If You Spot This Seafood Buffet Red Flag, Get Out Fast
With any restaurant or dining option, it's as important as ever to consider the health and safety. This is particularly true when dining at a seafood buffet, because seafood is prone to a wide array of foodborne illnesses. Luckily, most can be avoided with proper handling, preparation, and cooking, but if you're eating somewhere that isn't following basic health and safety rules, you may be at risk.
While dining somewhere well regarded and highly rated can help, it's not a foolproof way to avoid food poisoning. Unfortunately, even the fanciest of seafood buffets can suffer from a common red flag: visible cross contamination.
Of course, this is an issue that can occur at any restaurant — not just buffets, and not even just with seafood. But according to Dr. Naheed Ali, health expert, physician, and senior contributor at Vera Clinic, cross-contamination at a seafood buffet is especially important to look for, and if you see it, you should head elsewhere.
What is cross-contamination, and why is it a problem?
To understand why cross-contamination is a problem, it's important to know what it is, especially because you're just at risk of doing it at home. Essentially, cross-contamination is when bacteria from one food item is transferred to another, and in a kitchen or food prep area, it commonly comes down to how raw food is handled alongside cooked food.
In a seafood buffet, this can happen if both raw and hot dishes are handled, stored, or displayed together. "If you see visible cross contamination (i.e., raw fish with cooked fish and vice versa with shared utensils), I would leave right away because those are clear indications of improper food safety techniques," says Dr. Ali.
Of course, if you love a seafood buffet experience, you don't need to be terrified of leaving with food poisoning. You just need to go in with your eyes wide open, and be ready to pivot to a different restaurant if needed. Unfortunately, if a professional staff can't be trusted to keep their buffet standards high, it's best to be better safe than sorry.