Fruits and vegetables don’t have the same defense mechanisms that animals do so they can be more dangerous but I think it depends on a lot of factors like nearb

Fruits and vegetables don’t have the same defense mechanisms that animals do so they can be more dangerous but I think it depends on a lot of factors like nearby animal farms and the regulatory landscape. It’s easier to enforce sanitary conditions at a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant so the meat doesn’t get contaminated than it is to wash every bacteria colony off of all our produce. The animal’s immune system protects the inside until it gets slaughtered, which isn’t practical for most produce which has exposed surfaces. The plants get sanitized regularly with cleaning chemicals made to kill everything and have to adjust the frequency based on the number of animals slaughtered. IIRC doing the cleaning procedure more than once a day is not unusual for a large slaughterhouse. You just can’t get that kind of cleanliness from the entire produce supply chain, especially when it’s not plastic wrapped like meat. Undercooked meat also tends to have a much smaller blast radius like a restaurant, whereas an e-coli outbreak can contaminate produce that goes out to a large number of grocery stores and customers.