Eating out and E. Coli versus playing it safe and cooking at home

[EvilCookie]

Meh. I'm completely paranoid when it comes to gastro-intestinal anything - the mere thought sends me into hyperventilating panic. And yet I don't have a problem with eating out. If anything, I worry more when I'm the one cooking, always thinking maybe I didn't clean well enough or a splashed drop of meat juice ended up cross-contaminating something etc. Restaurants have strict protocols they follow, health inspections, and they stand to get a lot of people sick and lose a lot of business from a single incident so their procedures are very strict. Of course I'm talking about good restaurants - I only eat at places that are very popular, high turnover and good food, doesn't mean expensive btw, but no sketchy taco trucks in the alley or empty Asian places that look like a front for human trafficking (seriously, a Thai place we saw last week, were looking for a place to eat and decided to stay away). As a rule I stay away from buffets, especially Asian ones with raw fish, and while I'll have the occasional spicy tuna roll, I tend to be very careful about raw fish and I don't like rare meat or oysters so that's not an issue.

The food recalls scare me a lot more than restaurants; last two with nectarines and peanut/almond butter were very close calls as we had some nectarines and TJ's almond butter and a different brand PB in our fridge that we have eaten, including my 4 yo - luckily they all ended up being not included in the recalls. But it really freaked me out - and this is something that simply should not be happening in commercial food production. In that vein, I'll trust a reputable small local restaurant far over a major chain - the restaurant owner has much more to lose and will likely have a lot more responsibility in his actions. The major corporations have these recalls and major outbreaks with fatalities happen, and go about their business, there are never any consequences for them...The salmonella in PB is apparently from rat droppings as rats and mice are typically around (and in) our peanut butter...bon appetit....

[shadowfax]

After working in the food industry for over 15 years I have no fears about eating out. Really most places are very very careful about what they serve. However my one reservation is Buffets. I try to avoid them. Not because of food safety on the restaurant's side of things but because the customers are disgusting. For example I have walked out of a restroom bathroom behind a guest who dd not wash her hands and proceeded directly to the food and handled it with her bare hands, instructing her child to do this as well because using the utensils provided was too much work.