I've gotten food poisoning from eating at NYC restaurants several
times. No, they weren't dives either.

Unpasturized products are dangerous to babies and older people, who are
more susceptible. Remember the Odwalla juice problem a few years ago?
We do pasturize for a reason.

I think now that meats/poultry are raised less locally on a larger
scale, there is more danger of food contamination. We ship lots of
food products long distances now too.

Also, I know in NY there are some shady dealings that go on with some
stores sometimes with expiration dates being altered. And if you
aren't one to check expiration dates, there are stores that don't
routinely remove older products.

It does seem to me that people can get over-obsessed. Like with the
anti-bacterial cleaning product craze. Bacteria becomes more resistant
with those products. The truth is in most instances hot water and soap
are preferable. Common sense with where you place your raw and cooked
meats is a much better answer, to my mind.

I think the prevalence of pre-prepared foods makes it easier for people
to become distanced from what really is safe and not safe to eat. I
remember watching a show of one of those historical re-enactments of a
medieval village. The group pit roasted some type of animal, and they
all got food poisoning because it was too raw. It just struck me that
if it was so raw they all got sick, they couldn't tell that by looking
at the meat?

My dad had a garden in the backyard when we were growing up. We had
mostly tomatoes and zucchini, etc. We kids thought it was gross to eat
food that had been in the dirt! ha ha. I can't believe that when I
think about it now. I guess the grocery store produce section looked
so clean and neat, we didn't think about where *that* came from.