Are buffets inherently unsanitary?

Certainly buffets are less sanitary than, say, food from your own refrigerator (assuming your fridge is working), but not as unsanitary, I imagine, as food tray samples in a supermarket. Nonetheless, there’s never been a buffet or food sample tray I’ve ever been able to resist.

Waitpeople also shed skin cells, eyelashes, dandruff. Unless you encase yourself in a bubble, take the chance.

Think of it as an exercise in bolstering your immune system.

Yes, in general they probably are, but I agree with @gailcalled. There are enough people and things generating ooky stuff in the world that one would have to take extreme measures to avoid it all. I believe (perhaps naively by some standards) that my well-functioning immune system and some mindful behavior will take care of most of the cooties with which I come into contact.

Being “out on tables in the open air.” is not inherently unsanitary, or else we’d be walking around dropping like flies. In fact, the most sanitary way of drying pots and pans is to air dry with pots inverted rather than dry with a towel.

What would be more sanitary? As long as there are serving spoons and people aren’t using their individual utensils in a communal dish, it’ll be okay.

And cooked food does not spoil even at room temperature for several hours. I am not concerned at a house buffet at all; and restaurant buffets don’t really bother me either unless there seems something obviously icky. I am of the strong immune system persuasion too.

I would say that they are inherently “riskier” for various reasons.

As you note, there are more people reaching over each offering, either to serve themselves or to obtain something else. So there’s more likely to be some transference from whatever is on those people’s bodies or clothing onto the food. That’s a risk, but not a certainty. It’s an enhanced risk over food served direct from a kitchen, where a more limited number of people have had access to the cooked food. (The risks involved in selecting, preparing and cooking the food would be assumed equal in each case.)

In addition to exposure to numbers of people, the food does “sit in the open” for longer, exposing it also to whatever is in the atmosphere. (A Health Department inspector I sometimes dine with has told me that the places he hates to inspect the most are all-you-can-eat buffets. And he simply will not eat there.)

However, I think that if the risks are recognized and addressed, then the contamination issues can be minimized. For that reason restaurants are required to use sneeze guards, patrons required to use a clean plate on each visit, food must be kept heated (or cooled, as its serving requirements dictate) to proper temperatures, and food must not be left unattended for greater than allowed times.

Considering the risks attendant upon simply getting to and from the restaurant in winter time (or even walking across an icy parking lot sometimes), and the risk from drunk drivers who have partied too hearty, I’d say that if you generally trust the establishment to prepare meals à la carte, then they should be able to manage a relatively safe buffet, too.

Not any different than having 20 people over for a buffet style meal at your own home.
I have done buffet style dining for years, as well as outdoor parties where there are dozens of self serve dishes available. Nobody has gotten sick and died yet, including me.

I’m a little bit of a germaphobe and I don’t get very freaked out by buffets, because it really freaks me out that at most restaurants waiter bus tables and serve food without washing their hands in-between. They are touching the silverware the other table used, so it isn’t much different than me touching the same serving spoon as the guy next to me at the next table.

I’ve seen employees check the temperature of the food on the salad bar at Ruby Tuesdays. I don’t know if other restaurants do it.

They are inherently a but more unsanitary be cause the food is sitting out for so long to open air.the real concern is the food sitting at improper temperatures. That can really make people sick and that’s one of the big reasons that buffets are closed down.

That being said, there are germs everywhere you go.

On cruise ships to Alaska, maybe all cruises, the first two days the buffet can only be served by staff to control possible illness outbreaks.

Yes. Some people have bad manners and use their fingers or pick things up and put them down. There’s always going to be a risk with such food options.

Over ten years ago, I spent an afternoon at an open air food market in southern China.

Poultry in plastic tubs, in the sun, not even on ice. Scorpions walking over dried herbs and roots. Fruit stands of very questionable freshness. And everything being handled barehanded by not very clean hands.

Comparatively, I’m not too worried about how sanity our buffets are.

@cookieman Haha..yep, me too…those fried duck heads on a stick sure looked good. NOT!

I’ll only eat food from known depositors if it’s a company/employee buffet.

I worked with the most disgusting woman, and her favorite thing was staying up all night making ‘treats’.

Family you kind of have to give it a pass.

I have been known to take food at a buffet because no one else did, and dispose of it very discretely.

@Coloma: :^)

And even worse.

They’re inherently buffets.