BLOOMINGTON - When you're talking with a food sanitarian who inspects restaurants, there are some questions you just have to ask. Here are some questions posed by The Pantagraph and the responses by Larry Carius.

Are restaurants more or less safe from a food safety standpoint than when you started 40 years ago?

"Restaurants definitely are safer now," Carius said.

When Carius started, equipment was harder to clean compared with today's equipment. Cockroach and rodent problems were more prevalent.

"Forty years ago, you were lucky if there was one hand-washing sink in the kitchen. Now there are multiple hand-washing sinks."

Improvements have been made as the industry has grown.

"When I started, there were 14 chain restaurants in all of Bloomington-Normal. Now we have 16 Subways in Bloomington-Normal alone."

What types of restaurants are less safe?

There is no simple answer to that question, Carius said.

"The cleanest, most well-run restaurant can cause a foodborne illness if a mistake is made on a particular day," he said. "And safe food can be prepared in a dirty restaurant."

Generally speaking, full-service restaurants pose a higher risk because of the variety of foods stored and prepared and because of all the cooling and reheating of food, Carius said.

"The more the food is handled, the greater the opportunity for something to go wrong," he said. That's why full-service restaurants are inspected more frequently than sandwich shops.

The stereotype that buffet restaurants pose the highest risk is not true. "Statistically, buffets are no more unsafe than other operations," Carius said. "If they are managed properly, they're fine."

Fast food restaurants are generally safe from a food safety standpoint because single-serve meals are prepared and anything that isn't consumed is thrown out.

What types of foods are safer?

That depends on each restaurant operation. Some health professionals used to say that produce was safer, but outbreaks of foodborne illnesses in recent years have included tomatoes, peppers and spinach.

How do you know when you walk into a restaurant that the food is safe?

You generally can't tell when you walk in and that's why the county conducts inspections.

You may look for the county food permit but some restaurants don't have it displayed. So Carius has one piece of helpful advice: check out the restroom.

"The restroom will tell you what the restaurant owner thinks of his guests," Carius said. "If the restroom is in bad shape, then probably the kitchen is not any better."

Is it safer for us to eat at home?

"The statistics show us that it's 50-50 whether it's safer to eat at home or at a restaurant," Carius said. While some people think it's safer to eat at home, they may be guilty of using a contaminated surface to cut produce and meat, not heating food to a high enough temperature, or not cleaning plates properly.

How did my favorite restaurant fare in its latest inspection?

Go to www.mcleancountyil.gov and click on the restaurant inspection scores. You can get a list of the county's restaurants and how they have performed in recent inspections.