30 People Who Sadly Lost The Food Lottery And Shared Their Unfortunate Pics Online

Unfortunately in life, if there’s an opportunity to get lucky, there’s always going to be a chance that you’ll get unlucky as well. And apparently, we’re playing the lottery every single day when we crack open an egg or pop open a bag of chips. If you’re not familiar with this idea, we’ll let the Food Lottery subreddit explain it in their own words.

“Have you ever experienced either end of the food lottery?” the community’s About section asks. “Winning the food lottery means you got lucky with your food (for example, getting two yolks in an egg instead of one). Losing the food lottery would mean the opposite (for example, a pack of M&Ms only had one M&M in it). If you experience any of these, take a picture and post it here!”

This online group has only been around since 2018, but it has already amassed over 6k members who are happy to share their good fortune and their disappointing luck in terms of food items every day. Common tags for photos in the subreddit are lucky, unique, double the food, supersize and unlucky.

Unfortunately, today we’ll just be focusing on those members who had the worst luck when unwrapping their edible items. But considering how much we eat, it makes sense that we’re all bound to have some bad luck at one point or another. According to Good Seed Ventures, the average person consumes about 1,488 pounds (or 675 kg) of food per year, or approximately 4 pounds (1.85 kg) per day.

Among the most commonly consumed food items in the world are milk, wheat, potatoes, sugar, chicken, rice, yams, seafood and maize. But there’s no question that we’re eating plenty of processed food nowadays too. In fact, Food Tank reports that a whopping 73% of the food supply in the United States is ultra-processed, meaning that they are “hyper-palatable ‘industrial formulations’ that stray from their organic origins.” Meanwhile, in the UK, residents are eating four times more packaged food than fresh food. And while it’s possible to win the food lottery from getting 3 yolks in one egg, you’re more likely to win (or lose) when you’re consuming something in a package that you couldn’t see until you opened it up.     

Even though the majority of food we consume likely comes from some sort of factory with an assembly line and high quality standards, there are still human beings working there. And with humans comes error. Apparently, these mistakes made by workers can not only cause you to receive a candy bar that’s missing almonds, it also contributes to waste. Researchers at Brunel University London and Ghent University found that human error accounted for nearly 11% of all food waste at manufacturing facilities. 

It’s understandable that mistakes happen anywhere and everywhere, but it’s still disappointing when you open a box of Pop-Tarts to find only one in each foil pack. Luckily, many companies are happy to reimburse customers or make up for their errors if consumers aren’t satisfied with what they received. For example, on the Frito Lay website, unhappy customers can file a complaint about the quality of the product they received. And if you’re willing to go through all of the effort to explain your disappointment in a product, the company will likely be happy to send you a new bag of chips to make up for it.     

Winning the food lottery might not be quite as exciting as winning the actual lottery, but it can still be fun to realize that you got more than you paid for. On the other hand, it can be extremely disappointing to find out that you received less than what you bargained for. So if you want to help your odds of winning the edible lottery, there are a few ways you can do so. First, try to primarily buy food that you can actually see through its packaging. This can minimize the element of surprise when you go to actually open the product.

If you want to decrease your chances of losing the food lottery, you should also remember to always check expiration dates on products. Even if you bought something yesterday, there’s always a small chance that it expired on that day (or before!). Be sure to check dates to ensure that you’re getting the freshest products possible. And if you’re getting a bag of chips, you might want to try shaking it around to ensure that it’s not just air waiting for you inside.

If you’ve lost the food lottery, you shouldn’t feel too bad. Consider yourself special for finding a unique product at all! Plus, about 70% of lottery winners end up broke after winning anyway, so perhaps it’s better to stay humble and avoid winning at all! And if you put in a complaint with the company that rips you off, you might end up with much more than you paid for in the first place. Fingers crossed!

Are you feeling lucky today, pandas? Do you think you’ll be winning the food lottery some time soon? Keep upvoting the pics that you find particularly unfortunate, and let us know in the comments below whether you’ve ever won or lost the lottery in the past. Then, if you’re interested in checking out a Bored Panda article featuring photos from people who had great luck when it comes to food, look no further than right here!