9. The salad bar can make you sick

Raw produce at the salad bar, pre-made salads at the deli counter and other pre-cooked prepared foods all have the potential for harboring harmful bacteria. “The biggest contributors to unsafe food are foods that are held at unsafe temperatures, handling of food by individuals with poor hygiene, and refilling partially used containers of perishable food with fresh food,” says Michael Doyle, Ph.D., director of the Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement at University of Georgia. He recommends that consumers pay attention to cleanliness, freshness (all prepared food should be thrown out if not sold by the end of the day), and way food is stored (cold foods need to be kept at 41 degrees or below; hot foods at greater than 135 degrees). As for those bulk bins of candy and trail mix—while it might be a bit gross to think about people reaching in and “sampling” the goods with their dirty fingers, according to Doyle, the risk of catching anything from them is very low. “Harmful microbes are not likely to grow in bulk-bin foods because most of those foods do not contain enough moisture to support microbial growth,” he says.