14 Foods You Should Completely Avoid at a Buffet
Who doesn’t love a good buffet? With fixed prices and the freedom to pile your plate high with as much food as you want, they can offer great value for your money.
Americans with big appetites love the buffet concept, and restaurants often lose money with those folks. On the other hand, light eaters like myself are more the target audience. We pay the set price and hardly eat anything, relatively speaking, resulting in a positive cash flow for the restaurant.
However, buffet-style dining has been losing the popularity contest for a while now for various reasons. The most notable ones are questionable sanitation and rampant food-borne illnesses that can be spread from, well, a buffet restaurant’s spread.
1: Cantaloupe
Buffet food isn’t always the healthiest, so seeking out fruits and veggies makes sense if you’re trying to eat a well-balanced meal. However, cantaloupe is one fruit that should be avoided. Melons, in general, are known to harbor bacteria.
Other fruits have enough acidity to protect you from those nasty bugs, but cantaloupe does not. According to a Food Handler Food Safety Course, cantaloupe grows bacteria quickly and will go bad if the restaurant does not correctly store and replace it promptly.
2: Raw Seafood
Avoid raw seafood, especially oysters, at all costs at an all-you-can-eat buffet. If these delicacies are not correctly handled and stored, they develop bacteria that can make you very ill. I got salmonella from bad mussels once. Trust me, you don’t want it.
Individuals with certain pre-existing conditions and compromised immune systems are also advised not to eat raw seafood. The Virginia Department of Health states, “Shellfish might be harvested from water that naturally contains bacteria that can make people ill or water that has been contaminated by bacteria, parasites, or viruses from the feces (stool) of people or animals.”
3: Lemon Wedges
Lemon water might be one of my favorite drinks during the hot summer, but experts advise avoiding these citrus wedges at a buffet. Studies conducted in the past show that lemon wedges often contain a high percentage of microbes on their rinds and flesh. Or, worst-case scenario, both the rinds and flesh.
Often, lemons are sliced on a shared cutting board and with a shared knife, which can result in cross-contamination. It’s best to forego the citrus-infused water while dining at a buffet and save it for home.
4: Sushi
Buffet sushi might be your best bet if your goal is to catch a food-borne illness. Everyone always jokes about “gas station sushi,” but there’s truth to avoiding cheap or poorly handled raw fish that comes in those cute little rolls and packaging.
According to the USDA, raw food of animal origin, including shellfish and seafood, is most likely to be contaminated and should be avoided. Eating cooked meat will greatly decrease your chance of becoming ill and save you a trip to urgent care.
5: Food That Shares a Utensil
If you have dietary restrictions or allergies to certain foods, it is best to avoid buffets altogether. The utensils used on the buffet line will invariably cause cross-contamination. If the individual dishes don’t have their own pair of tongs or spoons for serving, customers will use what is provided.
If the utensil has fallen into the dish and has food on the handle, request new ones from the staff rather than using what is available. Too many gross things happen at a buffet for you to take unnecessary risks and fall sick.
6: Salty Foods
The higher your salt intake, the more dehydrated you become, which results in drinking more liquids, according to a study conducted by Nutrients. A higher intake of water or soda will suppress your appetite, which means you eat less. So, if your goal is to eat as much as possible during your buffet outing, avoid eating salty foods.
Putting out salty foods at a buffet is a perfect scenario for a restaurant that’s trying to make money off of you eating less than what the food cost them to make. Besides, we all know how disappointed you’ll be by those soggy, limp fries.
7: High-Carb Dishes
Buffet managers have mastered the art of monetizing their food selection. It is not uncommon for high-carb entrees, like mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, to be at the beginning of the buffet, ensuring customers load up on those items first.
According to Marketplace, buffets also like to use big spoons for high-carb dishes to trick customers into eating more of them. At the same time, the more expensive items are served from smaller plates or cut into individual slices by staff. If you fill up on carbohydrates first, you’ll eat less, which means more money in the restaurant’s pocket.
8: Scrambled Eggs
I hate to break it to you, but those scrambled eggs at the breakfast buffet are not freshly cracked eggs. Instead, they’re powdered egg substitutes. The nutritional value of powdered eggs is about the same as the real thing, but the consistency is different. Powdered eggs have a more sponge-like texture and a longer shelf life than fresh eggs.
If you really want eggs and the option is available, visit the omelet-making station instead and witness the eggs being cracked just for you. At least then, you know the eggs haven’t been sitting there for hours.
9: Dairy-Based Dressings
If you want to avoid contracting a foodborne illness, it’s best only to eat acid-based salad dressings, such as balsamic vinaigrette, and steer clear of dairy-based dressings like Thousand Island. There’s a reason why dressings made with dairy require refrigeration upon opening, and if the buffet you’re dining at doesn’t correctly store them, you run the risk of exposure to a nasty bug.
According to Eat Pallet, if cream-based dressings are left out for more than two hours, bacteria will begin to grow, which can lead to food poisoning. Additionally, leaving dressing out on a buffet can result in fellow buffet goers dipping their fingers into the containers, touching the spoons to their dirty plates, or any other offense that could cause exposure.
10: Salad Greens
When you head to an all-you-can-eat buffet, you might want to be at least somewhat healthy and select vegetables or a salad to enjoy alongside all the other cheesy and fried goodness. However, one of the main culprits of the spread of bacteria is poorly washed greens like romaine lettuce and baby spinach.
Salad greens grow in damp soil and can become contaminated with E. Coli, salmonella, Listeria, and cryptosporidium. Since salad greens are served raw, heat isn’t an option to remove the bacteria during the cooking process, and it can cause serious food poisoning.
11: Deep-Fried Foods
No one wants to eat limp fried chicken and mushy egg rolls. Unless you’re hitting a buffet right as the doors open, the fried food selection will most likely be soggy and limp. The reason? Fried food often sits under a heat lamp for hours, and the steam causes condensation to affect the batter.
Although the chances of getting sick from fried buffet food are slim, do you really want to subject yourself to a less-than-stellar texture, especially when you can enjoy something baked or steamed instead?
12: Breads
Like other high-carb dishes offered, eating a lot of bread from a buffet will fill you up with wasted calories. Buffet managers are strategic about laying out the fare, often placing bread and other carb-heavy dishes at the front of the line. Be aware of this layout and make a wise game plan when tackling the buffet.
Speaking of a game plan, Marketplace talked to an experienced buffet eater who shared some great tips on how to proceed. Our favorite is not to take breaks. If you do so, your body will have time to realize your stomach is full.
13: Tuna Fish Salad
To this day, my older sister refuses to eat tuna fish salad because she got seriously ill from eating it at a buffet when she was nine years old. She was always a selective eater, so the tuna fish seemed safe, but unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Nutritionist Rene Ficek explained to The Healthy that tuna has to be kept colder than other types of fish. Leaving it out on a buffet line is risky, as it has a higher chance of growing bacteria that can cause scombroid fish poisoning. Scombroid poisoning, or histamine poisoning, is a syndrome akin to an allergic reaction, with symptoms of tingling and burning around the mouth, nausea, sweating, and vomiting.
14: Pudding or Custard
Per Pink Floyd, “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding.” But do you really want to eat pudding or custard from a buffet? Often, puddings and custards are prepared with raw or lightly cooked eggs, so you risk exposing yourself to salmonella.
The FDA advises pregnant people and those with compromised immune systems to avoid any dish that might contain raw or undercooked eggs. Additionally, because these desserts are often made with milk and eggs, they should be refrigerated and never left out for more than three hours. I don’t know about you, but I’m not comfortable trusting establishments to adhere to this rule.
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