“I Refuse To Believe A Single Soul Wants To Eat It”: 35 People Share Overhyped Foods
Interview With Author
It's natural for people to have different tastes – taste in music, movies, interior design, clothes. The same goes for food. Different people like the taste of different things. Some people have a sweet tooth, others go crazy for all things savory. But can we say there are foods that almost everyone likes? Pizza, maybe?
Redditor YarnSpectre wanted to know if there are popular foods people just don't get the hype about. They asked netizens 'What's one food everyone seems to go crazy for, but you just don't understand the hype?' And the people delivered – from parsley, truffles and pumpkin spice to olives, kombucha and bacon. Wait, there are people who don't like bacon?!
Bored Panda reached out to the author of this thread, YarnSpectre. She was kind enough to chat with us and tell us more about what inspired the post on r/AskReddit.
This post may include affiliate links.
Aussie here. Oreos….meh, there’s plenty of way better biscuits around
"It was just one of those weird random thoughts," YarnSpectre says when we ask her about the inspiration for this thread. The Redditor explained that her brain just sometimes goes to weird places.
In her opinion, the most overhyped popular food is the croissant. Apparently, not everyone feels this way – 142 million people in the US alone enjoyed croissants in 2020. Their popularity is undeniable, but their haters are plenty as well. And YarnSpectre is not alone in this.
People like how fondant looks, I refuse to believe a single soul actually wants to eat it
Energy drinks like Red Bull or Monster
Blogger Peter Michaels described croissants as "pretentious, overpriced toast." "I mean, they can't decide if they're bread or cake," he wrote on his blog back in 2021. "You can eat them for breakfast? Can't be a cake."
Croissants had some haters among other commenters in this thread as well. User Scherbatskyyyyyyyy wrote: "I eat to be full, so having a bite with [a] paper-like break with lots [of] air inside is not for me, especially [if] it costs $4 and I'm still hungry."
Foie gras. F*****g gross. Texture is rotten, flavor is no better, plus the animal suffers for it?? No thank you.
Zoidberg: "What is this? Goose liver? Fish Eggs? I ask for rich guy stuff and you give me this garbage?"
Hot Cheetos or takis. Anything with the artificially colored spicy powder
People really had a lot of preferences to share – the post got over 13k comments. YarnSpectre says she didn't expect that kind of reaction. "I was very surprised. It was overwhelming," the author admits.
Still, the Redditor doesn't think it's fair to yuck other people's yums. "It's fine to politely say 'I don't care for that', but not ok to criticize or pick apart what you think is wrong with it," YarnSpectre shared with Bored Panda.
Pumpkin spice. It’s fine, but absolutely not anything to make a fuss about
For me, it just signifies the season. I don't eat or drink everything pumpkin spice but it is definitely a favorite and has been since I was little. Pumpkin bread was the first quick bread recipe I ever learned!
Those dry a*s Walmart sugar cookies
For a long time, we believed that our tongues had different taste zones. But today scientists believe that all regions of the tongue can detect different taste qualities. And not just the sweet, the sour, the salty and the bitter. There's also a fifth one – savory, also referred to as umami.
Truffles… WTF?…. Tastes like leaf mold mixed with aged compost and everybody’s like oooooohhh… it’s expensive so I love it…….nobody needs truffle oil on their French fries damn it
Love them. But they aren’t something you could just eat a bunch like other mushrooms, which I also love. Even if you don’t necessarily like it it’s hard to not agree that the taste is unique, and powerful. I worked for a high end catering company in NYC and we would get cases of them in and I would shave this slices for various dishes. If it’s an acquired taste I certainly acquired it then. Mushrooms varieties other than portobello/cremini/button are not commonly found in restaurants in the US. Chanterelle, morel, woodsear, enoki, lion mane, lobster, porcini, oh so many delicious and unique flavors. But, truffles outshine them all in its unique firm texture, aroma and flavor.
Neuroscientist and taste expert at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Brian Lewandowski told Brain Facts that the differences picked up in the different zones are there, but are too minute to actually matter.
"All regions of the tongue that detect taste respond to all five taste qualities. There are some mild regional differences in sensitivity for different taste qualities, but these differences are small enough that they do not play a clear role in taste perception."
Caviar
Another instance where there are many different kinds, and the taste varies significantly. Also depends what it is paired with as most of us don't just dig into a bowl of caviar like it was cereal.
Nutella. It’s just ok.
There are way better Chocolate spreads around, especially ones without palm oil
Red velvet cake. I've had ones that were supposed to be excellent but it's just red cake.
It's a chocolate cake with red food coloring. I don't like it, either.
We can explain scientifically why some people like a certain food and others hate it. It's apparently in your genes. Research scientist on sensory, flavor and consumer sciences Nicholas Archer writes: "The receptor proteins are produced from instructions encoded in our DNA and there is significant variation in the DNA code between individuals."
Turkey. As a non-American living in the US, it's a f*****g miserable bird. Everyone is like Yeah but if you brine for 37.5 hours in this mixture, dry rub it for 22.7 hours, it tastes so good! Spend that amount of time and effort and any kind of meat is going to taste better than the turkey. Not to mention that people are prepared to destroy their major asset trying to cook it. Lastly, there is no turkey based fast food chain in the US. Y'all claim to love it so much but the market knows the truth.
A 2013 study found that each person has a unique set of genetic variations and almost no two people have the same aroma perceptions. In fact, they claim that any two individuals have genetic differences that translate to differences in 30% of their receptors.
Licorice!! Tried it for the first time about 2 years ago. Gulped it down in front of people, all the while fighting the urge to spit it out. Yucckkk
Black licorice: You either love it or hate it. I've never yet met a person who could go either way. Myself, I'm on the 'Love it' side.
Every time McRib comes back, I’m SUPER excited for it. I bite into one and then…the spongey texture hits me and makes me remember why I don’t need to buy it ever again.
Then, somehow, McRib season rolls around again 2 years later — and there I am in line…
It's just a frozen patty of mechanically shredded pork pressed into a riblike shape. The frozen food companies have been making them for fifty years. The only thing missing is the sauce. Just buy some Swansons and use your own BBQ sauce and bread.
Can it be a beverage? Cause I kind of hate IPAs but everyone else seems to love them - and I like beer, just not IPAs.
Chick-fil-A. I had a sandwich. Is was... okay, but that's about it.
It’s too sweet. You can tell they add sugar to the breading
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They are yummy , if you knew what companies support you would be able to buy very little
which is why we, the educated people who care, make informed decisions as much as possible. And we choose what's important to us. If the trumpers can boycott their cheap "beer," we can choose not to eat over-salted hate chicken. It tastes funny annyways.
Load More Replies... A couple years ago they made a move into Portland. They're afraid to open in the city proper so they stick to the suburbs. Fact is I know food trucks that have better chicken. You want to move in on the Portland, Oregon food scene, you better be really really good or the competition will eat you alive.
Sorry to everyone, but CFA is delicious. I honestly love just about all of their food. The mac n cheese is the best thing on the menu. Nuggets are the best in the biz. Fries are right up there with MCD. The sandwiches are good but not the best thing there by a long shot. They do lemonade and milkshakes better than anyone. Their biscuits (the American ones) beat every breakfast chain out there. Chicken minis with the honey butter are fantastic. And of course, speed and service are bar-none. I don't eat there everyday like a lot of people do, but I eat there often enough. I understand people don't agree with the founder's beliefs (who has been dead for years, btw), but that doesn't mean the food is bad. Also, both CFA's I've worked at, we had LGBTQ+ management. The people who work there are different from the owners, as with all companies.
They get caught every couple years making donations to anti-LGBTQ groups, then they aw-shucks we won't do it again. Then they do it again. I stopped eating there because I don't want my money to go to those kinds of groups, but occasionally someone will bring it to work. I've tried it once or twice, and honestly it mostly just tastes like grease.
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When they opened here there were cars lined up for miles and police controlling traffic. I don't get it. It's just fast food.
Fast food with a side helping of Massive propaganda.
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I have friends who call it "hate chicken" because of the discrimination. I'd rather get out my air fryer than eat from there.
I despise them. Bigoted a-holes. I am from MA, but lived in NC for a time. Found PDQ, a much better fast-food chicken place. The kitchen is open concept & everything is made to order.
I love when people scream about inclusivity while excluding an entire group. Makes all the sense.
I mention this every time this one comes up. But I don't get the hype--only because the place has been around since the 40s. I remember it as another crappy fast food option at the mall food court in the 1980s. No one raved about it. No one cared about it. It was just another fast food place option among a million other options. That's it. Then somehow in the 2000s it was suddenly THE place everyone just HAD to go. Why? It's another chicken sandwich like any other, and has been since the 40s. What changed in the 2000s? I think somehow it became trendy and people just jumped on the bandwagon and can't admit there is nothing special about Chick-fil-A.
Also, their barbeque sauce sucks. It's way too sweet and tastes like honey mixed with ketchup. I can appreciate a good sweet barbeque sauce (there's a barbeque place in Mt. Horeb, WI, that has an incredible raspberry barbeque sauce), but Chick-Fil-A has not figured out how to make a good sweet barbeque sauce.
I definitely like the peanut oil flavor. The one that left me absolutely baffled was when the whole world seemed to go nuts over Popeye's. First off, Popeye's chicken is the WORST whole-meat fast-food chicken (no, I'm not going to compare it to the pink goo brands, like McD's and BK's.)
Popeye's fried chicken sandwich beats the bloomers off of Chick-fil-A's sandwich anytime, anywhere.
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The waffle fries are really good especially dipped their polynesean sauce.
I tried chick-fil-a because someone else paid for it. They almost had to pay me to eat it. Substandard food in tiny portions for full price.
I know! Even before I stopped eating there for other reasons, I couldn't figure out why people were so nuts over it. It's just meh chicken. Same thing for Whataburger - I live in Texas and people act like Whataburger is manna from heaven. It's no better than any other fast food, and in my opinion has gone even more downhill in recent years. Every time we leave Texas, when we get back my parents are like "WE HAVE TO GO WHATABURGER" and I would literally rather go to McDonald's.
The secret is quite simple. Their chicken is brined using dill pickle brine. You can easily do it at home.
I agree. The chicken is pretty good I guess but it is wayyyy overhyped.
Chck-fil-A has great customer service, long lines at the drive-in mean nothing because they've streamlined the whole process. But the food is bland and I've never gotten those famous waffle fries when they weren't tasteless and limp. I don't get it either.
No better or worse than any other food handed to you through a window in a bag.
It's marginally better than most fast food, but I don't eat there on principle.
I love them. Their nuggets are awesome and the people that work there seem genuinely happy. To each their own though.
I don't get why people eat chik-fil-a when cane's exists, but hey, you do you
I do not care that they hired a corporate BS diversity shill. They are disgusting in the name of "christianity" ( maybe they should look up love thy neighbor). I have never had anything from there and will walk away if offered. I also will never give hobby lobby any of my crafting money ( and I spend way too much). I do TRY and use my voice by where I spend my $$
If you blind folded people, they'd most always prefer Chick-fil-A.
True people who walk around with blindfolds on, and don't care about blatant hate , probably do prefer cfa... They can have a new slogan... "CFA for those who don't care"
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Yeah, my first experience was underwhelming. I didn't even think their sauce was anything special either but I like some foods that others think is overrated so to each their own.
Ok but America, if it uses a burger bun it's a chicken burger okay? Lol. Sandwiches have sandwich bread. Just weird thing I noticed in the states, for some reason the term 'chicken burger' does not compute over there.
We have chicken burgers in the US, though they're rare. They're made from minced (ground) chicken. If it's not minced, it's not a burger. Roast beef on a bun isn't a beef burger, grilled chicken on a bun isn't a chicken burger. The bun is not the defining characteristic, but the way the meat is processed.
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I love Chic-Fil-A and the fact that they aren't afraid to stand up for what they believe! We need less mob mentality, even if we disagree!!
I'm not into all that bio c**p and all, but the best burgers I ever ate are from a shop that focuses on the quality of their products and use only certain suppliers that provide bio ingredients! Any fast food joint has nothing on them! My girlfriend didn't like the taste of beef, until she ate a burger there! Now she's constantly trying to get me go there and eat!
Most red velvet cakes are just sh**ty vanilla cake with red food coloring. Get one (or make one) the correct way with non-Dutch-processed cocoa powder, buttermilk, and vinegar. It's an incredibly smooth, very different type of chocolate cake.
So it's suppose to be not just red cake with the taste of a coloring.
I mean, people go crazy in both directions, but cilantro. There’s the whole “does it taste like soap or not” thing, but it’s usually presented as “people either think it tastes like soap or they find it amazing”. I am neither. It doesn’t taste like soap to me, but I also don’t love it. Meh.
Coriander does taste like soap to me, but then so does rocket. Yuk.
Sweet pickles/relish
Omg!! Thank you!!! I HATE sweet relish. Mom used to make bread and butter pickles and I liked those but never loved them. I'm a dill pickle girl all the way!
Mint flavored drinks or candy. I like some mint gum or a peppermint but it’s disgusting in actual food
No I love mint with anything. Might be controversial to some people. Some say “tastes like toothpaste”
What about lobster? I can dig it with drawn butter and I ain’t mad at it. But if I’m gonna pay $29.99 for a lobster. I’d rather eat shrimp.
Ranch Dressing.
OMG same and I'm an American! WTF is it with the ranch and ranch flavored everything? I thought I hated salad until I was in my 20s and discovered vinaigrette. I didn't hate salad. I hated ranch dressing!
Nutritional yeast.
It does NOT taste like cheese. It smells like what I imagine an early to mid severity case of trench foot would.
it is amazing on food. I love it. Specially with foods with umami (mushrooms for example).
anchovies
A long time I thought I hate it, but then I was in Italy and my Italian wasn't that good and accidently I ordered a pizza with anchovies. I am a very proud person and I did not want to admit my mistake so I sayed nothing and ate it. Since this time I love it more than it's good for me.
Macarons. I never cared for them either. I had one yesterday at a potluck, homemade ones. They were seriously something else, with some sort of butter cream and jelly inside. Never had anything quite like it. Now I wish I had grabbed a few to take home. Still won't eat store bought ones though.
Depending on where you are buying them, most "store bought" macarons shouldn't be legally permitted to call themselves macarons!
Poutine. Cheese curds are a big nope from me. Especially on soggy fries. I’ve had someone tell me “but they squeak on your teeth!” as if that would somehow change my stance lol
Note: this post originally had 49 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
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It is a really weird concept to me that if someone doesn't like something they assume everyone else must be lying about liking it. I hate lima beans, I've never once considered that everyone who says they like them must be faking it for some odd reason. I just assume people have different tastes.
It was the opposite way for me. I always wondered why I was such a weirdo and hated mint when everyone else loved it. Turns out, I'm allergic! Lol. But have you ever tried pressure cooking Lima beans in a dish for the cooker? I hate them too, cannot stand them, unless I put them with a dish that goes into the pressure cooker. It's like all those flavors get crushed into the beans and it actually makes them edible!
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THAT should be on the list! Half of the stuff on it is delicious... marzipan tastes like fraud.
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I love how through these people reply "well if you add half a pound of bacon and some cheese to it it's delicious". I mean, yeah of course it is. You could add those things to red velvet cake and it would be delicious.
I mean, salt and fat are the things to typically make things taste great. It's why restaurants are terrible except for every once in a while. They load every dish up on the sodium and fat. Ever taken a look at IHOP's chicken sandwich? It has over half the DV of recommended sodium.
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I'm English. I hate tea. (As in the drink). You can imagine how well that goes down here...😬🤣
I'm American, and the idea of putting milk into tea makes me gag. Love Twinings Earl Grey, but with no sugar and no milk, and it has to be Twinings because no one else gets the bergamot right. Also love Chinese black tea with Chinese takeout, also unadulterated.
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A lot of people in these comments are saying that you can't dislike something since it's a category under which a lot of things fall, but usually there's a lot of common taste, texture, ingredients, etc. that is used as a defining feature for most of the category. And when you reference the exceptions to this conformity as reasons why someone can't dislike something, then you're mostly just picking holes in what we define as being in the category, not what they dislike. When someone says they dislike or like food, such as sushi or alcohol, we well know what they mean, trying to nitpick doesn't really get us anywhere (I'm just giving my view on things here, I may be wrong but this is how I see it)
Right after the holidays and no one mentioned my favorite — fruitcake!
It's very near sacrilegious in my part of the country, but I just don't understand why people make such a big deal about boiled crawfish. That's too much work for that little bit of meat that doesn't taste all that good anyway. I'd rather have shrimp any day of the week.
Newsflash: not everyone likes every kind of food. That doesn’t make any food “bad,” it just means we have different tastes.
Pickled onions. It' started becoming trendy maybe 10 years ago for "house made" pickled stuff to appear on menus, especially at BBQ places. Then it became a side, and you'd have a small, sad, and sour pile of slimy purple onions taking up space on your plate. Bleah. Oh - and any "house made" ketchup. You just know it's going to be chunky, unpleasant, and taste nothing like ketchup.
I am a super adventurous eater. My parents said that I had to try everything once, but I never had to eat if again if I didn't like it. I've had a lamb's eyeball in Morocco. I've had snake 3 ways (eggs, stew, jerky) in Cambodia. Lutefisk in Sweden. The only food that I ever refused was BALUT (a fertilized developing egg embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell.) My friend bit into one and it looked too gross. Still, I find olives are the worst.
For me, it's any type of carbonated drink. How do people drink that stuff? It's awful!
I thought this site is supposed to be European? How come nearly everything on here is so US centered? Americans probably don‘t even realize this. Most of these foods are very US American. Red velvet cake, pumpkin spice, Walmart sugar cookies, ….. I wish there would be less articles about the US. It‘s like an obsession here.
The site may be based in Europe, but the internet is worldwide and there are loads of American Pandas, including me. Personally, I'd rather see more articles about the rest of the world. Most of the American articles get nearly everything wrong and almost always take one person's opinion and extrapolate to a ridiculous stereotype.
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I wouldn't eat most of the things on this list, but I wonder why boiled peanuts didn't show up here. I love boiled peanuts but they are usually frowned upon by people who didn't grow up in the southeastern US.
What's with the byline, "I refuse to believe a single soul would want to eat it?" I understand the hype angle, but only a couple are truly unusual! You really can't believe anybody likes Oreos or Cheetos?! I can't believe people who say they like pizza but will only eat plain cheese, but it's still good! I expected more stuff like cat/dog/horse or other things that are popular in some regions but not most!
Sushi. Well. it looks nice and is a lot of work, but - whatfor did we invent fire? I do not want to eat raw fish
Try California rolls. It's cucumber, avocado, and cooked crab meat. Yummy. Philly roll is also good its same thing except instead of avocado it has cream cheese.
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It is a really weird concept to me that if someone doesn't like something they assume everyone else must be lying about liking it. I hate lima beans, I've never once considered that everyone who says they like them must be faking it for some odd reason. I just assume people have different tastes.
It was the opposite way for me. I always wondered why I was such a weirdo and hated mint when everyone else loved it. Turns out, I'm allergic! Lol. But have you ever tried pressure cooking Lima beans in a dish for the cooker? I hate them too, cannot stand them, unless I put them with a dish that goes into the pressure cooker. It's like all those flavors get crushed into the beans and it actually makes them edible!
Load More Replies... THAT should be on the list! Half of the stuff on it is delicious... marzipan tastes like fraud.
Load More Replies... I love how through these people reply "well if you add half a pound of bacon and some cheese to it it's delicious". I mean, yeah of course it is. You could add those things to red velvet cake and it would be delicious.
I mean, salt and fat are the things to typically make things taste great. It's why restaurants are terrible except for every once in a while. They load every dish up on the sodium and fat. Ever taken a look at IHOP's chicken sandwich? It has over half the DV of recommended sodium.
Load More Replies... I'm English. I hate tea. (As in the drink). You can imagine how well that goes down here...😬🤣
I'm American, and the idea of putting milk into tea makes me gag. Love Twinings Earl Grey, but with no sugar and no milk, and it has to be Twinings because no one else gets the bergamot right. Also love Chinese black tea with Chinese takeout, also unadulterated.
Load More Replies... A lot of people in these comments are saying that you can't dislike something since it's a category under which a lot of things fall, but usually there's a lot of common taste, texture, ingredients, etc. that is used as a defining feature for most of the category. And when you reference the exceptions to this conformity as reasons why someone can't dislike something, then you're mostly just picking holes in what we define as being in the category, not what they dislike. When someone says they dislike or like food, such as sushi or alcohol, we well know what they mean, trying to nitpick doesn't really get us anywhere (I'm just giving my view on things here, I may be wrong but this is how I see it)
Right after the holidays and no one mentioned my favorite — fruitcake!
It's very near sacrilegious in my part of the country, but I just don't understand why people make such a big deal about boiled crawfish. That's too much work for that little bit of meat that doesn't taste all that good anyway. I'd rather have shrimp any day of the week.
Newsflash: not everyone likes every kind of food. That doesn’t make any food “bad,” it just means we have different tastes.
Pickled onions. It' started becoming trendy maybe 10 years ago for "house made" pickled stuff to appear on menus, especially at BBQ places. Then it became a side, and you'd have a small, sad, and sour pile of slimy purple onions taking up space on your plate. Bleah. Oh - and any "house made" ketchup. You just know it's going to be chunky, unpleasant, and taste nothing like ketchup.
I am a super adventurous eater. My parents said that I had to try everything once, but I never had to eat if again if I didn't like it. I've had a lamb's eyeball in Morocco. I've had snake 3 ways (eggs, stew, jerky) in Cambodia. Lutefisk in Sweden. The only food that I ever refused was BALUT (a fertilized developing egg embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell.) My friend bit into one and it looked too gross. Still, I find olives are the worst.
For me, it's any type of carbonated drink. How do people drink that stuff? It's awful!
I thought this site is supposed to be European? How come nearly everything on here is so US centered? Americans probably don‘t even realize this. Most of these foods are very US American. Red velvet cake, pumpkin spice, Walmart sugar cookies, ….. I wish there would be less articles about the US. It‘s like an obsession here.
The site may be based in Europe, but the internet is worldwide and there are loads of American Pandas, including me. Personally, I'd rather see more articles about the rest of the world. Most of the American articles get nearly everything wrong and almost always take one person's opinion and extrapolate to a ridiculous stereotype.
Load More Replies... I wouldn't eat most of the things on this list, but I wonder why boiled peanuts didn't show up here. I love boiled peanuts but they are usually frowned upon by people who didn't grow up in the southeastern US.
What's with the byline, "I refuse to believe a single soul would want to eat it?" I understand the hype angle, but only a couple are truly unusual! You really can't believe anybody likes Oreos or Cheetos?! I can't believe people who say they like pizza but will only eat plain cheese, but it's still good! I expected more stuff like cat/dog/horse or other things that are popular in some regions but not most!
Sushi. Well. it looks nice and is a lot of work, but - whatfor did we invent fire? I do not want to eat raw fish
Try California rolls. It's cucumber, avocado, and cooked crab meat. Yummy. Philly roll is also good its same thing except instead of avocado it has cream cheese.
Load More Replies...