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When I worked in an office, nothing was worse than microwavable popcorn. The smell of it permeated 3 floors for hours, I swear! And our kitchenette was by the stairs, so it really had to stink a lot for the smell to get to our cubicles, but that bloody popcorn never failed.

Other than that, everything else was fair game. Seriously, I don't recall any other questionable food, but like I said, our kitchenette was by the stairs, relatively far away from the cubicles, so I reckon it also depends on your office layout.

If I had to eat at a desk in an office, I'd probably limit myself to things like sandwiches and salads and I'd probably make those as un-noticable as possible. You never know what someone else is going to find offensive.

And if you do have to eat at your desk, there's the issue of where the drips and crumbs end up, and then the leftover packaging or whatever that ends up in the trash. So after lunch is over, there could be lingering odors that end up annoying other people. It's one thing to eat a tuna sandwich at lunchtime and another for your cubicle or office to smell like catfood for the rest of the day and have coworkers have to deal with the odor whether they like it or not.

And most people aren't going to tell you that they don't like your food. They're going to talk among themselves and you're going to be portrayed as the office jerk who doesn't care about coworkers.

If there was a cafeteria, I'd be a little less concerned, particularly if it was roomy and well-ventilated so that anyone who didn't like your lunch could move away from the odor, if need be.

Depends on your office microwave location. We have a few throughout the office, and the one currently closest to me is in the separated main kitchen area, so it's no big deal. Plus, I have the luck of working in a building is mostly offices and not a big open space with lots of cubicles. That said, our office manager makes microwave popcorn every day around 3pm on each floor (3 floors). The smell makes me reel ... but I just walk faster back to my office and thank my lucky stars I have a door to close behind me once I get back to my desk. Also, I have a pretty dull sense of smell to begin with so that helps. Eat what you want - if you're not taking a half hour or whole hour to actually leave the office, at least give your senses a nice treat to distract you from work when you do break for lunch. I'll assume that you work pretty hard - you deserve to eat something you'll enjoy!

I'm lucky in that I have my own office, so I have a bit more leeway in what I can eat. That said, I try not to bring in overly stinky food. No egg salad, no HB eggs, no tuna salad, and sadly, no kimchi. I have no problem with Indian though. I think, as @renzata says, that some of this is dependent on location/culture. I have a nose like a dog (I can smell someone eating an apple all the way down the hall, even while sitting in my office) so since I can pretty much smell anything anyone eats around me, I go by what is offensive or really strong to me and rule those things out. I do think that the worst thing anyone can bring to the office is microwave popcorn though. The smell is gag-inducing.

I have an extremely sensitive sense of smell. So thank heaven I work from home! I love the smell of Indian food, but some things smell heavenly in the kitchen but from when I did work at an office, I recall how they take on a rank odor in an office building, when they mix with the smell of the lavatory, body odor, and other scents of some office buildings.

One of my big annoyances were bananas--if you eat a ripe one, please throw away the peel in a plastic bag.

Although this is food brought from home, McDonald's--why is it more than any other fast food, that McDonald's smell never goes away?

I'm not crazy about garlicky Italian food, or Tex-Mex, but what would bug me is not that people would bring it--I'm fine with that, but reheat strong-smelling for twice as long as was needed in the microwave, let it spatter all over, and not clean it up, leaving the debris to fester.

I think it really depends on your office environment. I personally work in a nice laid back place where we constantly question each other about what we are having, and I honestly don't think I would ever not bring something I wanted in because it only maybe would disturb someone for a little while. And considering I sit closest to the microwave, no one else has to put up with the permeating smells as much as I do anyway.

Gah.. smelly food is the bane of my work existence. Our bank of desks is right next to the kitchen so we are downwind of everything! There's the popcorn chicks, the cabbage soup woman and the guy who microwaves tinned, smoked tomatoey sardines. When the smelly of hot stinky fish fills up the office, most of us have to leave. So so rude! And it isn't like he doesn't know, people have complained to him about it, but since his desk is on the other area of the office – his co-workers don't have to deal with it.

I find myself wondering this as well. Last week, I brought in leftover baked catfish and ate it cold/room temp to avoid stinking up the place. It was still tasty, but I would have preferred it warm. I also ate some steamed cabbage cold and that was surprisingly good. I made the mistake of warming up a hot dog one day and that was a stinky mistake. A coworker walked by my office and said it smelled like a school lunch room. I just shrugged my shoulders like I had nothing to do with it.

I don't worry about it, although heating up any type of fish makes it smell vile.

What I do worry about is consuming or throwing out my food before it goes bad. To me, rotting food is the worst and also indicates lack of respect for those who share the fridge.

@Heart--that thing about the banana peels is so true! A ripe one will smell up the entire office. And I can't stand bananas when they're ripe.

That microwave popcorn is something that has irritated me for a long time, too. I'm not in the office much--I travel around, making home visits--so when I walk in in the afternoon to turn in my paperwork and smell that smell, I'll ask, "Somebody just made popcorn?" And someone will inevitably answer, "No, Jane made that this morning."

As for me, my office is my car, so I pretty much eat whatever I can eat with one hand.

I so love this subject.
If you order fish at dinner do not take it to the office no one wants to smell that stuff.
Microwave popcorn is like one of the 7 plagues. That smell is just sickening. Butter times 11 is gross.
Tuna fish sandwich eaters, please God do not leave your sandwich on your desk and go for a smoke break with Joan and Mary from accounting and leave your smelly sandwich on your desk. It is beyond ignorant.
Rotting banana peel people how I want to harm you.
Take your damn banana peels and other food wrappings and put them in the break room trash and not in the can by your desk.
I don't mind anything that is aromatic but I don't like stinky. I was the person that put a stick up air freshner on top of your desk with the sticky note that said, "HINT HINT! Please use this."
This is almost as much a pain in the ass as the lipstick wearing plague.
If you must slather your face in emollient lipstick or lip gloss please do not touch it and put it all over the light switches, copier, walls, door knobs etc.
That is just bad bad manners.

@Perky I always brought the realtor who was working the sample home when we were building our home hoagies from Primos because he dug them. He was a big boy too I used to bring him 2 large ones. Onions and all. Greasing the wheel LOL with olive oil.

I can't stand the smell of ripe bananas also, don't have a problem with oranges though. Once my mom and I were going on a long car trip and my mom was eating a ripe banana. Needless to say I had a really bad headache at the end of the trip and told her to not eat ripe bananas in the car anymore.

The worst micro smell was when my brother nuked combination seafood fried rice the smell lingered for a few days. I've never dry heaved more in my life.

Citrus, offensive? I always thought it was a desirable smell (hence its use in so many deodorant products). I brought a box of clementines to work and everyone went crazy with them, and I thought it smelled lovely and fresh.

I think I'm the only person here who likes the smell of microwave popcorn! That being said, I never made it at work, because it made everyone in the office hunger and hungry co-workers = CRANKY co-workers.

My big pet peeve is the smell of nasty rotten food in the refrigerator. You wouldn't do that at home, why would you think it's okay to let your food spoil and stink at work?

Thanks for all your comments!
Whats the deal with hard-boiled eggs? Why don't people like the smell? I personally LOVE eggs, so I guess they don't bother me.
I might bring them to work anyway, but have them as soy-sauce or tea-eggs instead of plain.

I work for a fine food wholesaler, so we have some pretty funky foodstuffs going on in our office. This morning we were all eating some REALLY RIPE taleggio, and then I had Indian food for lunch.

Mostly the reaction in my office to strong smelling lunches is "Mmmmm, that smells gooooood. What is it?"

I guess we're all used to "stinky" foods and we all appreciate them. That said, cheap canned tuna does smell awfully like cat food and should only be opened inside an hermetically sealed environment!

That's funny, because I was just thinking about the same thing today! I brought my lunch, which included some left over broccoli from last night and as I pulled it out of the bag to put it in the fridge, I was blown away by how strong it smelled. I'm a little worried now about how bad it will be when I microwave it. It was strange because I didn't notice the smell this morning when I got it out of my fridge.

Sara

It's been a long time since I've worked at a desk close enough to the microwave to be bothered by anything except microwave popcorn. That stuff is teh nasty.

My mom worked at Catholic Charities in the 70's. The Church brought over a lot of Vietnamese refugees and a bunch of them worked in the building with my mom. She was always coming home bitching about the smell of the fish sauce. I mean, she thought highly of the Vietnamese because they were might badasses because of what they'd gone through and stuff but she couldn't forgive the fish sauce.