Not just growers, I don't think grocery store employees are washing their hands religiously when they're putting this stuff out.

I worked in a supermarket. They aren't washing their hands at all and they might well be playing football with your bread rolls.

These days I often see the grocers using gloves when stocking shelves.

Single use plastic gloves?

> Single use plastic gloves?

Probably.

Clean hands are better, IMO, than those gloves

Indeed. I used to work in a supermarket and we used those gloves. It just meant that the hands got really sweaty and nasty before the gloves inevitably ripped and put your manky hands in contact with the product anyway. By the end of my tenure I just washed my hands before each task.

Pesticides are water soluble. Cat feces is not.

When you wash something you're not dissolving contaminants - you're mechanically removing them. Most bacteria are not water soluble yet we manage to wash them off our hands.

> Most bacteria are not water soluble yet we manage to wash them off our hands.

We use soap.

Well, I do

someone else's chicken blood is probably worse to get on your veg than pesticides. The bacteria can infiltrate the veg.