People all have their own unique tastes and preferences, and, let's face it, not all flavors are for everyone. In your life, you're bound to stumble upon a few ingredients that make your tongue curl in disgust. It happens.
Reddit user u/EdibleTaints recently posed the question: What single ingredient will spoil an entire meal for you if it's included? The thread immediately filled with thousands of heated testimonials and spicy opinions as people ferociously called out the flavors they despise. Here are among the most hated foods mentioned:
1. "Truffle oil. I love real truffles. Truffle oil makes me gag."
"Cheap truffle oil is absolutely disgusting. I HATED truffle oil to the point where the smell nauseated me, until I tried some super high quality stuff. Totally different taste. Still, I’m not a huge fan."
2. "Recipes always turn me straight off if the list of ingredients includes capers. I know they're just supposed to be 'briny,' but it doesn't work for me. And I LOVE most vinegar-based foods!"
"Capers are gross and also super strong, yet every food I've had with capers always has a ton of them. Surely you don't need that many, even if you like them?"
3. "Star anise, fennel, or anything else that tastes like black licorice. It’s the one flavor I absolutely can’t stand."
"I love licorice sweets, but I detest anise and fennel in savory food."
4. "There is no proper way to use mayonnaise. Fortunately, I married someone who shares my loathing, and our household is mayo-free. Why so many people want to coat their perfectly good bread in slime, I'll never understand."
5. "Fondant. It just ruins every cake."
"This is most noticeable in fancy-looking wedding cakes. The fondant is very shapable, but it's gross and not really what you expect from a cake. It looks very nice, and is therefore used more for looks than taste. You're basically paying for an expensive decoration that tastes bad. I would rather have the best-tasting normal tiered cake for a wedding instead of something no one will enjoy. Then you freeze a piece and eat it a year later, and it's even worse."
6. "Goat cheese. I had a pet goat. The cheese tastes exactly how they smell."
7. "Celery."
"I’ll never understand how people say you can’t taste it. Like, if it’s cooked into a soup, every single bite of that soup will taste of celery, even if you pick around the chunks. It’s a very distinctive (and to me, unpleasant) flavor."
8. "My mom always made us eat five bites of everything. Lima beans were the most tortuous of all the five bites. They have the texture of sand, and they taste like farts. I have no idea why anyone finds them appealing."
9. "Any fake sugars. I can't get rid of the taste for at least a day. They completely mess up my taste buds."
"Aspartame is fine for me. It has a taste, but it's not terrible. And Sucralose is manageable, but not great. But Stevia just tastes awful. I'm starting to think it's some genetic thing like cilantro because it always tastes bad, and I can immediately detect it. I've had many drinks ruined by 'no artificial ingredients' tags that hide the Stevia. Funny enough, it has an incredibly artificial taste to me. It tastes the way packing peanuts smell."
10. "Boiled okra. The slimy, thick texture is the worst."
11. "Green bell peppers. The flavor just permeates everything, and it's not a good flavor."
"If a raw green pepper so much as touches another food, it ruins it. I can taste it. Raw green peppers are possibly the worst flavor I can imagine. I just cannot handle it!"
12. "Liquid smoke."
"Such an off-putting and overwhelming flavor. I couldn't eat the grilled chicken at school because they used it. It tastes like burnt fish to me."
13. "Sweet pickles. Gag."
"Especially on a hamburger. Sweet pickles on burgers are an abomination."
14. "Lavender. It's for soap, not for food."
15. "Raisins in sweets are bad enough. But raisins in savory food? GTFOH."
"Raisins end up in the weirdest things, and they have this consistency and durability that make them somehow outlast everything else being chewed until all that's left is raisin."
16. "Blue cheese distinctly tastes like vomit to me. Nothing ruins a meal more than the taste of bile."
17. "Raw onion. It permeates everything. Can't even pick it out."
"It makes my eyes water, it makes me gag, and the flavor stays with you for hours."
18. "Mushrooms. I hate the flavor, the texture, all of it. I don't eat most meat, so it's kind of a bummer since mushrooms are in so many vegetarian dishes. Just...absolutely not. Not a single mushroom has a place in my heart or my life."
19. "Dijon mustard. Please list it in the ingredients on the menu if it is going to be on a sandwich."
"Tastes and smells like a sour fart."
20. "Cloves. You only need the smallest amount."
21. "I despise coconut. I know it’s there. I can taste it."
"I like the taste usually, but the texture is like eating someone's toenails. Not into that."
22. "Green olives. My mom makes my favorite pasta but sometimes forgets not to put olives in my share. They're just way too sour, and they ruin the dish. I manually take out each one before I eat my pasta."
23. "Cantaloupe. Even if it's touched other foods and been removed, the flavor still contaminates the rest. Even the smell of it turns my stomach."
"WHY are there chunks of it in every fruit salad?? Its flavor gets on everything and ruins the whole dish."
24. "Kale. I don't care how many times it's called a super food; it smells and tastes revolting to me."
25. Finally: "Beets are disgusting and taste like DIRT. My mom tried to get me to eat canned beets when I was a kid, and I literally cannot tolerate the sight, taste, or smell."
"I can’t think of any other food I hate, but every so often I try beets again and gag. I want to like them because they’re healthy, but I’d rather eat a million Brussels sprouts — strike that: a million dog turds — before I would choke down an entire beet."
Is there a food or ingredient that you straight-up can't stand? Why?? Tell us in the comments!
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.