Appetizers You Should Absolutely Never Order

A blooming onion appetizer sounds harmless. Heck, it's a vegetable — how bad could it be? But throw this pungent produce in a deep fryer, add a bowl of dipping sauce, and you've got yourself one unhealthy fried starter dish. Containing thousands of calories and almost double the daily sodium intake, those watching their waistline will want to skip this onion appetizer. While the nutrition facts may vary from restaurant to restaurant, you'll be taking on much more than bad breath after consuming this appetizer. Routinely gorging on fried appetizers, like an onion blossom, will not only stuff your stomach before the main course, but it will also put you at a greater health risk for serious diseases. According to a BMJ study, frequent consumption of fried foods was closely "associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes as well as cardiovascular diseases." 

In addition to the health risks involved in eating fried foods, horrifying amounts of calories are also lurking within this appetizer. While Chili's onion Awesome Blossom Petals and sauce appetizer skirts away with just under 760 calories, Outback Steakhouse offers a Bloomin' Onion appetizer that clocks in at almost 2,000 calories — that's nearly a day's worth of calories in the first course alone!

Any way you slice it, the onion blossom dish is bad news. If you simply can't resist the onion as a starter, try some fresh vegetables and a low-cal onion dip instead.

Clam chowder is a sketchy seafood appetizer that should be eaten at your own risk. This boiled clam and cream-based soup curdles easily when heated, and can quickly become a breeding ground for harmful bacteria if it's kept at improper temperatures. The Japan Today story surrounding 34 students who got horrendous food poisoning from clam chowder is enough to make us swear off this soup for good. Sounds like a lot of risk for little reward to us.

This seafood appetizer is also made with heavy cream, butter, and salted pork, all of which contain unnecessary amounts of calories, saturated fats, and sodium. Despite the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendation of limiting sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day (a teaspoon of salt), Americans eat on average about 3,400 mg of sodium per day (according to the FDA). One cup of clam chowder might only muster between 120 to 200 calories, but it contains around 871 milligrams and 1,001 milligrams of sodium –nearly half the amount of salt an adult should have in a day, according to Livestrong. No need to sacrifice your health for a few spoonfuls of chunky chowder.

For those who aren't familiar with this French "paste" appetizer, pâté, also frequently called a terrine, is a gourmet dish made of ground meat and animal liver. Yes, you read that right: liver and animal parts. Seafood, beef, pig, chicken, or wild game meats like snipe, partridge, venison, and boar, are all pâté options. But whichever way you slice it, cooked animal parts and chopped liver all packed into a literal meat loaf served with scooping crackers sounds like a massively grotesque starter meal.

But this palate-killing plate does come with some history. Way back in the Middle Ages, this meat slab was common cuisine in the European countryside. According to iFood.TV, pâté came from ancient Rome. Later, it was often named after nobles of the time, such as "pâté a la mazarine,"  named after the French Cardinal Mazarine. The French quickly became fans of this appetizer and introduced the incorporation of herbs and spices, as well as a new ground mousse texture. Now the liver appetizer is most notably associated with wealthier culinary enthusiasts. But whatever fancy dining establishment you find yourself at, we recommend ditching this disgusting appetizer, unless you have a particular penchant for raw-tasting animals gizzards.

If the thought of dipping one of these slippery crustaceans in a shared chunky cocktail sauce doesn't send you running, then the slurping and residual tail trash just might. Before you order your next round of shrimp cocktail, it's important to know just where your shrimp is coming from, and the findings may shock you.

According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, shrimp is one of the most commonly consumed seafoods in the United States. This creepy-looking crustacean is offered in such excess that there is often little regulation on shrimp purchases from Thailand, Vietnam, and India, forcing the U.S. to import low-grade shrimp discards from the European Union and Japan. What's even more repulsive is that only 2 percent of imported seafood gets tested by the FDA, according to Prevention. Looks like high-quality restaurant shrimp may be harder to come by than we thought. 

The planet will also thank you for limiting your shrimp cocktail orders. Before these ocean creatures gained obscene popularity on the restaurant table, shrimp was caught solely in the wild. Due to the high demand, shrimp farms began popping up to keep the shrimp supply cranking. As a result, entire forests are being destroyed in order to clear space for an ever-growing number of shrimp farms (via Prevention).

Next time you're faced with picking a starter plate, consider how your seafood appetizer may affect not only your palate, but also the planet. 

Have you ever heard of anyone having just one fry? This calorie-heavy appetizer, like Outback Steakhouse's Aussie Cheese Fries clocking in at a whopping 1,760 calories, may be an easy-to-share choice, but your entire table will be shoveling down cheesy fry after cheesy fry until all the fat-filled, greasy goodness is gone. You know you aren't doing your health any favors by feasting on fries. This appetizer is named after the devilishly delicious machine from which it was birthed. A regular order of plain restaurant fries, like the batch from Buffalo Wild Wings, comes in at just 420 calories. But add a heap of melted cheese and that modest fried potato snack becomes a colossal calorie meal.

Similar to some of the other appetizers on this list, the danger of this dish is hidden in the fryer. Fried really means fat, and folks who consume large amounts of these fried fats are put at an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart problems, and could even shave years off their life, according to the Mayo Clinic. 

If sharing a basket of fries is a must, spring for maple syrup sweet potato fries like the 650-calorie batch from Yard House. Sweet potatoes are excellent sources of Vitamin A, and are perfect for pumping up your potassium, magnesium, and fiber intake.

Chips and dip may be one of the most common appetizer choices when dining out, but be wary of this seemingly harmless salty snack. There are tons of unsuspecting fats, carbs, calories, and of course, sodium lurking about, according to Eat This, Not That!

You may think the unhealthiest part of this appetizer is the cream and cheese-filled dip, but the health risks involved in consuming these chips will shock you. Made from thin potato slices, tortilla cornmeal, or white and yellow corn, chips are cooked and fried to crispy perfection in deep fat. During this process, the chips are often burnt to achieve that highly cherished crunchy texture. Unfortunately, these high temperatures cause a chemical reaction to occur, resulting in the production of a harmful chemical known as acrylamide, which could be linked to cancer. According to the FDA, during the cooking, roasting or frying processes, a natural reaction takes place between the foods' sugars and asparagine (an amino acid in plant-based foods like potatoes), which creates this scary acrylamide chemical. 

Additionally, while a couple of corn chips and cheese sauce doesn't seem like much, an entire serving can cost you almost a day's worth of calories. Just one order of Chili's White Spinach Queso and chips comes in at 1,480 calories. Do your body a favor and cut this unhealthy appetizer from your order.

Gooey, salty slime balls from the bottom of the ocean? No thanks — we'll pass, and you should too. Oysters are a celebrated seafood delicacy all around the globe, but unless you watch your chef capture, clean, and serve your raw oysters, you should strongly consider skipping this appetizer.

Eating straight from the sea is always sketchy, and depending on the day of the week, your "fresh" fish may not be as fresh as you think. Cordon Bleu-trained chef, Mark Nichols, told Reader's Digest that he refuses to touch raw oysters if they've traveled over 100 miles, and advises that oysters can actually kill you if they aren't handled and stored correctly. Plus, many oysters are served with a lemon garnish, which could be covered in bacteria. Now that's enough for us to pass on this menacing mollusk forever.

If a seafood appetizer is what you crave, we suggest avoiding any uncooked items, as they can easily contract germs and harmful bacteria (via the CDC). No need to lose a forearm over this seafood starter snack, like this 71-year-old South Korean man (via Insider).