When I was very (very) young, I ate an entire box of crayons in hopes of multi-colored poop. It didn’t work, but it did give my mother a few hours of mild anxiety as she worried about what would happen to me. The answer (disappointingly) was: nothing. I didn’t poop a rainbow, nor did I die horribly from periwinkle poisoning. As a direct result, I can personally attest to the fact that your body can and will process a lot of stuff that you really shouldn’t put in it.

At some point, most of us realize that eating non-edible things like crayons or glue is a bad use of our time, especially when you realize that you live in a world where things like chicken wings and beer exist. However, that doesn’t mean that everything that is technically considered food should be eaten. In fact, there are several examples of edible things that you should never eat.

Cocktail garnishes serve a dual purpose: They can enhance the flavor and texture of a drink while also adding to its visual appeal. Garnishes are sure to stand out in your Insta posts, and they can make an ordinary mix of ingredients look like something completely special. And yes, most (but not all) garnishes served with cocktails are 100 percent edible, because they’re food—usually fruits, vegetables, or the occasional sprig of herbs (or, in the case of Bloody Marys, bacon).

So you can eat them, but in some cases you shouldn’t. That garnish may have been sliced and tossed into a glass hours earlier, making it a hospitable host to all sorts of microbes. To tell the difference, watch the drink as it’s being made. If the bartender pulls bright red cherries out of a plastic container on the bar, you’ll skip the snack. But if they pull Luxardo cherries out of the mini fridge for every Manhattan, you can safely have them as a post-cocktail dessert.