Why Use Exam Gloves for Food Handling
Publish Time: 2018-12-29 Origin: Site
Food service gloves contact directly with food during food processing.In recent years,more scientific evidence shows disposable gloves that contact directly with food do affect food safety,which increases food service foodborne illness outbreaks.Under such circumstances,examination gloves are used in food processing and handling due to their superior quality.Are exam gloves food safe?
What Are Examination Gloves?
Examination (medical) grade disposable gloves are produced for non-surgical medical procedures.Examination grade gloves have to pass a series of technical tests in order to meet the safety requirements specified by the FDA. Gloves are tested for puncture and abrasion resistance, must meet tension and elongation tests and are also tested for chemical substance resistance. Manufacturers of these gloves must receive 510k certification.
Examination grade gloves must also have an AQL of 2.5 or less.The AQL of a disposable glove is the "Acceptable Quality Level" and refers to a quality standard for measuring pinhole defects.
Are Food Service Gloves Food Safe?
In comparison to medical or examination grade gloves, no formal government regulations or inspection program exists for food service gloves over and above the FDA regulation. There is no AQL requirement for food service gloves, meaning there are no guidelines for maximum pinhole defects—no guidelines for the number of failures per box.
Why Use Examination Grade Gloves in Food Processing?
The answer to this is simple - to enhance your food safety programs and for the prevention of food-borne illnesses.
It is estimated that around 90% of all disposable glove perforations during use go unnoticed or undetected.Consider that the human skin is a rich environment for microbes consisting of around 1000 species, and the skin surface of human hands can contain on average from 2 million to 10 million microorganisms.
Organisms can become resident colonizers on hands, and combined with a glove puncture, what has been described as a “liquid bridge” of microbial contamination can flow to contact surfaces of food.
Therefore, when purchasing your food handling gloves it is imperative to know the AQL. The lower the AQL, number the higher the quality of barrier protection you will have for your hands and your food.
When you choose the disposable gloves for food handling,you need to know the AQL test results,and choose disposable gloves that have an AQL of 2.5 or less.