It shows which fast-food chains had the best and worst inspection scores (Starbucks had the best overall and Hogi Yogi the lowest). Reports also allowed comparisons among different types of ethnic food establishments. (Indian restaurants had the best scores, and Vietnamese the lowest.)

The health department does not routinely make such inspection data public, so few consumers are likely to have any idea of how clean — or dirty — the restaurants they visit are. In fact, even if residents report that a restaurant's food may have made them sick, the health department will not share results of investigations with them unless they file a formal request under the Government Records Access Management Act.

Even so, inspectors and industry spokesmen say the lion's share of restaurants do a good job, are safe and tend to quickly try to address any problems that inspectors find.

Serious violations?

Ron Lund, environmental health supervisor for the health department, says just one "critical violation" is serious— and may be too many.

"It depends on which critical violation it is," he said. Among those that are most serious and too common are "not washing hands, bare-hand contact with (ready to serve) food and ill employees who are at work."

But, he said, a few other "critical" violations do not pose as much immediate danger for health. "For example, it is a critical violation to fix plumbing with duct tape. Plumbing being repaired properly is considered critical but probably doesn't present a real food safety hazard. It's more of an operational hazard."

Morning News analysis shows that some of the most common violations of any type found in Salt Lake County are also some of the most critical and serious.

The most common violation of any type, cited 5,739 times over the two years, was the "critical" violation of using unclean equipment "such as pots and pans or utensils," Lund said.

Other often-cited "critical" violations include:

• Failure to keep cold foods at temperatures below 41 degrees and hot foods hotter than 135 degrees. Such violations were found 4,111 times.

• Improper segregation of stored foods. Lund said that includes such things as "storing raw meats over ready-to-eat foods or chicken over fish." It was found 1,988 times.

• Storing toxic chemicals too near food, found 1,770 times.

• Food handlers eating, drinking or smoking improperly around foods, cited 1,734 times.

• Contamination of food by employee hands, found 1,067 times. (Ready-to-eat food can be touched only by utensils, or hands gloved or similarly protected, Lund said.)