Random Discussion Question: What Are Your “Yuck” Foods?
We all have them . . . the polite terminology would be “food preferences.” But, let’s face it, we all have foods we hate, foods we just won’t touch, foods the very smell of which make us nauseated, foods that make us go “YUCK!” We learn it very early on in our lives (could have something to do with how nasty baby food is maybe?) and even though we try to overcome it, and we learn how to try things to be polite at dinner parties, there are certain foods we will refuse to touch even in those “trying to be polite” situations.
Now, I’m not talking about foods we can’t eat because of intolerances or allergies (I can’t eat any kind of tropical fruit because it makes my throat swell shut). I’m talking about foods we refuse to eat.
Some of mine are:
Bananas (can’t stand the smell, taste, texture, etc., not even cooked in something)
Lima beans, navy beans, green peas (it’s a texture thing)
Okra (it’s slimy)
Crawfish (because . . . have you seen what the insides of those things look like?)
Stevia (Truvia)—(I’m one of those rare people to whom it’s bitter, not sweet)
Grape Kool-Aid (got sick after drinking it when I was four years old)
Oysters (gag!)
…basically anything slimy, mushy, grainy, or that just doesn’t taste good to me (or to which I’ve developed a taste aversion).
What are your “Yuck” foods?
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KayeDacus.com 
It’d be a shorter list if I wrote what I DID like…
But just a few of my hate foods:
Most things green besides green beans (and the occasional Pea)
Most all Mexican food (I hate spicy)
Carrots
Besides Italian, pretty much ANY ethnic food (Read: Spicy)
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Okay, you and I would not survive living together. I don’t use salt & pepper when I cook. I use Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (the salt-free variety, b/c of my blood pressure). And, of course, having grown up in New Mexico, NM-style Mexican food is my absolute favorite!
Carrots I can eat raw, but don’t try to make me eat them cooked. Yuck!
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Let’s see – mushrooms, pudding, jello, mayonnaise, shrimp – I feel like this list should be longer, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. Probably because they are all genuine HATE foods for me. LOL!
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I’m not a big fan of Jell-O or pudding, either (but I can put away some chocolate pudding if there is no other option to satisfy the craving for chocolate)!
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I go for hot chocolate in that case – my gag reflex is too strong to deal with pudding.
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Hmmm . . . turnip greens, turnips, buttermilk, black olives, grits, Dr. Pepper, anything Wintergreen, boiled okra ( l like it if it’s fried within an inch of its life). I’m sure there are more, but those are the foods/flavors/textures I avoid as much as possible.
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Dr. Pepper? Really? That’s my soda of choice. 😦
I can’t stand spearmint—gum, LifeSavrs, etc.
Fried okra I can do (as long as the okra itself has dried out).
Not a big fan of black olives, either.
Buttermilk I like cooked in things, like biscuits or pancakes, and it’s great to marinate chicken or turkey in before frying or roasting.
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Dr. Pepper tastes like cough medicine to me, therefore I avoid that, Mr. Pibb, and Root Beer. Go figure? Buttermilk is GREAT as an INGREDIENT, but one time my grandmother decided that I had just “decided” I didn’t like to drink buttermilk and gave me some, letting me think it was “regular” milk. It wasn’t pretty. 🙂
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Jello makes me want to gag. I hate all fruit pies and most other ones too. My family always gets pecan, pumpkin, and apple pie for Thanksgiving and I have never touched a one. I don’t like sauces or any other condiments either. I also hate root beer soda, deviled eggs, and pork.
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See, and I would rather have pie (especially lemon meringue or lemonade icebox pie) than cake. Fruit pies are okay (with cherry being my choice). But at least you don’t have that temptation at the holidays!
I don’t like the yolks out of hard-boiled eggs—unless they’ve been mashed and mixed with mayonnaise and mustard and glopped back into the hole in the halved egg whites.
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I have many foods I refuse to eat but here are a few that I actually have reasons for other than a general dislike for the taste/texture:
Meatloaf. I had a fairly serious accident falling down some stairs right after a dinner of meatloaf. Ever since then I can’t stand meatloaf even though I regularly eat beef in other forms.
Chicken Noodle soup. My parents had me drink some when I was 9 or 10 because I was sick. I threw it up almost immediately after the last spoonful. I can still remember the feeling I had right before I threw it up. It makes me a little queasy now just thinking of it!
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It’s amazing what taste aversion can do to us, no matter how long it’s been. It’s been thirty-four years since the last time I drank grape-flavored Kool-Aid, but all I have to do is smell it and I’m right back where I was at four years old!
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Hmm. I was just talking about this the other day.
Milk.
Turnips, Rutabagas, Beets.
Raw Onions.
Most fish.
Other than that, if you serve it to me, I will at least give it a try.
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I’m not a big fan of fish, either, but I’ll eat it occasionally. I’m a lot like you, though, pretty much if you put something in front of me, unless I know absolutely that I’m allergic to an ingredient, I’ll at least try it. That’s how my mama raised me.
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Mushrooms ’cause I’m allergic to them and sushi because raw fish is just disgusting. 🙂
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I LOVE sushi!
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I was raised to eat whatever was put in front of me, and I generally love all kinds of food, so there are very few things I will absolutely refuse if they’re served to me. That said, I absolutely WILL NOT eat anything with artificial sweeteners in it. Aside from being poison, they taste horrible. Even splenda. Some people can’t taste the difference; I can taste it a mile away.
I also don’t like instant mashed potatoes or wild rice and will eat a minimal amount of these to be polite.
I will not, under any circumstances, drink (or eat, on cereal, etc.) reduced-fat milk, and will drink store-bought whole milk only if I have to. (I buy my whole, raw milk at a local farm.)
I can smell vegetable oil in baked goods when I get them near my mouth and the smell grosses me out. I typically will avoid eating brownies, etc. made with vegetable oil if at all possible without being rude. (I try to avoid vegetable oils in general.) I also don’t like overly sweet desserts, especially cake-type desserts, but those are usually not too hard to avoid 😀
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Having used Splenda for so many years, I have now gotten to the point at which I can’t drink anything that has real sugar in it—sodas, tea—because not only does it feel like it’s leaving a residue behind in my mouth, masking the flavors of everything else, I think it gives me even worse bad-breath than beverages with artificial sweeteners.
That said, I don’t care for baked goods that use Splenda. That’s where I can really taste the difference.
I never thought I’d be able to stand skim milk, but after several years of not using milk at all (just half-and-half in my coffee) when I was doing low-carb, once I started WW I decided if I wanted to keep drinking coffee, I’d better get used to the skim milk. And I did. And that’s pretty much the only way I’ll drink it. I can’t do raw milk, though, because—as we discovered when I was very young—I’m “allergic” to the raw milk fat (this might now be considered intolerance, not an actual allergy). I’m good with homogenized products, but can’t do raw milk. 😦
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Wow, that’s really interesting about your raw milk allergy. Usually it’s the other way around – people who are intolerant of pasteurized milk can handle raw. Too bad 😦
I’m with you on the sugary drinks though. I don’t drink soda and I put just a little bit of honey in tea, hot or cold. Mostly I drink water, milk or OJ if I’m eating a hot breakfast 🙂
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Audry, what type of oil in baking do you prefer?
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I usually substitute olive oil if a recipe calls for vegetable oil, and I like recipes that call for traditional fats like butter.
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BUTTER is best!
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My “yuck” foods would have to be:
Pickles – I remember going to McDonald’s as a child, and even with ordering my burger with no pickles, they were still on there!!! I absolutely can’t stand the smell, the texture, the juice, everything. Yuck!
Okra – I used to love it as a child, but just plain don’t anymore.
Mustard – It stinks, and makes me gag.
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Okay, you and a couple of other people here will be grossed out by what was one of my favorite snacks back when I was doing Adkins: sliced dill pickles dipped in mayonnaise (eaten just like chips and dip). Now I just eat the pickles plain.
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that sounds pretty good
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Christy, when I was a child all I ate on my hamburgers was mustard and extra pickles. 🙂
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Hmmm…I don’t avoid too many things in general.
Apple Jacks are top on the list. I don’t typically eat cereal, but I haven’t touched them since I got sick after eating a bowl when I was 8 years old. 😉
Other than that, I’ll pretty much try anything put in front of me…unless it involves insects or something else equally as disgusting.
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I get super grossed out by the food challenges they do on some of the shows on TV. It makes me mad that they’ve incorporated at least one food challenge on The Amazing Race as they didn’t used to do that. (I’ll never get over the one in which they made one of the two team members eat something like five pounds of caviar before they could move on to the next task.) I don’t have a problem with them wanting to make the teams experience local cuisine, but don’t do it in such a way that it makes them sick because it’s a quantity no one person would ever eat—how are they ever going to appreciate that country’s food/culture once they’ve gotten sick and instantly developed a taste aversion to it?
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The only thing that comes to mind is hummus (there’s likely a very good reason it’s often spelled as “humus” which is also a type of dirt). And anything to do with chic peas. Hate those little mealy things.
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I’ve never actually eaten hummus. Probably because I expect it to be gross just by the look/smell of it.
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I tried it in Israel, where I figured they would make it right. Still… couldn’t handle it. Chick peas taste dry and woody to me, and that’s mainly what hummus is. You aren’t missing anything Kaye!
I just remembered one exception to the No Chic Pea rule; I learned to tell good falafel from not-so-good while in Israel (when the peas are mashed up with so many other tastier ingredients you can no longer detect them, or their icky texture), and came back with a taste for white bagel type bread dipped in salt and hyssop.
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I absolutely LOVE hummus! One of my favorite snacks. 🙂
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I used to eat cold pickles with hot melted cheddar. Dee-licious.
I love pretty much all the foods mentioned–especially olives and mushrooms. I could eat plain black olives all day.
The only food in the world I really do not like is water chestnuts. I find the crunching very disruptive.
Also, strawberries. I don’t dislike them. I just don’t understand what the big deal is–why other people seem to love them so much.
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I’m trying to think of things I refuse to eat – used to be mayonaise – couldn’t stand the stuff then I eventually figured out it was because if I ate it, I would get sick – later discovered that I have an allergy to soy (soybean oil being a main ingredient in mayonaise!)
I don’t like Dr. Pepper at all. I’m like one poster said – it tastes like really bad medicine.
I also don’t like Splenda or artificial sweetners. I CAN taste the difference……
Probably because my sense of smell is so bad (to the point that I usually just say I don’t have a sense of smell – very few things can I actually smell!) – that for me food is usually more about the texture. I won’t even try anything that looks slimy because of that.
Oh yeah – liver! I shudder when people order fried liver and eat it. I always want to go “You DO know what that liver does, right?!” Yuck, yuck, yuck.
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How could I have missed this one?!? Liver. Thanks for the reminder.
Along the same lines:
Chicken livers, gizzards, hearts, etc.
Blech!
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Um I actually like baby food Kaye…only the peaches and tutti fruiti though LOL!
As for food I can’t stand..pretty much anything flavored orange including popsicles, but I love oranges. Grapefruit is the worst. I hate all melon type fruit except watermelon. Blueberries are icky. I hate peas, greenbeans, carrots, creamed corn, frozen corn, corn on the cob, but I LOVE canned corn (I know I’m weird) beans of anykind including chili beans they are sooo gritty and gross. I despise tomatoes but love sauce and ketchup. I guess if it’s a veggie I hate it and if it’s a tropical fruit I hate it, bananas are good only for cream pie (I ❤ pie). I hate sea food of any kind except fish sticks which probably aren't even real fish so they don't count. Any kind of liver is nasty, especially beef liver it tastes like rubber.
I'm a picky eater. If I were to list everything I hate Iwould be typing all night, so I quit LOL!
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I am pretty good about eating whatever I’m served, and this is a lesson we’re teaching our kids too. I even made myself sit at the table for an hour the other night and finish my veggies which I didn’t want…to be a good example to Katherine! The only thing I really don’t like is anchovies/sardines/oysters…any of those tiny canned slimy sea things. I gagged on an oyster as a kid and threw up…maybe that’s why.
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I love most food, but I cannot swallow Tofu. Guacamole is right up there with tofu, but I can swallow it, I just don’t enjoy it.
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I cannot stand any kind of seafood
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I’ve grown up where one is expected to at least try everything on the table. There aren’t too many things I don’t like to eat. I know I don’t like liver or guacamole and am not crazy about seafood or mushrooms. Most vegetables are good. Now, I suppose I wouldn’t like some of those foreign foods like fishhead soup, fried termites, etc (shudder).
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Lima Beans.
Cooked oatmeal.
Carrots.
Grape (or orange) soda.
Raccoon (yes, I’ve had it).
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