Safe and efficient way to keep hands clean while preparing food

Question

In various cooking videos (either online or tv etc) I have seen the cook typically touch either raw chicken or raw meat or raw eggs and then without washing their hands touch other thing like salt and pepper, utensils etc. If they do something before touching anything else it is as trivial as wiping with a paper cloth.
I usually wash my hands before touching anything else but this turns out to be tedious and time consuming. So I was wondering if I am doing it wrong and it doesn't really matter or the cooks in the presentations are doing it only for time and is not safe to do or is there something safe in-between the 2 approaches i.e. constantly washing hands vs not washing hands at all

Answer 1

Your are following proper procedure by washing your hands after handling raw meat. In the videos you see, the ingredients are usually pre-portioned or are only going to be used once in the preparation of that specific dish. In that case, it doesn't really matter as any that is left over will be thrown away.

At home it wouldn't be as practical to follow this procedure unless you pre-portioned your ingredients. Or you could put small amounts of salt, pepper, rub, etc. in containers, use what's needed, and discard the rest. This eliminates a lot of the hand washing, but I find that it wastes a lot over time.

Answer 2

If you plan prep you should not need to be going back and forth.

For example prep raw chicken once. If you need to apply a rub then do it once.

I prep meat first and put it aside in a covered bowl. Then I clean and sanitize the prep area before dealing with fruits and vegetables. Often I will soak the fruits and vegetables for cleaning while I prep the meat if I have an open sink.

Restaurants will often have dedicated prep area for meat.