Advice on which food to avoid in a wedding Buffet.

The wedding season is on, during these days, I get many patients who have fallen sick due to eating wrong things in the Buffet. They get stomach infection, stomach pain, fever, throat pain specially children fall sick.

Why Wedding food is bad?

Wedding food are prepared 10-12 hours before they are served, few things like chutney might be prepared almost 4-5 days before, they are not stored well, the quality of vegetables and milk used is very poor. So chances of falling sick are very high, especially for children. Kindly follow these advices to make sure you enjoy the meal and don’t fall sick.

Think before you eat in the Buffet.

Welcome drink/juices – they are cold, flavoured, has excess salt/sugar – a perfect recipe for a throat infection. Please avoid even if you are tempted to drink. You may have hot beverages – Tea, Coffee.

Soups are fine – make sure they are warm. Always start with a soup so that it fills your stomach and therefore you eat other things less. Avoid Chinese soups like Manchow.

Salads – Salads are supposed to be healthy. But salads kept in any buffet is bad. They have been cut since many hours, not well preserved, chances of flies sitting on them, they are not cleaned properly, they are raw so germs are still alive in them. So never eats salads in a function. Same thing applies for all uncooked things – Chutney, Chaat (Sev puri, dahi puri), Pickles.

Basundi/Curd/ Milk – All milk and milk products get spoiled very quickly, so high risk of catching an infection. Avoid products having curd, basundi which is also cold. Heat usually kills the germs, so at times warm milk is fine, but I would advise you to skip that milk too. Flavoured milk like Strawberry basundi, Sitaphal Basundi shouldn’t be consumed.

Pani puri – Roadside pani puri and Buffet pani puri both are bad. Should be avoided. But I’m sure even after reading this people will keep having them because of its delicious. So I will not write much about it. You shouldn’t eat pani puris.

Starters – Warm starters are fine, can be consumed. Avoid chutneys, cold starters.

Indian sweets – sweets like dryfruit halva, ghevar, jalebi are fine – can have 1 piece of it. Avoid milk based sweets – Bengali sweets, rabdi etc.

Aamras – Aamras is like the pani puri. No matter how much I will tell you, people will still eat it. By advice is to avoid it.

Bread products/ Pizzas/ Pav bhaji/ Grilled Sandwich/ Italian – no major risk of infections. But not very high in calories. Eat wisely.

Chinese – Its very delicious, people love it. But the Indian version of Chinese food is really bad. Lots of sauces, salts are added. Quite an unhealthy option.

Dosa – Dosas are comparatively a good option, as they are hot and made fresh. Avoid Chutney, Schezwan sauce.

Vegetables – Vegetables with Puri/roti are a safer option. Preferable choose a paneer or pulses based vegetable. Avoid green vegetable (Palak, Undhiyu) – chances of infection are higher.

Daal, rice, biryani, curry – one of the simplest and best things to have. Healthy, very less chances of infection.

Desserts – Well well if I get started here.. You will really hate me.. But they are really not good for health. Extreme high risk of infections. Ice creams, Waffles, Falooda, Ice candies – you might get sore throat, fever, cough etc.

Chaas – Just like curd – Chaas also has a quality that it can get spoiled easily. Should be avoided completely.

Fruits – Just like Salads – Fruits again look like a healthy option to eat. But they are extremely unhealthy. Same reasons. They are uncooked, Cut and kepy since long, chances of infections are really high. Please don’t eat a fruit salad at the weddings.

So exactly what to eat??

I know I have cancelled most of the items of the menu. But wedding food are extremely unhealthy and one should always be careful while eating. Because one night’s enjoyment can spoil 4-5 days, especially in children. If you really like something, you can have it in a good restaurant the next day or best make it home someday.

Things you should eat – A bowl of soup, a simple starter, dosa, Puri vegetable, Pizza, Sandwich, Daal rice. You may not be extremely happy after eating them, but you will surely not fall sick the next day.

You may also like to read –

• Iron Deficiency
• Calcium series.
• Child Health series.
• Winter diseases

Dr. Hitesh P. Fariya         Hitaarth Clinic            Homeopathy.Diet.Counselling

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