I love candy apples, but I saw on the package it says to refrigerate after buying. I didn’t know why, so looking online I saw that candy apples can develop Listeriabacteria growth if left at room temperature because the stick creates a breeding ground.
But for examples, I’ve always heard not to eat raw eggs due to Salmonella. But only 1 in 20,000 eggs is infected with salmonella. Supposedly most pigs don’t carry trichina worms, so even if they are undercooked you probably won’t get an infection.
Meanwhile the majority of chickens have Campylobacter and lots have salmonella.
So yeah, the odds of getting sick from eating raw eggs are low, the odds of getting sick from eating raw chicken is high. But as a society we treat them all the same as foods you must store and prepare a certain way to avoid getting sick.
So as far as the candy apple issue, is it a real risk of illness, or is it one of those 1 in 10,000 risks? Refrigerated candy apples are hard as rocks, and I’d rather leave them at room temperature.
I don’t know, and I don’t like candy apples, so I’m not going to research it. But I thought I’d comment on some of your other points:
I like undercooked eggs, and routinely eat them. Every other first world country has kept it’s egg supply clean, and I’m not sure why the US hasn’t, but I’m glad to see it’s not just that I’ve gotten lucky, and that raw eggs aren’t all that dangerous.
Trichinosis used to be a much more common problem than it is today. We HAVE cleaned up the pork supply. Animals get trichinosis from eating the meat of an infected animal. Meat (including table scraps) fed to hogs must be cooked in the US, or the meat can’t legally be sold. This means that commercially available pork in the US is extremely unlikely to carry trichinosis.