HealthInspections.com has, based on data from the U.S. Centers For Disease Control, determined that restaurants in  Florida, California, Minnesota, Ohio, and New York were responsible for the most number of outbreaks in 2006.

1. Florida            74 outbreaks
2. California       69 outbreaks
3. Minnesota      55 outbreaks
4. Ohio               54 outbreaks
5. New York      50 outbreaks

Across the country, restaurants were responsible for at least 605 outbreaks of food poisoning in 2006, compared to 532 outbreaks in 2005.

I’m not sure what the numbers actually mean.  Fodborne illness is notoriously underreported, and some state and local health departments are better than others in following up and tracking down where and how people get sick.

Further, the numbers are simply counts, and do not account for the number of restaurants in a state, or even better, the number of meals consumed at a restaurant in a state in a year. What about food service? Are those meals included or not?

Fun with lists.