I spent my first 3 weeks of culinary school taking Safety and Sanitation (and am now ServSafe Certified, thank you very much). The big thing to keep in mind is that licking spoons and dropping foods isn't really too bad from a health perspective. (I'm not saying it's good, mind you.) But cool down a pot of rice wrong and you can actually create a salmonella factory.

After that class, I'm amazed more people aren't dead from food-borne something or other.