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Forums: Science, Probability, Food Poisoning, Danger, Risk Aversion
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I was thinking about how many mothers warn their families not to eat the potato salad at the potluck dinner. "You don't know how long it's been sitting out, you might get food poisoning."
Yet I suspect that's not much of a risk these days as most people use pasteurized mayo out of a jar with a shelf life of several years. Yet they gobble up the green salad thinking it's healthy, but 46% of food poisoning illness and 23% of food poisoning deaths are due to eating fresh raw greens.
http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution-image.html#foodborne-illnesses
So in your own life, what are you avoiding that actually has negligible risk? And what do you do without thinking that might actually be dangerous?

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@Banana Breath,

Good question. Will be back.

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@Banana Breath,

It is not so much that the eggs are pasteurized that extends the shelf life (although that is an important step) it's that the mayo has acids added to kill bacteria and thereby extend its shelf life and really doesnt require it to be refridgerated.
One of the biggest probelems with raw veggies is e-coli.
I dont wory too much about proecessed food and only take notice if there is an alert about raw veggies.

What should occur with ALL food is that it be irradiated to kill all bacteria but the public is foolishly afraid of the technology.

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@giujohn,

I admit I'm one of the people who is resistant to irradiated food, but probably not for the reason you think. I think that allowing companies to irradiate food would make it very tempting for them to grind up the nastiest stuff you can imagine into hamburger and pink slime and sell it. You could then take beef from rather sick cattle, even with parasites and stuff and... no worries, just irradiate it and make it into school lunches.

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@Banana Breath,

Hadn't thought of that.

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@Banana Breath,

Quote:

I think that allowing companies to irradiate food would make it very tempting for them to grind up the nastiest stuff you can imagine into hamburger and pink slime and sell it. You could then take beef from rather sick cattle, even with parasites and stuff and... no worries

You'd be surprized how much of that is actually happing any how?? So...with the irradiating at least I have a better chance of not catching something!

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@giujohn,

Although they do currently use very questionable animals and whatever they think they can get away with, they fear of BEING SHUT DOWN and having a million pounds of pink slime recalled are currently what keeps them from putting the even-worse stuff in the hopper. You're happy with eating even-worse stuff, diseased beef, intestinal parasites, as long as it's irradiated. I'm not.

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@Banana Breath,

You should investigate what really happens with food investigation in the U.S.

Between 2008 and 2011, inspectors noted nearly 45,000 violations — including finding fecal matter on carcasses — but suspended operations only 28 times.

At plants that process 140 birds a minute, inspectors have less than 2 seconds with each carcass. Beef inspectors have between 6 seconds and 20 seconds, depending on which carcass part they’re inspecting at the time.

Oh and by the way...the inspectors can't see bacteria or other pathogens.

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