Random Grossest Things About Eating at a Buffet (11 items)

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  (#3) The Food Can Sit There for Hours

   

  Timing is everything when hitting up a buffet. Regardless of the food quality, fresh and piping hot food is certainly more appealing than the alternative. Ideally, you want to get there within 30 minutes of the buffet opening. If you wait until just before the buffet closes, the food could easily have been sitting for hours. 

  The other problem is that food can sit for hours before it even gets to the buffet serving stations. For instance, a manager was fired from a Golden Corral when a video emerged showing raw steak being stored outside by the dumpsters.

   
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  (#11) Buffets Are a Paradise of Gluttony

  Restaurant portions are already bigger than the average, but allow for some semblance of portion control. The food is served, the food is eaten, and the meal is over. With a buffet, however, you can keep going back over and over again. A 2006 study looked at the habits of people who eat more than usual at buffets and noted that seemingly simple choices like sitting at a table rather than a booth and facing toward the buffet instead of away make overeating more likely. 
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  (#8) People Don't Wash Their Hands

  There are almost always signs in restrooms attached to food establishments instructing employees to wash their hands before returning to work. This is obviously critical all the time, but especially so at a buffet where so many different people handle each item.

  The bigger issue, though, might be that people don't tend to wash their hands as soon as they get to a restaurant. And if they do, they likely aren't doing so effectively. Research shows that as many as 95% of Americans do not wash their hands properly. This means that numerous bacteria-laden hands may be touching buffet utensils, plates and more. 
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  (#6) You Have No Idea if the Buffet Is Up to Code

  There is a lot of trust involved when eating at a buffet. You have to trust that the restaurant adheres to the rules of local health ordinances and that items are properly cleaned and prepped to minimize risk and exposure to bacteria and other germs. Some locales grade restaurants on their adherence to food regulations and require that grade be posted within five feet of the restaurant's entrance, but many others do not. Check out this run-down of health codes by state, so you know the rules wherever you may live. 
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  (#2) Food Is Often Kept at the Wrong Temperature

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains strict guidelines on food temperatures to guard against illness. The FDA advises hot food be kept and served at a temperature of at least 140 degrees or more. When you consider some buffet warmers are designed to keep the food at 110-120 degrees, you see how you might fall victim to a buffet without even realizing it. 
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  (#5) Food Poisoning Is a Real Possibility

  Food poisoning at buffets may happen in two ways. First, there are those cases of mass outbreaks. This can occur when an entire buffet, or section of a buffet, has been contaminated and numerous people contract a food-borne illness. These cases tend to make a pretty big splash and are fairly easy to track. Alternatively, individual outbreaks tend to be quieter affairs. Consider this: one in six Americans will get food poisoning at some point in their lives, and with $1.5 billion spent at buffets in 2005 alone, they are definitely a prime culprit. 

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