep, it’s to protect the hunter/butcher. Deer are known vectors for Bluetongue and Tuberculosis (unpleasant but not fatal thanks to antibiotics), but the new reason that has the CDC recommending gloves is Chronic Wasting Disease. There are no human cases currently but several studies indicate that humans may be able to contract it and given that it has no treatment or vaccine limiting exposure it probably for the best until more is known.
As to why you haven’t seen this? Well it’s a fairly new disease and doesn’t appear to have spread to the UK or mainland Europe. I didn’t start using gloves myself until ~5 years ago.
Thank you. That’s greatly appreciated - and a relief to know that I haven’t really been following poor practices for a few decades. Certainly gives me some food for thought though.
I don’t think you really understand how poorly funded and overstretched our agricultural inspectors are.
Secondly, who said this was just about disease? I mean a good part of it is, the rest of it is the fact that the texture of raw meat on my hands is vile.
I don’t know about agricultural inspectors but I’ve done butcher work. If they are reputable they don’t send out cuts that have been exposed to disease or weren’t purged(dosed) before slaughter.
As to not liking the touch I can respect that. I have more than a few partners that felt the same. It doesn’t bother me that much just due to the fact I’ve been handling it since I was a kid.