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29 Foods That Aren’t Worth Their Hype And Price, According To People Online
Interview With Expert
Food is something none of us could live without. Since eating the same stuff over and over again would be boring, humans always try to find new ways to cook or new food items to consume. From these attempts, we sometimes get ingenious ideas that quickly become a staple in our diets, yet other times, these trials aren't so good. Or they become popular and overrated at the same time despite their mediocrity. Today's list is about exactly that – foods that are either overrated, too expensive, or both in netizens' eyes.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Starbucks
Their coffee is awful, which is why they have to load it with milk and whipped cream and sprinkles.
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#2
Those overloaded, tall, "Instagrammable" hipster burgers. This b******t is what I mean.
So many "upscale casual" restaurants seem to think the pinnacle of dining is a burger that costs $15-$25, is loaded with pointless ingredients meant to sound high-end (like truffle aioli and wagyu beef), and requires you to unhinge your jaw like a f*****g snake to take a bite. Not to mention the fact that they are usually an absolute mess and are usually okay-at-best in taste.
#3
Fast food. It used to be the cheaper option. Now I could go have a nice family dinner at a sit down restaurant for what fast food is costing.
As you can see from this list, there are many food items and meals people view as overhyped and overly expensive. To talk about it, Bored Panda got in touch with culinary historian Karima Moyer-Nocchi.
She told us that some of the reasons why a lot of foods are becoming very costly are Slow Food labeling and EU certification. For example, certain kinds of onions used to be considered food for the poor, but now cost €1 a piece.
She added, "I understand that there is a protective purpose behind such programs, but it has an impact on food prices. And because you can charge more for DOP (POD) foods, there is a good deal of falsification. This requires certifiers to continue verification, and they can't catch everything."
#4
Gold flake. It tastes like nothing and is just to flex you have money to waste.
Jack Burton 1 year ago
Gold has no taste, that's a fact. You can eat it whitout any dammage. But why in the hell would you eat something so expensive without any taste ???
#6
Shark fin soup. (I had some at an Asian wedding back in the mid-1990's before I learned about the ethics of the industry).
It's disgusting - you're eating cartilage.
Gordon Ramsay did a video on it and he tried one of the highest rated ones - he said the broth was very good but you could put anything in there, chicken, beef, sausage, etc, but the shark fin part wasn't good at all.
I would agree with him, the soup / broth was good, but the shark-fin was disgusting. They could have made the broth into a traditional fish soup and it would have been a lot better.
Honorable mention goes out to anyone who asks for a restaurant's "**most expensive wine**". You're just showing off your money to the people around you and clearly telling the staff you have no idea what you're ordering. You'll usually get a mediocre wine with an expensive price tag.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
The only knowledge I have of shark fin soup is that Mrs. Peacock thought it was delicious. But then, she also likes monkey brains, so there you go.
Today's list includes specific stuff like caviar, avocado, or more abstract ones, like anything that internet meme persona Salt Bae serves.
Our interviewee said that in her opinion ancient grains are overrated. "Anyone who knows the history of cereals, or anything about their cultivation, simply shakes their head incredulously at the whole ancient grain fad."
Another interesting and, in netizens’ eyes, overhyped food item that appeared on this list was gold flakes or edible gold. Basically, it’s not as much a food item as it is a food additive that is used to make meals more extravagant.
While edible gold is safe to eat, it has no nutritional value or health benefits. The purity of it must be 23–24 karats, and if it's above that, it might contain other metals that can be toxic if consumed.
And since it’s gold, it is quite costly. So, it’s no surprise it ended up on this list, since basically, it's something expensive you add to food, but it doesn’t enhance its nutritional value or taste. Yet, enhancing food appearance is a trend that makes it worth it for people to spend extensive amounts of money on such things as edible gold.
#7
Anything salt bae serves.
#8
Anything where a single plate is over $100. I feel like flavor peaks around $40-$50 and everything beyond that just tastes weirder to seem fancy.
#9
Avocado toast. I'd be able to afford a house in a good neighborhood and support a family of five on a single income if I hadn't eaten that in my 20s.
Speaking of food trends, we like to throw the “trend” word around without actually thinking about what it means and if the thing we give the trend crown to is actually a trend or just a fad.
Fads are things whose popularity rises quickly and falls just as fast. To look at it from a food popularity perspective, fads typically rise from social or any other kind of media’s attention. Like a product or an ingredient shouted out by a TV chef or social media influencer basically out of nowhere, which then gets sold out and quickly forgotten about by the majority of the public.
At the same time, trends are a bit more stable form of popularity. Usually, they evolve more gradually, are more long-lasting, and can even lead to a change in the culture.
Again, let’s look at it from a food perspective. Adding salty flavor to sweet foods, or as some apparently call it, swicy, is a trend that developed over the years. People were exposed to it in various ways – for example, with the rising popularity of swicy treats like salted caramel, sweet and salty popcorn, and many others, which became staples in the snack world.
#10
Buffalo Wild Wings. Wings are simply overpriced as hell.
Learner Panda 1 year ago
Why would anyone choose chicken wings over drumsticks? They're messy to eat, there's less meat on them and full of bones.
#11
Anything from Panera Bread. I heard it described best a few years ago: "overpriced hospital food".
#12
Himalayan pink salt - the reddish color comes from iron oxide, same s**t as rust. in tibet it is considered low grade salt and they use it to salt the animal feeds cuz it has more minerals lel.
Fynnik 1 year ago
I live near a place that has brine springs. That salt is so pure it needs no processing. They just evaporate the water and you’ve got pure salt. Used to be able to go have a float in the brine baths (they were saltier than the Dead Sea, you couldn’t swim in them, just float). Unfortunately they were early Victorian and the upkeep became too expensive.
Montanavanna 1 year ago
I find I have to use more of it when cooking to get the same result as table salt. Maybe that's in my head.
Undercover 1 year ago
Some woman told me once that pink salt had a special aura. That was all I needed to know 🤡
Christopher DiOrio 1 year ago
Actually, the foodies loving this is just a sign of how bad ‘regular’ salt has gotten. Honestly, Morton’s is NOT the same as it was…my mom’s 30+ year old container tastes different than the one I bought at Acme a few weeks back.
Richard Wareham 1 year ago
Salt is not just salt. There are many different typyes and many doiierent subtle flavours. You don't have to spend a fortune, try Maldon Sea Salt and be pleasantly surprised!
Chewie Baron 1 year ago (edited)
I always use Maldon sea salt. Very reasonably priced, and I have their smoked salt, chilli salt and garlic salt for my cooking. It’s very delicious too.
Mario Strada 1 year ago
I get mad every time I read a recipe that recommends "Pink Himalayan salt". However, there was a story of someone that had a pink salt lamp and put it in the dishwasher to "clean". Best story I ever heard.
Stardust she/her 1 year ago
My grandparents have a full tub of that salt but they’ve never used it as it has almost no taste
Sami-Jo Ross 1 year ago
My dad swears up and down that it's "healthier" than plain white salt you buy at a supermarket. He refuses to use anything else.
While as we acknowledge fads tend to be unpredictable, some trends can be predicted. The emphasis is on "some," as things sometimes happen that make certain trends happen without anyone thinking they would. Like with COVID-19 and its quarantine – no one really predicted it and what kind of food trends would become popular, like whipped coffee.
And while some trends can become a new normal, some still can be viewed as excessive by some people, and this list is a perfect example of that. Yes, sometimes some food items or meals tend to get overhyped despite their mediocrity, while others get overrated for no apparent reason, but, well, to each their own, right?
What foods do you think are overly expensive and overrated? Share with us in the comments!
#13
Red Delicious Apples!!!
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Red Delicious aren't. They just taste of red crunch. No real flavor.
#14
Airport food.
#15
Caviar. First of all, you can get ikura/fish eggs at Japanese restaurants for next to nothing. You can get the big ones wrapped in seaweed for a couple bucks, and when I was a kid I really liked the tiny orange roe, and would ask the servers for a side of them, and they'd give them to me for free. Caviar is just a fancier version of those, and often is a lot saltier. Too expensive for what you get.
Edit: Okay maybe roe/ikura isn’t that cheap either. I’ve never bought it in bulk, and I live in Alaska right by the ocean, and it’s always been v cheap at sushi restaurants here but as a whole I could be wrong about the pricing on that.
Jack Burton 1 year ago (edited)
I tried caviar one time, just a very small can for one toast. Worst 12 euros of my life. Just tasted like salt sea.
#16
Overly fancy cakes. Like ones that are realistic pigeons or some other stupid confection. It’s a cake it’s going to taste like a cake and come out the same as any cake. No one needs to spend hundreds on a cake.
Also wedding cakes are overpriced and taste like s**t. Top tip if you are getting married don’t tell the cake folk that. Just ask for a cake you say the word wedding a big standard cake suddenly is 50 times the price for no other reason than to over charge.
#17
Macaroons, I can’t understand why there are so expensive.
Learner Panda 1 year ago
The picture is of macarons, not macaroons. Two very different sweets.
#18
Anything with gold leaf.
Also fois gras. Fois Gras is tasty but it's so rich you really can only eat a few fork fulls. I went to a restaurant once where the serving was a whole slab of it just because it's "rich food.".
#19
Lobster rolls. $22-28 for two to three ounces of lobster meat slathered in mayonnaise and put in a hot dog bun.
#20
Lobster. I say this as a new englander, that s**t is overrated! I mean, it’s good. But it’s not *that* good, you know?
#21
Edamame. It's f*****g soy beans with salt. And i like it.
#22
Honestly, wagyu beef. I had it just to say I've had it. I paid a premium price for a little thing that probably wouldn't even be considered an appetizer. It was okay.
#24
Most of this seems to be a lot of discussion of personal taste, but I'll throw my hat in the ring.
Avocado.
It's fine. It's just fine. They are expensive as hell because they aren't really native to anywhere outside of California and the Baja peninsula of Mexico, every influencer thinks they made a recipe by sticking avocado on something and posting it to Instagram, and you seemingly can't avoid hearing people opinions about it.
"Have you tried the Mexican food here? It's so authentic." Shut up, Becky. Everyone knows about avocados now. It's not some secret fruit that only foodies know about.
MotherofGuineaPigs 1 year ago
I like an avocado sandwich - Avocado sliced, sliced onions, mayonnaise and sprouts on bread or on a roll. Basically a guac sandwich.
#25
Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. Fight me.
#26
The first time younger me tried some almond milk, I concluded:
"This is just a sad, sad substance that rich people drink."
My opinion has changed since.
#27
Chilean sea bass. I love most fish, but this just has the most horrible after taste, like black cod also has. (Also, caught by trawler, so not great for the environment.).
#28
Ribs. It was originally discarded as waste, then we discovered BBQ sauce. Now they're more than steak.
#29
Not as expensive as others on this list, but for a "staple" bell peppers are a terrible pepper and way overpriced.
What do you think ?
Jack Burton 1 year ago
So we can conclude that american food is not so good and expensive ? Cause there is really someone who have put apples on this list ? Seriously ?
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
A specific strain of apples, yes.
Load More Replies...
Calvin Smelliott 1 year ago
My points have been stuck at 888 for months. I get the notification when someone upvotes my comments, but the number doesn't change, Does anyone else have this problem?
Jack Burton 1 year ago
So we can conclude that american food is not so good and expensive ? Cause there is really someone who have put apples on this list ? Seriously ?
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
A specific strain of apples, yes.
Load More Replies... Calvin Smelliott 1 year ago
My points have been stuck at 888 for months. I get the notification when someone upvotes my comments, but the number doesn't change, Does anyone else have this problem?
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