Happy fall, Feasters! It’s that time of the year when family gatherings occur more frequently and love is spread through shared food. However, love isn’t the only thing that spreads when groups of people self-serve at gatherings.
Buffets. Most people have eaten from them, and many even enjoy them. In theory, they’re a great idea. They provide different food options for the most picky eaters to the most adventurous; they’re self-serve, allowing people to choose their portions; and they’re typically all-you-can-eat.
What many people fail to recognize, though, is that germs and bacterias are easily spread when the same serving utensils are shared and the food is unprotected.
According to Katherine Martinko in “Buffets Are Back, but So Are the Risks—Here Are 5 Things to Avoid,” foods, such as uncooked greens, sea food, cantaloupe, and lemon slices, should be avoided at all costs.
“Avoid uncooked greens like romaine, bean sprouts, and spinach, which are sometimes contaminated with E. coli,” Martinko recommends. “Sushi, tuna, and raw oysters are risky, as is cantaloupe, which oddly has a surface more conducive to salmonella than other fruits. Lemon slices are also a bacteria magnet.”
It’s incredibly difficult to regulate temperatures in a buffet. Even with ice underneath, food still runs the risk of spoiling due to how quickly the ice melts and the high temperature created by the amount of people in the room. This also ties into how bacteria is grown, as bacteria thrives in warm, moist environments.
Another con to buffets is the shared serving utensils. We, as humans, naturally carry germs on our skin, especially on our palms. Most people don’t think to use hand sanitizer or wash their hands before touching a public tool, leading to the spread of germs through this shared item. You never know where someone’s hands have been, yet many people disregard that lack of knowledge then end up sick.
The final and most overlooked way of contracting illness from a buffet is through contaminated food.
Jon Cooper addresses this danger in the article “Germiest Things in Restaurants,” saying, “One big issue is that people breathe on food or touch it and the serving utensils while in the line.”
Germs spread by touch are bad enough, but air-borne viruses are even easier to spread and catch. They’re also less preventable than viruses spread by touch.
When debating whether it’s safe to eat food at a buffet, Cooper suggests to, “Look for a “sneeze guard” — the little glass windows above the food. They help keep germs away.”
These glass windows act as barriers for the food, blocking contaminants from reaching it. Even with this protection, people still have to lift the window to get to the food, leaving plenty of space for contaminants to enter, even in the span of a few seconds.
In general, I recommend staying away from buffets. No matter how many precautions are taken to avoid contamination, there is always a high risk when large groups of people are involved and utensils are shared. As great as the food is, I’ll, personally, be picking the from-the-kitchen option rather than catch every disease under the sun, even if that means missing out on the delicious strawberry muffins at Eat’n Park’s salad bar.
