The Worst TV Shows to Watch While Eating Dinner

Choosing the perfect meal to line up with your perfect night of television isn’t just another thing to do, it’s a delight. Is there anything better than a juicy patty melt while watching Bob’s Burgers, or the garlickiest bowl of aglio e oli0 while enjoying Goodfellas? It’s the best.

However, there are some television shows which defy the laws of nature. They are simply un-pairable with any food or wine — the artichokes of the entertainment world. Don’t believe me? Take a gander at this list and tell me, straight-faced, that you could imagine a meal that’s truly craveable while watching.

This MTV mainstay is all about sweaty, backstabbing, bone-breaking physical and mental challenges. The reality show makes people eat animal eyeballs, trek through frozen tundras, toil in mud and desert heat, and other tests that push people to their physical limits. It makes for great television, but seeing all the blood, barf, and sweat flying around the screen doesn’t exactly make for appetizing entertainment. Even a bag of Doritos might be too heavy for this type of viewing.

This show used to be my jam. The fights, the intense competition, the smizing — I loved it all (and still do!). However, watching beautiful people getting critiqued and eliminated during highly emotional ceremonies doesn’t really get my appetite going. It seems sacrilegious to enjoy the schadenfreude of a bowl of warm chili while watching models shivering in the snow wearing bikinis. And furthermore, the critiques and elimination periods are always too intense to really enjoy a BLT.

I am a diehard Full House fan, but this show is already so sickeningly sweet that any added sugar would make me ill. I guess I could eat some celery sticks or incredibly hot salsa with chips, but that convenient deus ex machina that comes in at the end of each episode just cancels out any of the sweet, rich snacks I usually love to eat while watching television.

What’s a night of TV without a spoon and a jar of Nutella, amirite? And yet, I’m still watching (sans snacks). Aah, well, that’s the indescribable lure of the Tanner family.

This show is so scary and so good that I almost upchuck every time I see an episode, solely from nerves. It’s dark, intense, and just when you think you know where it’s going, a turn comes out of left field. The last thing I want is a banh mi rolling around in my stomach while I follow the convoluted twists and turns of the Dark Army.

It’s not that I don’t crave food while I watch Nigella Lawson; it’s that whatever I crave doesn’t taste as good as I want it to. She makes everything look, sound, and feel luxurious and sensual. I could be eating fondue in Casanova’s Italian villa and it would seem like sawdust next to watching Nigella take a luscious spoonful of chocolate pudding.

What shows do you avoid watching while you eat dinner?