--- title: Food Celebrities on Foods You Should Never Eat description: TIME asked Ted Allen, Andrew Zimmern and Angela Dimayuga to share the foods people should never eat. canonical: https://time.com/4735554/food-celebrities-what-not-to-eat/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-25T13:00:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:28.449Z og:title: 3 Food Celebrities on the Foods You Should Never Eat og:description: Andrew Zimmern, Ted Allen and Angela Dimayuga trash-talk some of your favorites og:url: https://time.com/4735554/food-celebrities-what-not-to-eat/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 3 Food Celebrities on the Foods You Should Never Eat twitter:description: Andrew Zimmern, Ted Allen and Angela Dimayuga trash-talk some of your favorites twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 3 Food Celebrities on the Foods You Should Never Eat > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Apr 25, 2017 1:00 PM UTC by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Apr 25, 2017 1:00 PM UTC Figuring out what to avoid eating can be tricky, between news of [food fraud](http://time.com/4623413/growing-fight-food-fraud/)[,](http://time.com/4623413/growing-fight-food-fraud/) products packed with [additives](https://time.com/3979120/artificial-chemicals/) and the comings and goings of food fads. In the face of confusion, many people turn to celebrity chefs and food aficionados for their own major “don’ts” when it comes to navigating our [food supply](http://www.health.com/type-2-diabetes/ward-off-type-2-diabetes?XID=time-health-hub). _No Reservations_ host Anthony Bourdain, for instance, strongly advises against airplane food. “No one has ever felt better after eating plane food,” he told [_Bon Appetit_](http://time.com/4325309/anthony-bourdain-airplane-food/). _MasterChef’s_ insult-slinging Gordon Ramsay agrees. “There’s no f—ing way I eat on planes,” he told [_Refinery 29_](http://time.com/4740973/star-wars-last-jedi-rose-kelly-marie-tran/). What else is off the table? TIME asked trusted authorities of the culinary world to share their opinions on the foods you should never, ever eat. In the process, they may have trash-talked some of your favorites. ### **Ted Allen on Frozen Pizzas**  Ted Allen on November 1, 2016 in New York City. Slaven Vlasic-Getty Images A veteran food competition regular, _Chopped_ host Ted Allen has sampled pigeon brain on the half-skull and the occasional eyeball for his job, but his list of no-nos is much more mundane: “the disgusting, heavily processed junk that occupies most of the center of the supermarket.” Allen finds it’s best to compare labels when browsing for [jarred sauces and canned soups](http://time.com/4630065/kids-artificial-sugar-sweeteners/). Though he enjoys his “vices” — beer, American cheese sandwiches and sour cream and onion chips — he says he has to draw the line somewhere. “People should not eat frozen pizza. Ever. It’s terrible,” he says of the beloved late-night standby. “All of it’s awful, just packed with the lowest quality ingredients, lousy sauces, and they’re overpriced for what they are. It’s not a good product. There’s so much sodium, so many calories and artificial crap and preservatives.” Can’t wait for delivery? Allen has you covered. “The next time you order, order an extra one and freeze it in Ziploc bags,” he says. “Throw them in the oven for seven minutes. It’s faster than Totino’s or Tony’s or any of those ridiculous pizzas.” Another thing: the perils of the supermarket may not be where you expect them to be. “I think there’s a lot of evil in the cereal aisle, and they’re trying to get your kids with lots of artificial colors, artificial flavors, and tons and tons of sugar.” ### **Andrew Zimmern on Kiddie Milkshakes**  Andrew Zimmern on February 24, 2017 in Miami, Florida. Sergi Alexander—Getty Images for Key Group World Sweetened cereal was also a hard pass for Andrew Zimmern, the globe-trotting _Bizarre Foods_ host who would never rule out eating a bat (a delicacy in several regions.) “Someone sees me eating wild seafood in a far-flung island nation, but the processed meats on your deli shelf are probably worse for you than anything I eat,” he says. One of his other gripes? Juice drinks marketed as health beverages in stores. “Every time you turn around, there’s an apple juice bottle or, even worse, the refrigerated area where there’s bottles of Naked Juice and some of those other companies. It’s walls of drinks, and it’s not just juice in there,” he says. “Certain juices can be helpful, but some have 45 grams of sugar per portion. They’re more like kiddie milkshakes being sold as nutritionally balanced products, and it’s very difficult for us as consumers to make sense of them. People say, ‘Oh, it’s vegetables and fruits and yogurt.’ No, it’s not.” Want to satisfy your cravings? Go for a [whole piece of fruit](http://time.com/4630065/kids-artificial-sugar-sweeteners/). Zimmern also argues against added sugar, or as he calls it, “one of the deadliest drugs we have in America.” “People shouldn’t have sugar in liquid form, whether it’s high fructose corn syrup or an insidious additive. If you choose to eat it, do so at your own peril,” he says. “If I could do one thing to improve the food health of the world, it would be to eliminate sugar from our consciousness.” ### **Angela Dimayuga on Trendy Stunt Foods**  Chef Angela Dimayuga on June 2, 2016 in New York City. Noam Galai-Getty Images Mission Chinese Food’s visionary executive chef [Angela Dimayuga](http://www.travelandleisure.com/gift-guides/chef-food-lover-gifts) made a name for herself by steering the New York City destination for Sichuan cuisine into truly imaginative territory with an arsenal of exciting flavor combinations like cumin-rubbed lamb ribs with fennel candy. A healthy eater, the restaurant partner would never judge anyone for a fast food dalliance or an airplane meal when the situation calls for it. But Dimayuga takes issue with a different popular food group: gimmick foods everywhere. “I don’t think you should try certain foods because you think you’re supposed to. If you go to Thailand or Mexico, you shouldn’t eat crickets in the touristy area,” says the chef, who passed on the Bangkok offering until seven years later when she tasted the insects swirled around in a satisfying Mexico City taco. “It’s annoying when people eat crickets out of context as a gimmick because they lose the opportunity to actually enjoy them on a taco or as a garnish when they taste much better. Eating a cricket for squeamish selfies just deteriorates the whole essence of why the food exists.” Dimayuga feels the same way about the [hard-trending viral](https://www.instagram.com/p/BR9WvVJFyV1/) Japanese dessert mizu shingen mochi, a jiggly, cake-like confection. “I think things like the water jelly make me think of food as a commodity. It brings food to this level I’m not comfortable with,” she says. “People eat it just because it’s Instagrammable, and they can say ‘I’ve done it,’ when they’ve actually just done the opposite. You don’t actually get joy out of stunt food items.” With that in mind, she advises, go for the foods you really crave. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4735554/food-celebrities-what-not-to-eat/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4735554/food-celebrities-what-not-to-eat/"},"headline":"3 Food Celebrities on the Foods You Should Never Eat","datePublished":"2017-04-25T13:00:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:46:28.449Z","description":"Andrew Zimmern, Ted Allen and Angela Dimayuga weigh in","url":"https://time.com/4735554/food-celebrities-what-not-to-eat/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","health","food and drink"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4735554/food-celebrities-what-not-to-eat/","name":"3 Food Celebrities on the Foods You Should Never Eat"}}]}] ```