McDonalds' Employees Handle Your Food With Bare Hands

I was at a local McDonalds restaurant the other day and noticed the people in the kitchen handling buns and cheese slices with their bare hands. I asked the cashier if they were allowed to do that and she said no but they did it anyway. I then asked to speak to the manager. What looked to be a 12 year old girl (LOL!) came over to speak to me and her response to my question was that, yes they were allowed to handle customer's food with their bare hands. I then asked for a head office contact number and was given one.

This morning I phoned the head office and was told that, yes the employees are allowed to handle food without gloves because of "strict" rules about forcing employees to wear plastic gloves. Employees must wash their hands if they change work stations, every 30 minutes, or after bathroom breaks (who's checking?).

I'm fussy about who touches my food and have taken it for granted that all food handlers must wear gloves. If McDonalds allows employees to handle our food bare handed then just think what goes on in other restaurants. I once saw a Burger King employee with filthy fingernails and that put me off Burger King for a long while.

We've become a nation of fast food junkies and, with the recent listeria outbreak, also a nation of potential food poisoning victims. You'd think that more effort would be made by restaurants to contaminate their customers' food as little as possible.

Granted, I handle food with my bare hands but I know where my hands have been.

Update: Just for the record, I was at a Wendy's restaurant today and checked carefully to see if anyone was handling the food with bare hands but none were. I asked one of the employees what their policy was regarding wearing gloves and was told they had to wear them. I think it's safer to eat at Wendy's rather than at McDonalds.