For peace of mind, we may prefer to imagine restaurants as sanitized bastions of total cleanliness. Their spotless surfaces have to exemplify the lofty standards upheld by tax-funded health and safety organizations, with everything from tables to spatulas properly scrubbed after each use. That's true, right? Guys?
But of course, restaurants vary in terms of actual sanitation practices. We recently revealed the hard, germ-coated truth about lemon wedges -- one study found 70 percent of them to contain microbial growth. Not all such growth is harmful to human health. Even one of the researchers behind the lemon study concedes, "Microbes are ubiquitous ... You're not going to escape unscathed forever." You can sure try, though.
Here are some other things to keep in mind the next time you're dining out.
Nearly 60 percent of food workers reported working while sick.
In a 2013 survey of 491 food service workers from 391 restaurants throughout nine states, the Center for Disease Control found that 60 percent remembered going into work at least once while sick. Of those, 20 percent went into work despite having symptoms like vomiting or diarrhea. Not okay!
Only seven percent reported being forced by management to work while feeling under the weather. So why'd they do it? The most common reasons cited were lack of paid sick leave, inability to find someone to take their shift, obligations to co-workers and thinking their symptoms weren't that contagious. Meanwhile, the CDC reports that handling of food by an infected person is a big factor in at least two-thirds of pathogenic outbreaks -- so someone is wrong here.
Saru Jayaraman of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United suggests giving the almost 90 percent of restaurant workers who reported inability to take paid sick leave access to that privilege would cut down on the scourge of flu each year. Activists in the District of Columbia recently won a victory for restaurant workers, helping pass a bill giving them the right to use paid sick leave after 90 days on the job.
More HERE Via HuffPo