What are you talking about? Of course someone can do that, be it a restaurant meal or food purchased at the store. Food-bourne illnesses are often caused by food that tastes normal and fine.
The food companies that had tainted products publicly recalled the tainted items. Legally, they don't even have to do such a thing. All of those tainted products have been pulled from the shelves of stores. If a store doesn't abide by the recall and someone gets sick from eating tainted food, you can't sue the food company. You can sue the store, but not the food company. Well, technically you can sue the food company, but you're not going to really get anywhere.
Now, if you happen to eat tainted food
before it is recalled, you
can sue, but chances are, you won't win. Why? Because, you would have to prove that the food you ate was tainted. In order to do that, you'd have to provide a sample. In most cases of foodborne illnesses, there isn't a sample to be taken, as the food has already been eaten.
Also, even if you can provide a sample of tainted food, you would still have to prove that you ate it. There are a ton of lawsuits where people falsely claim that they have eaten bad food and they try to sue food companies to get money. Most food companies will usually settle (to avoid a bad public image) but those cases are almost never won by the suing party.
How can you prove that you ate tainted peanut butter? How can you prove that you got sick from said peanut butter? It's damn near impossible.
:2 cents:
And how many of us (who haven't been to Gitmo) have eaten anything unwillingly? I hope none.
While I still played baseball, I used to swallow a lot of dirt. Does that count?
:dunno: