G-Benz your experience sounds scary. But to me what's real scary is you have no way of being 100% sure the deli food caused the illness. You will probably avoid the deli food because of the feeling in your bones, but go on eating some other food that may be the real cause of the illness.

I read that most people in the USA have food poisoning a couple of times a year, but just write it off as being the flu or some other illness.

Another interesting fact----England has the highest number of food-born illnesses in Europe.

Kuan, your news about staph and salad bars is discouraging. Is there any way of telling a salad bar is safe or unsafe? Are there any foods to avoid at the salad bar?

Kuan, what about those prepared salads fromt he supermarket, are they safe? Is it necessary to rinse iceberg lettuce before using ? Rinsing just seems to make the salad watery even if you dry it afterwards and I'm not sure what germs a simple rinsing is going get rid of. I know in Mexico they rinse certain fresh veggies in iodine to kill germs, now that seems like it'd work