Do you take off rings/watches/bracelets before cooking?

They show Food Network on one of the TVs at the gym. The show was Pioneer Woman, which I find obnoxious on many levels, but the host kept all of her jewelry on while she mixed together a meatloaf with her otherwise bare hands. That just seems… ill-advised? sloppy? all around gross?

In the “real world,” doesn’t everyone take off their jewelry before diving into their raw meats?

I’m a guy, and the only jewelry I have is a wedding ring.

I leave it on.

If I was wearing a watch, I would probably take that off.

Women have different approaches to their jewelry. Some, like me, coordinate everything to their outfit each day, and strip it all off as soon as they get home for a more casual look. Others wear their preferred jewelry 24/7, cooking, eating, showering and sleeping in it. Women in the second group would have no problem making a meatloaf with rings and bracelets on.

I have a combined wedding / engagement ring (the jeweler welded together the two separate rings; they’re joined now). I always take it off as both liquid and solid stuff gets trapped under there. Apart from everything else, it feels pretty horrible to be able to try the rest of my hands, etc. but have the area under my ring be wet for another 20 minutes or so.

In the case of food, there’s no way that food wouldn’t get trapped under it or in the prongs for the stone or something. Off it goes!

I just have a wedding band and it stays on unless I’m sticking my hands in raw meat, like for meatloaf or turkey burgers.

I’ll take my watch off when I do dishes so it doesn’t get wet.

I have just two rings–a fairly thick and slightly too large wedding ring and a sterling ring worn in front of it to make sure it stays on my finger. The only time I take them off for cooking is if I need to wear gloves due to handling raw meat. It makes it easier to get the gloves on.

I rarely wear rings or watches (single, so no wedding band), but if I happen to be wearing any, I take it off before cooking. It avoids getting the jewelry wet or gunked up with whatever I’m handling, and it seems more sanitary to me.

Extra reason: At home, I cook on an inductive stovetop, and if the jewelry happens to include a magnetic component, it could heat up from proximity to the cooking surface. Unlikely, sure, but why risk it?

I would definitely take them off before mixing anything with my hands, like meat or kneading bread dough.

Everything off, including watch.

Not advisable when frying bacon.

Watches tend to not come off when I shower unless it was already off for some reason. I at least have a cleaning plan to prevent too much gunk build up. :smiley:

In the brief interlude where I had a wedding ring it came off regularly. I was more concerned with losing or flaying my finger when doing any kind of physical work than gunk. It came off in those situation too though.

I wear a wedding ring and a watch. I take both off when I cook. This is partly to keep them from getting gunked up with food, and partly because I usually end up washing some dishes or my hands while I’m cooking and I don’t want my watch to get wet or my ring to slip off.

Well, now I feel gross, but no, I don’t take my rings off. Doesn’t really occur to me. I wash my hands, including my rings, but I don’t take them off. I do take off bracelets, on the rare times I’m wearing one, because the bracelets I wear tend to be the bangle kind that would slip down around my hand and be really annoying while I’m mixing something.

The only time I take the rings off is if I’m doing wound care or placing an IV or something else that needs to be sterile. It’s too tricky to put sterile gloves over rings, and changing them out if they rip is a pain in the ass.

I never used to take my rings off because I just had a gold band and a diamond solitaire, so they were very easy to clean. They also got tighter and harder to remove after many years. Now I have a more detailed ring that comes off for putting on lotion, mixing meatloaf, or anything gross and/or dirty. It’s just easier to remove it than try to clean out old crud.

Perfectly fine as long as you have protection!

Rings off if I’m mixing something by hand (meatloaf, burgers, some kind of stuffing).

I’m both a construction worker and a frequent handler of raw meat, so I tend to not wear a lot of jewelry. If I remember to, I’ll slip on a ring signifying my marital status before I leave the house, but as soon as I get home, all jewelry and most of my clothes come off.

I never wore any kind of jewelry till I got married. I had my wedding ring, and it got caught on a couple of things while working on cars and shit. Nearly took my damn finger off while carrying a real heavy steel beam. I always took it off when mixing meat for meatloaf or hamburgers and hung it on the fridge. A while ago I just never put it back on. Wife hates me anyway, so what difference does it make?

But yeah. Take that shit off if your hands are in food. That is just nasty! There is a term “Ring Cheese” for a reason. Actually, two. You didn’t hear it here.

Yes. Because my rings have to be bigger than necessary to fit over my knuckles, so they can sometimes fall off.

I never cook rings, watches or bracelets.

OK, yes, I take them off, because the next thing I do (before handling food) is scrub up - probably not as diligently as a surgeon would, but I scrub a little more thoroughly than I do, say, after going to the loo.

I don’t take most of my rings off, ever. The exception is a couple of really fancy rings that I only wear for very special occasions. So otherwise I’ve got three not terribly fancy silver rings. Always on.

I take my watch off for showering and swimming, but otherwise wear it.

If I were wearing a bracelet I’d probably take it off before cooking, especially getting my hands in messy stuff or kneading dough (which can be messy although not as messy as meatloaf).

These rings aren’t going to fall off and they aren’t really wide enough to get stuff stuck under them. If I took these rings off every time I washed my hands, I’d have lost them ages ago.