I've never heard that food poisoning thing. I read it was to hold in the juices as with normal browning. That might have been the case with the old slow cookers that only heated up on the bottom but these days they cook around the sides too. So it'd be pretty hard to get food poisoning from a SC. I even use frozen meats in there and it works fine. It's hot and completely cooked through - thats what stops food poisoning.