MINNEAPOLIS, March 19, 2008—Minnesota made the list of states that are most dangerous for eating out. The top five, according to federal data, are Florida, California, Minnesota, Ohio, and New York.

Restaurants in these five states spread bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella, making nearly 3,000 customers sick and putting 65 in the hospital, says an article at HealthInspections.com, an online, non-governmental source for information on food poisonings.

April Bogard, a manager in the Minnesiota Department Health's environmental health division, conceded that the outbreaks occurred, but that suggested that ranking number three means the state is doing its job and looking for problems.

"Minnesota has one of the best food-borne surveillance systems in the country," Bogard said. The agency's Foodborne Illness Hotline received over 2,000 citizen phone calls in 2007. And getting reports is a good thing.

Bogard also suggested there may be a better way to present food contamination data than with the raw number of outbreaks.

HealthInspections.com analyzed data from the Centers For Disease Control to obtain the rankings. Here are the top five states, with the number of outbreaks reported in 2006:

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

Altogether, 46 states experienced fewer disease outbreaks from restaurant food than Minnesota.

Not every Minnesota outbreak resulted in a proven cause, but the most common culprits for poisonings in 2006 in the state were seafood, lettuce-based salads, and deli sandwiches.

Minnesota led the nation in outbreaks of Norovirus from restaurants in 2006.  The state had 35 outbreaks of Norovirus in 2006, making 500 restaurant customers sick. In 2005 the state had only 14 outbreaks in restaurants of Norovirus.

In one case, in May of 2006, at least 60 people got sick after eating salad that was contaminated by the virus. It is likely that an infected worker spread the virus by handling the lettuce, possibly without having washed his hands.

HealthInspections.com criticized Minnesota because the public here does not have online access to restaurant inspection reports.

In addition, some food safety experts have criticized Minnesota for lax enforcement of restaurant regulations, saying Minnesota inspectors "often view themselves as teachers rather than enforcers." according to HealthInspections.com.

Nationwide, restaurants caused at least 605 outbreaks of food poisoning in 2006, compared to 532 outbreaks in 2005.

Environmental causes for outbreaks included employees not washing, employees not changing dirty gloves, using dirty wiping cloths on tables and counter tops, ice machine contaminations, and dirty soft drink nozzles.