We judge the safety of food by its taste, smell, and appearance not realizing that food can, look, taste and smell fine and still be harmful to ingest. We assume that the last thing we ate made us sick, not realizing that it can take a few days or even a few weeks for symptoms to manifest.

Here is a telling story: When I worked in retail food sanitation, the local health dept. made an effort every once in a while to educate the 300+ establishments in our county. We held several sessions over the course of a few days. One restaurant owner, who was Servsafe certified and claimed to be quite knowledgeable about food safety, kept derailing our presentation with his statements about the federal authorities allowing so many insect parts into canned vegetables etc. Even with all of his "education," that man was focused on obvious dirt and vermin, rather than the microscopic bacteria and viruses that are responsible for those 76 million illnesses per year.

People, whether they are in the food industry or are ordinary consumers, just don't get it when it comes to food safety, and they likely never will.