Going out to eat is a luxury we enjoy every now and then – while most of us do it to eat the cuisines that we do not usually eat at home, restaurants play this to their advantage and quite often serve things that we shouldn’t be eating.
Find out below the list of food items you should never order at restaurants:
#1. Leafy salads
Most leafy vegetables in restaurants are kept frozen, and just barely washed before they serve it to you. Germs can easily hide in the cracks, corners, and edges of these leaves. And the salad is served wet with a warm dressing or mayonnaise – which makes your salad a fertile breeding ground for germs.
#2. The restaurant’s “best-sellers”
Since the bestsellers are always in high demand, the restaurants keep the ingredients prepared beforehand and use the pre-made stuff to just quickly assemble your food when you order it. It applies not only to burgers but most of the Chinese and Italian cuisine such as noodles and pasta as well.
Instead, you should order something not on the best-selling list – it will be most likely prepared fresh.
#3. Free snacks at a bar
Any snacks offered for free by restaurants and bars are usually bought or prepared in stock, but that’s not the bad part. The bad part is that they don’t offer a fresh serving for new customers – but rather recycle the old plates and bowls, many times they just top-up the leftovers from one table and shift it to a new table.
#4. Meat with bones in it
Pieces of meat with bones inside them are harder to cook and take much longer to cook – and result is often that insides of the meat is left raw while the outer layer gets charred.
Eating undercooked pork and chicken makes your prone to several illnesses as the raw meat of these animals contain several pathogens – according to Center of Disease Control and Prevention, USA.
#5. “Today’s specials”
Always watch out for expensive ingredients and meats when they are served as “today’s specials” at a lower price than usual. In most cases they are leftover ingredients and stale meat from previous day, which the restaurants use as next day’s “specials” by adding sauce, salt and other spices to enhance the flavour.
#6. Seafood from “exotic” places
Chances that your Hawaiian trout and your Japanese salmon are not really from these places as the restaurant is advertising. Most of the seafood that is branded as “imported” is either locally grown or harvested from nearest shores and fish farms. Not that it makes much of a difference in terms of taste or flavour, but you will be charged an outrageous amount for the items that are not from where you think.
#7. Ice cream
Unless the restaurant is serving some special or exotic ice cream, it makes no sense to order the common flavours of ice cream at a restaurant. The restaurants charge a humongous amount of money for the same flavours and brands that you can easily get outside at a reasonable price.
#8. Pizza
The rule here is the same as the rule with ice creams – don’t order pizza from a place that isn’t particularly known for its exotic or unique flavours. There is no point in ordering pizza from a place that isn’t a pizzeria, since they just heat their pizza stock from the frozen foods section.
As for the pizzeria, pizza is still a goldmine for them – ingredients for pizza cost less than $3 but they are sold at a price above $10. So if you’re willing to shell out, then have at it.
#9. Bread baskets
It should be quite obvious but most of the bread in restaurants is standby – just prepared in advance and kept frozen. They just warm it up for customers whenever needed – and then take the leftover bread back to storage. Remember, reusing and reheating bread several times over is not healthy at all.
Featured Image Courtesy: Pourquoi Docteur
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