A while, back, I wrote a post on emotionally-based food aversions -- both my own (tuna noodle casserole), and those of loved ones (scrambled eggs, mayonnaise, garlic). Little did I know this was going to open up Pandora's icebox. More than 75,000 people weighed in on our "What food hits your yuck button?" poll, and the comments thread is at the time of this writing, 1668 strong and counting. It seems that folks have just been looking for a place to spill their long-stewing food loathings, so we've counted down the top 20, weighting them for poll votes, number of mentions in comments, and level of vitriol incurred.

Want to keep the conversation flowing? See the initial post, or hurl forth in the comments below.

AOL Food: America's Most Hated Foods

The post that started it all: Guilty Displeasures

We're usually talking about foods we love here on Slashfood, but occasionally we talk about foods we hate. This post had so many comments about yucky foods that freak out people. So here is my most hated food combination. Eggs and ketchup. I find the smell personally disgusting, especially with scrambled eggs. My mom used to use ketchup on her eggs when I was a kid and one day I tried it. Well I have to say it was loathe at first taste, and smell. It has this weird sickly sweet, odor reminiscent of vomit and corpses. Well, maybe not really, but it feels that way to me. I wonder if somewhere way back when I was young, I was ill and my mother served these to me and then I barfed. I can't think why this smell would be so powerful to me.

A few years ago I ordered one of my, several times a year, road trip treats. I was on my way to several days of food and wine events and needed some quick calories to sustain me on the drive. This is usually the only time I do this, and I requested a breakfast sandwich of ham, bacon, eggs, and cheese on a toasted, buttered, kaiser roll at my local deli. I got to my car and as soon as I opened the bag that odor wafted out. The pong (as my English mom would say) made my nose hairs curl. KETCHUP WAS ON MY EGGS. Holding the bag at arms length, wishing that my arms were even longer, I proceeded back to the deli and dropped the offending substance onto the counter and requested an edible sandwich.

Not long after this I was starting on a vacation road trip with fellow blogger and good buddy Joe DiStefano, heading up to Down East Maine and New Brunswick, Canada for a week or two of camping. We ordered breakfast sandwiches at the same deli and headed out to the car. Before we even got in I smelled that rank excrescence assaulting my sense of smell and sensibility. JOE HAD ORDERED KETCHUP ON HIS EGGS. I made him stand outside my car to eat his slop why I ate my tasty sandwich inside, with the windows rolled up. Lucky for him it was a gorgeous summer day.

So what about you folks? Who else hates the smell/taste of ketchup on eggs? Anyone?

"No matter how beautiful its carmine and orange stalks, the sight of a bunch of chard in my organic bag always makes my heart sink." -- Nigel Slater, The Kitchen Diaries


A boyfriend once told me that if I ever wanted to make him cry, I could serve him scrambled eggs on a Wednesday night in the winter. I had no particular interest in making him cry (though that changed later on...), of course, but I asked him why. He wasn't especially keen to elaborate, but it had something to do with childhood, and his mother having choir practice, and his now-estranged father taking over kitchen duties the only way he knew how.


My best friend's husband is only now, at 35, accepting small wisps of mayo on his sandwiches after an incident 25 years ago involving his older, stronger brother, a spatula, and a family-sized jar of Hellmann's. My own grandfather, the child of immigrants who settled in a small Pennsylvania town, refused garlic for the first several decades of his life for fear of, in his words, "smelling Italian". It breaks my heart to know that, and it absolutely underscores the massive emotional impact that certain foods can have on us.


Food is uniquely powerful in that besides our multi-sensory involvement with it, it also becomes part of us. While other aesthetic details -- songs, smells, etc., may imprint themselves on our memories of situations both joyful and otherwise, they're not as likely to, well, make you feel like you're gonna hurl. It goes deeper than an aversion to taste or scent or mouth-feel. Food certainly warms the soul, but it can also make it heave.


My trigger food? Tuna-noodle casserole. And no, I don't wanna talk about it.


What are the foods that hit you where you live? Let it out in the comments -- we're here for you.