Poll: Consumers think food in stores safe

PRINCETON, N.J., July 22 (UPI) -- Most U.S. residents say they're as confident as they were last year that food in U.S. grocery stores is safe to eat, a Gallup Poll released Tuesday indicates.

Despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's problems in determining the source of a salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1,100 people, pollsters said they found consumers weren't more concerned about food safety than they were a year ago, but slightly less confident than at other times in the last decade.

Based on results, consumer confidence overall hasn't recovered from two highly-publicized outbreaks in 2006 involving E. coli in bagged spinach and salmonella in peanut butter, and several food recalls in 2007, pollsters said.

About 60 percent of U.S. residents reported avoiding certain foods or brands because of government food safety advisories or product recalls, a number that has remained stable in a year-over-year comparison, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said. Thirty-three percent said they tossed food or returned it to the store while 25 percent said they worried about having eaten something contaminated.

Results are based on telephone interviews July 10-13 with 1,016 adults. The margin of error of the poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.