The best way to decide if a food is safe to eat is to taste it. That belief, and others like it, focus our thoughts on food safety. Check your food safety savvy against the statements that follow.
Many people think a food is safe to eat if it tastes, smells or looks all right.
You can't always rely on your sense of taste, smell or sight to determine if a food is safe. Taking even a tiny bite to test the safety of a questionable food can be dangerous. For some food-borne illnesses, such as botulism, eating just a small amount of a contaminated food can be fatal. Many incidents of food-borne illness went undetected in the past. Also, both the nature of our food supply and the virulence of food-borne pathogens has changed.