Avoid Buying These Festival Foods, And You'll Thank Us Later

Music and arts festivals are favorite warm-weather activities, with popular ones like Coachella netting around 125,000 visitors each day of the event. With all those people, you're gonna need a whole lot of food to keep 'em fed. While these music festivals aren't exactly considered food festivals you need to attend at least once, they do still have some good eats — and some not-so-great ones, which are what we're here to guide you away from today.

When it comes to festival foods, there are three categories you want to avoid buying, in our humble opinion. Overpriced foods, potentially risky foods, and foods that just won't cut it when you need sustainable energy. Let's tackle the overpriced foods issue first, since it's the easiest one to solve. Basically, go into any festival expecting the food prices to be high (we're talking $25 for a hot dog kind of high). They're inflated for a lot of reasons, like the high operating costs that vendors must deal with, but the end result is the same: Paying double, triple, or even more for food you always get cheaper elsewhere. 

You can bring your own food to avoid this; think nuts, dried meats, noodles, cereal bars, and other foods that pack and travel well. We have a great recipe for homemade granola with a savory twist that will give you energy and knock down the number of "eat out" meals you'll need to scrounge up the money for, but you can make yourself anything from sandwiches to snack packs and do just fine.

Unfortunately, food safety standards can sometimes become lax at festivals. These everyday food safety mistakes (that you may actually be making without knowing) can easily happen when one food truck is rushing to keep up with the demands of hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of attendees. As a festival attendee, keep an eye out for clean and tidy workstations, how well employees handle food, if there's a fridge or sink on site, and if the vendor passed a recent inspection. Generally speaking, well-cooked foods are a safer bet, as fully cooking something kills bacteria. If you have a food allergy, you may want to tap out of eating out entirely since it's hard to guarantee no cross-contamination.

For health reasons, you may also want to avoid buying anything greasy, fatty, or sugary that could cause a stomach ache or heartburn; this might include hot dogs, chips, fries, and fried, dough-based treats with nothing added but sugar. Instead, consider portable and nutrient-dense snacks like dried fruit, mixed nuts, energy bars, nut butter on whole grain bread, and trail mix. Aside from food, keeping on top of your water intake is super important to prevent dehydration. Do this and you'll be able to handle your festival just fine.