Tongs

There are times when you might not want to pick things up with your hands. In the kitchen, you'll use your hands for many many tasks, but sometimes they're not appropriate. Aside from items which are too liquid, the most obvious class of things to avoid using your hands on are things which are burning hot. After all, many of you will cook meat, and your hands are made of meat, so it stands to reason that you will not want to touch things that are at meat-cooking-temperature with your hands of meat.

Depending on the item you're touching, you might want to use a towel, a dry towel, to insulate your cookable hands. You could also consider a pot holder or similar. However for some, shall we say "juicy" or at least wet items, you should consider using tongs. They're inexpensive, and they are useful in hundreds of day-to-day situations in the normal home cook's life. It's a rare day that goes by when I don't dirty some tongs, so consider keeping a couplefew pairs around, and save your hands some unintended cooking.