Chances are, you’ll spot at least one photo of mouth-watering food the second you open your Instagram feed. You know, those carefully curated posts filled with dazzling colors of kimchi, home-brewed kombuchas, and vibrant açaí bowls that get your appetite immediately going. But the truth is, these are all trends that have filled our kitchens, plates, and bellies during these past few years. And if there’s one thing we’re sure of, they tend to come and go.
So a few days ago, Redditor AndShesNotEvenPretty felt inspired when she came across old recipes that looked completely unappetizing by today's standards. So the user reached out to members of the 'Cooking' subreddit with a very fine question: "What cooking/food trends will seem revolting in the future?" Foodies immediately jumped to the comment section and shared their sizzling takes about the latest fads that will age so bad, they'll turn sour.
From rainbow-colored meals to dishes decorated with gold, we’ve gone through the thread and hand-picked some of the most interesting responses for every cooking enthusiast to enjoy. So get your aprons ready and continue scrolling to upvote your favorite ones! Do you have any thoughts about what food trends should cease to exist? Be sure to tell us all about them in the comments, we'd love to hear them.
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it's not really a food trend per se, but i'm really tired of looking up a recipe online only to have to scroll through 20 pages of a life story full of anecdotes just to get to the ingredient list.
Fondant. Cakes are supposed to taste good first and look good second, not look beautiful and taste awful.
I love baking (I would say I’m great at it) but I never use fondant or much frosting, because it’s tasty without having to peel layers off it to eat it
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It's pure sugar, so think of your pancreas before you eat too much! 😁
Load More Replies... The sheer disappointment of a lovely decorated cake being only two cake slabs with a tiny bit of strawberry jelly in between wrapped in fondant.
Wait, they are different ? I love marzipan. Never had a fondant cake ( does battenburg count ?) and wanted to try one. But guess not.
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Ok I have to put my 2 cents in. Fondant can be either delicious or disgusting; it's dependent on how it's made. Pre-made store bought junk is just gross while homemade is much more flavorful and you can offset the overly sweet taste. I used to make fondant cakes as a hobby and they were much more delicious with homemade fondant.
That's cool to know. I didn't know there was a homemade version that could taste decent.
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The only times I have used fondant is when I made Union Jack cakes for the Queen's diamond and platinum jubilees. Large flags cut into rings to decorate six small cakes each. I normally use buttercream or lemon icing (literally just lemon juice and icing sugar). I occasionally make lemon curd to go in the middle. I'm rubbish at cake decorating, but at least what I turn out tastes nice.
The idea of that makes me ill. Way too sweet for me. I'm sure my kids would enjoy it though. I actually don't like icing of any kind, so I'm not the target audience
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Just take the fondant off. That way the cake can look good and still taste good. It's not that hard.
As a professional cake decorator, I don't disagree about the flavor complaint but I never put it on there assuming it gets consumed. There is always a healthy amount of Italian merengue buttercream under the fondant and between cake layers. Just peel it off like you do before you eat a banana or an orange.
Yes this exactly! I'm also a cake decorator, and I tell people all the time, if there's too much fondant and not enough buttercream, then it's because of a bad cake decorator, not because of fondant.
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I don't understand why people get so worked up about this. Fondant isn't very tasty, but you don't have to eat it, and it's easy enough to peel off and set aside.
As a professional cake decorator, I say this all the time. There's a layer of buttercream under the fondant, you don't have to eat it. I compare it to going to a steak house and getting a steak with a parsley garnish and saying "That steak was disgusting, I hate parsley." Also, the fondant should be very thin. If there's a thick slab of fondant and barely any buttercream, the problem is with the baker/decorator, not the fondant itself.
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That's what you're supposed to do. It's a garnish.
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Fondant is amazing, I'd be happy with a cake of pure fondant lmao
We had a French bakery (run by real French people!) open nearby and were really excited to have one - then a friend had a wedding, ordered one of their cakes. They used this horrible fondant on it, literally no one enjoyed the cake even a little bit. Completely pointless, and the bakery didn't last long at all.
Fondant, the good one, isn't the problem. The problem is the bad thing, one ton of bad thing in a cake
I acctually like fondant… but in small servings. I agree that the cake in that pic is waaaay overboard on the fondant
Make your own and add flavoring to taste. Also it doesn't have to be plastered on a foot thick.
I hate fondant! It's effing gross. Doesn't matter store bought or made with exquisite care, its all gross...it does look cool though.
Fondant is used because its cheaper and easy to handle compared to marzipan
"Just peel it off. The cake is good underneath.".... I'm sorry, Susan, but my cake is NOT A BANANA.
Fondant is not bad, but I never seen anyone use it for cake frosting. It seems like bad idea. People sometime use marzipan. But there was really bad trend in the last few years- confectioner use some kind of cake frosting, that look great but it's basically unedible. I don't know what the hell is this, but It taste like goddamn cardboard.
Fondant is for bakeries to show off decorating skills, not for making a tasty cake. It's the death of expensive wedding, birthday, anniversary, graduation, etc., everywhere.
I know it is only black, but the easiest thing to make, that also creates a perfectly smooth finish is ganache!
American fondant IS revolting but make your own and it’s delicious. Also the British version is good too.
I say, “Find another medium in which to make your sculptures!” Lol. Make it look like a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache! I will admit my favorite cake is a Princess cake with its marzipan covering (that looks like fondant) which I love, the yellow genoise, the pastry cream, the whipped cream and finally the raspberry jam is the best!
Or yucky frosting made of shortening. I just scrape it off. So gross.
I've made marshmallow fondant and don't mind the flavor in small amounts, but when I used to decorate cakes I just didn't offer fully fondant-covered ones and no one ever minded at all. I would make fondant accents or toppers and just use regular buttercream or Swiss meringue buttercream carefully scraped nice and smooth. I think everyone was happier and didn't at all mind that the cake corners were sharp instead of rounded.
Agreed. I feel like an a*****e to say to the artists BUT, I am just not impressed if the cake is no good. It is hard to understand the point of supposedly able to make a fantastic looking cake, it should be that able to eat what looks so awesome. Now, if just used as a medium, clearly stating so that the cake to eat isn't their thing. Like, fine. I guess. Lol
There are cake artists nowadays that are revolutionary when it comes to using buttercream. But for complicated cakes, fondant is a must.
I used to make cakes on request and they always ended up being form over function.
Fondant is disgusting and I don't understand why people love putting it on cakes. So many "decorated" cakes turn out to be pre-made cake base and random buttercream filling and that's it. Then it's covered in layers of fondant. WHY?
For aesthetic purposes. I am not a professional cake decorator but I do use fondant when decorating cakes for family and friends. Everyone just takes the fondant off, no biggie.
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We managed to get in touch with the user who started this whole thread, AndShesNotEvenPretty, who was kind enough to have a little chat with us. When asked whether she expected her post to reach hundreds of people who wasted no time sharing their opinions in the comments, the user said that it was definitely cool. "But let’s not get too precious here. It’s a Reddit post. All it demonstrates is I had a passing thought that other people identified with," she told Bored Panda.
The user came up with the idea to ask this question while scrolling through the 'Old Recipes' subreddit. "It’s amusing to look back on the trends of yesteryear and realize how much our tastes have changed," she wrote in the post. "Gelatin abominations, iceberg lettuce creations, and protein loaf iterations abound, many of which sound unappetizing by today’s standards. It got me to thinking, what do we eat now that the next generations will find unappealing?"
Deconstructed food. I do not give a sh*t about your creative attempt to try to 'invoke' cheesecake by having all the elements on a plate separately. I want the damn, fully assembled cheesecake
Food decorated in gold. I don’t judge people for fine dining or enjoying expensive meals, but that gold leafing sh*t is over the line for me. It's pure ostentatiousness without even pretending that it improves the taste of food.
When asked about the reasons she finds it interesting to explore old recipes online, AndShesNotEvenPretty explained she enjoys looking at them because they serve as a social commentary of the era they once were popular in. Moreover, they can tell us a lot about what was valued at the time. "You can see the changes that were taking place in society simply by observing recipes over time."
"As women entered the workforce, for example, recipes became more compact, streamlined, and made use of convenience foods and canned items," the user continued. "During the Great Depression, recipes were barebones and made use of inexpensive staples and often involved innovative uses for cheaper ingredients so they could be used as substitutes for more expensive products like milk and eggs."
However, most of the cooking trends that were popular during that time have faded away. Once we take a look at the TV dinners, gelatin salads, and fish-shaped food that were extremely prevalent just a few decades ago, we undoubtedly scratch our heads from confusion. "I think many of these recipes fall out of favor as we begin to value different things, gain new technology, and as we continue to learn more about the world around us," the user noted several reasons why these dishes no longer seem appetizing to us.
I already think they’re gross but those “Stunt Burgers” that are stacked so damn high you can’t even eat it properly and the combination of all 25+ ingredients probably won’t even taste that good together. First We Feast Instagram I’m lookin at you.
I want to hope that future people will be revolted by the giant, flavorless beefsteak tomatoes we chose to selectively breed and then pick early and refrigerate into oblivion to be the way they are, right now, *on purpose.*
that is all tomatoes, not just beefsteak and many of the fruits and vegetables that you want to eat. buy local, support local farmers and grow your own, supermarkets just fill shelves with produce people will buy.
Keurig coffee. Passing boiling water through plastic cups for a burnt, under-extracted cup. If it doesn't turn out to be outright dangerous to human health, it's still an environmentally wasteful way to make a bad cup of coffee.
I have absolutely no use for anyone who uses any of these "pod" devices. 39,000 pods are produced every single minute of the day (20.5 billion per year) of those, 29,000 end up in landfills (15.242 BILLION PER YEAR) You couldn't recycle these things if you wanted to, and manufactures have resisted making that a possibility anyway. Testing has shown that the water in the machines doesn't even get hot enough to do a proper extraction, grounds are OFTEN stale, and there are a myriad of ways that are just as easy (if not more so) to get a cup, that offer exponentially better end product.
"Right now, we seem to value abundance (think burgers too large to eat and overloaded milkshakes) so a recipe that makes use of potato peels (as seen in the Depression) seems less alluring," she continued. "And whereas gelatin salads were once de rigueur, we’ve long ago been there and done that. When you can sous vide at home, a molded dessert with canned fruit suspended inside seems markedly less sophisticated."
Plus, the user explained that our ability to easily communicate and travel throughout the world led to our cuisine preferences shifting as well. "Whereas, at one time, American meals were relegated to a meat, a starch and a vegetable, in recent decades we have begun to see the introduction of more worldwide influences, flavor profiles, techniques, and ingredients in our recipes."
Hopefully sugar and corn syrup being put in *everything*. So much sugar...
Why is sugar needed in bread? US bread qualifies as cake in most other countries.
*Fois gras*. I think in the future the objections to *fois gras* will continue to grow to where it will no longer be found on menus. It will go the way of the ortolan.
I did not know about ortolans until today - and now I feel like puking!
Large portions — why? French cuisine is really rich, sweet, and salty, but their portions are just smaller. I don’t need to eat a 0.5-1 burger with all the fixins. Why are burritos the size of my arm?
Yes, I often wonder if Americans who come here think our portions are really stingy, but that's what we're used to, and they do fill you up.
The user’s question caused quite a stir on the 'Cooking' subreddit. Food enthusiasts from far and wide gathered together in one place to discuss the trends they wish everyone would just be done with, and they didn’t hold anything back. AndShesNotEvenPretty told us she liked seeing a lot of the responses. "Some of them I hadn’t thought of but totally agreed with — one person said foam looked like someone spit on your plate. I found myself thinking YES! THIS!"
I would add the milkshakes that have three desserts stacked on them and are spilling all over the place.
Foam. It's disgusting. And unfortunately appears on dishes in high end restaurants. Where it looks like something someone spit onto the plate. Horrifying.
"My favorite comments, and the most encouraging ones, were the people who think meat and factory farming will go the way of the dodo bird. I can only hope that one day my grandkids will be astounded that anyone ate an actual cow." But the user also mentioned that in the meantime, she’ll wait for some of these likely temporary trends to fizzle out.
"Since we are entering a time where everything is getting increasingly expensive, I’m guessing the Bloody Marys with 3 meals worth of garnish or the sandwich hybrids that use entire grilled cheese sandwiches as buns, will be viewed as wasteful and fall out of favor," she added, hoping these recipes and foods will be frowned upon all together.
The Instagram food era. Everything over the top so it looks great on insta but more often than not it's just a mess. It's all about how the food looks not tastes. Can anyone tell me that adding 25-30 toppings to an ice cream cone all made of sugar actually makes the ice cream better? At a certain point you have an ice cream sundae that is all toppings
I've heard stories of instagrammers sending back stacks of pancakes because the cook added syrup, only to have more made without syrup so they can pour it "their way" and take photos. And then leave them. "Influencers" are a boil on the rear end of humanity.
Stuff that's cooked inside of a plastic bag, liner, etc. Not to be a conspiracy theorist but I don't think we quite understand how bad plastic leeching is for humans.
When food is becoming practically unaffordable for so many people, the user believes people will change their attitudes towards meals with immoderate amounts of food. "I think it will be seen as tacky to create recipes for sandwiches stacked so tall with toppings so as to render them inedible, for example."
However, AndShesNotEvenPretty felt it’s important to remind you, dear readers, that it all comes down to choice. "Eat what you like whether it’s 'fashionable' or not. I know my husband will never, ever give up French onion dip and potato chips no matter who says charcuterie trays are the way of the future. And that’s ok!"
Artfully smearing a sauce so it looks like a s**t streak on your plate.
Who the f**k thinks that’s appetizing?
Hopefully - industrially farmed meat. It's an incredibly cruel system that inflicts massive amounts of suffering to animals _and_ humans and does great damage to the environment and atmosphere, all for cheap hamburgers. I think we'll look back on it and treat it like other barbaric systems of the past. My hope is that plant based options continue to grow in popularity and people who still choose to eat animal flesh now and then opt for less damaging ones.
I think I will forever eat meat but I do wish the meat I consumed was more sustainable and the animals treated better.
Sloppy, wasteful, revolting food concoctions made for the purposes of entertainment. I would hope that in the future someone would be scorned and derided for doing something like covering your entire countertop in spaghetti and chocolate sauce. I would hope that future historians look back on phenomena like that and think something must have seriously been wrong with us.
Those dumb “hacks” or flashy foods on TikTok and Facebook.
Bloody Marys piled high with extra ingredients like bacon, shrimp, a lobster claw, and all kinds of pickled and spicy things.
Hot Cheeto Burrito
Hot Cheeto Fries
Hot Cheeto powder for your corndog or cheese stick
I don't get it. I loves me some hot cheetos, but they aren't an ingredient.
Hopefully all the pre-packaged and processed garbage our stores are filled with today. People need to re-discover actually cooking with real ingredients, not just re-heating processed industrial nonsense.
Then advocate for a better work-life balance and where needed better salaries. For too many people it is the most practical option given available time and money.
“Secret menu” food items got really old really fast. As a former barista, I was expected (by customers) to know every single “secret menu” item that some rando on the internet came up with? No thank you lol.
Meal prep delivery services. It seems like a step in the wrong direction when it comes to wasteful packaging. Every ingredient is individually packaged not to mention perishable ones need extra packaging.
I long for the day that people who use the word "EVOO" are expelled from polite society, then are forced to wander the wastelands to survive on beetles, and hair.
The pastries that are heavily preserved and sold in plastic packaging. Like the Little Debbie cakes.
Everything that is wrapped up in unnecessary amounts of plastic will be horrifying to us eventually.
deep fried foods like oreo, ice cream etc. stacking calories over calories.
Note: this post originally had 63 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Is it me or is BP being more and more judgemental posts - sure comment on people wasting food etc but what’s wrong with the occasional deep fried mar bar or whether if it makes them happy. If people more accepting maybe we’d have less suffering.
No, BP has always been on a bit of high horse of judgement.
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Some of these were right on. Others seem to be a matter of, "I really don't like (fill in the blank) so no one else should like it." Also, some of these things aren't trends. For example, people have been cooking with kale for over at least 2600 years.
I love kale. It's been used in the Dutch kitchen for centuries. The classic dish is mashed with potatoes and some smoked sausage on the side. Edit: I forgot the gravy :)
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Mine has to be fad diets. Honestly seems incredibly self obsessed to turn up to a meal with a list of stuff you won’t eat that’s longer than you are tall. It’s just a “look at me, I don’t eat carbs” thing. I have no problem whatsoever with people who have genuine allergies and conditions. You won’t find me eating peanuts on a plane or giving gluten to someone with coeliac disease. I just can’t stand stupid fads that just make life more difficult for people with genuine allergies because no one believes them when they say dairy will make them ill.
That has become such a big issue at restaurants. Everyone claims "I'm deathly allergic to X" just because they don't like a particular ingredient. Then when the person with the real allergies comes along everyone just rolls their eyes.
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I was beginning to think BP was starting to go a bit overboard but thought I was overreacting. Thanks for this comment. It seems like a flood of people who want to p**s and moan about someone or something they don't like. Too damn bad.
Some of the people on this article are misusing the term “binge eating”. Binge eating is disordered eating (an eating disorder) in which you eat excessive amounts of food because you’re experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, or really anything. This is not the same as just eating lots of food.
Cilantro. I'm one of those people who think it tastes like soap. I realize a lot of people like it and that's fine but it's in everything thing now and not always in an appropriate dish. What's next, cilantro milkshakes?
It's genetic. About 20% of people cannot abide coriander leaf. I've heard that Peruvian black mint (a herb that isn't actually a mint) is a good substitute but I've never been able to find it
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F**k mayonnaise in any form, I know it’s in all sorts of things but I can sniff it out in any meal. And I hate people who try and trick you into eating it. I would never put meat in a vegan meal and say “I tricked you”
Mine is the entirety of food shows and channels. The ingredients used in those shows is absolutely ludicrous. Especially the ones with kids in them. Not only can you not buy those ingredients where I live you could not afford them if you could. Just wastes time, money, and food on a bunch of s**t really. Pisses me off thinking about it. I need to go for a walk and cool off now.
The amount of privilege dripping from this list and comments is unbelievable.
Okay, i love cheese, but please Americans, it's okay to eat something that isn't smothered in melted cheese. I love you guys, but it's not healthy. Also not all Latinos were raised on tacos. Please don't ask me my opinion on what the best taco and burrito places are. That's not what we ate growing up. It's a norteño thing, not something we do in Brazil. Also Brazilian steakhouses. I think I ate red meat twice before moving to the US. This is a cuisine from a very specific part of Brazil. It would be like if I just assumed ALL Americans eat grits all the time. When i was growing up in Rio my base protein was beans. Sometimes with fish or maybe chicken. The red meat would be something like ox tail, not a slab of beef.
I would like to add charcuterie boards to this list. It's a meat and cheese tray for Pete's sake!!!!
To be fair, market forces steered towards this direction and we ourselves need to take the most blame. We let these trend chasing, attention seeking, limelight whoring disease fester for too long. We are all here shaking our heads but there are probably far more knuckleheads loving these pretentious, posh looking food that taste like play-doh fished out of the train station toilet. Because that's the cool thing right now.
The thing that I hate is fries getting served in tiny buckets, or things that look like miniature shopping carts.
One I didn't see in the list: Considering some foods to be better than others. Either stuff like "superfoods" that aren't a thing, or ingredients that are a little harder to get than others. I see so many "high end" chefs turn their noses up at stuff like canned products because for some reason that's considered below them. But then you challenge them to cook with those ingredients and, wonder of wonders, they can turn out delicious food. I'd also add demonizing certain foods for arbitrary reasons. Like GMOs. Literally the only difference between the food we call "GMO" and normal food is that the GMOs were created in a lab. The best example of this? Corn. Corn literally did not exist as it is now before humans started messing with it. Humans started to selectively breed it to become something we could make better use of, and now we have something that basically can not exist in the wild. It HAS to be cultivated by humans. "Non GMO Corn" is the biggest oxymoron I've ever seen.
Is it me or is BP being more and more judgemental posts - sure comment on people wasting food etc but what’s wrong with the occasional deep fried mar bar or whether if it makes them happy. If people more accepting maybe we’d have less suffering.
No, BP has always been on a bit of high horse of judgement.
Load More Replies... Some of these were right on. Others seem to be a matter of, "I really don't like (fill in the blank) so no one else should like it." Also, some of these things aren't trends. For example, people have been cooking with kale for over at least 2600 years.
I love kale. It's been used in the Dutch kitchen for centuries. The classic dish is mashed with potatoes and some smoked sausage on the side. Edit: I forgot the gravy :)
Load More Replies... Mine has to be fad diets. Honestly seems incredibly self obsessed to turn up to a meal with a list of stuff you won’t eat that’s longer than you are tall. It’s just a “look at me, I don’t eat carbs” thing. I have no problem whatsoever with people who have genuine allergies and conditions. You won’t find me eating peanuts on a plane or giving gluten to someone with coeliac disease. I just can’t stand stupid fads that just make life more difficult for people with genuine allergies because no one believes them when they say dairy will make them ill.
That has become such a big issue at restaurants. Everyone claims "I'm deathly allergic to X" just because they don't like a particular ingredient. Then when the person with the real allergies comes along everyone just rolls their eyes.
Load More Replies... I was beginning to think BP was starting to go a bit overboard but thought I was overreacting. Thanks for this comment. It seems like a flood of people who want to p**s and moan about someone or something they don't like. Too damn bad.
Some of the people on this article are misusing the term “binge eating”. Binge eating is disordered eating (an eating disorder) in which you eat excessive amounts of food because you’re experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, or really anything. This is not the same as just eating lots of food.
Cilantro. I'm one of those people who think it tastes like soap. I realize a lot of people like it and that's fine but it's in everything thing now and not always in an appropriate dish. What's next, cilantro milkshakes?
It's genetic. About 20% of people cannot abide coriander leaf. I've heard that Peruvian black mint (a herb that isn't actually a mint) is a good substitute but I've never been able to find it
Load More Replies... F**k mayonnaise in any form, I know it’s in all sorts of things but I can sniff it out in any meal. And I hate people who try and trick you into eating it. I would never put meat in a vegan meal and say “I tricked you”
Mine is the entirety of food shows and channels. The ingredients used in those shows is absolutely ludicrous. Especially the ones with kids in them. Not only can you not buy those ingredients where I live you could not afford them if you could. Just wastes time, money, and food on a bunch of s**t really. Pisses me off thinking about it. I need to go for a walk and cool off now.
The amount of privilege dripping from this list and comments is unbelievable.
Okay, i love cheese, but please Americans, it's okay to eat something that isn't smothered in melted cheese. I love you guys, but it's not healthy. Also not all Latinos were raised on tacos. Please don't ask me my opinion on what the best taco and burrito places are. That's not what we ate growing up. It's a norteño thing, not something we do in Brazil. Also Brazilian steakhouses. I think I ate red meat twice before moving to the US. This is a cuisine from a very specific part of Brazil. It would be like if I just assumed ALL Americans eat grits all the time. When i was growing up in Rio my base protein was beans. Sometimes with fish or maybe chicken. The red meat would be something like ox tail, not a slab of beef.
I would like to add charcuterie boards to this list. It's a meat and cheese tray for Pete's sake!!!!
To be fair, market forces steered towards this direction and we ourselves need to take the most blame. We let these trend chasing, attention seeking, limelight whoring disease fester for too long. We are all here shaking our heads but there are probably far more knuckleheads loving these pretentious, posh looking food that taste like play-doh fished out of the train station toilet. Because that's the cool thing right now.
The thing that I hate is fries getting served in tiny buckets, or things that look like miniature shopping carts.
One I didn't see in the list: Considering some foods to be better than others. Either stuff like "superfoods" that aren't a thing, or ingredients that are a little harder to get than others. I see so many "high end" chefs turn their noses up at stuff like canned products because for some reason that's considered below them. But then you challenge them to cook with those ingredients and, wonder of wonders, they can turn out delicious food. I'd also add demonizing certain foods for arbitrary reasons. Like GMOs. Literally the only difference between the food we call "GMO" and normal food is that the GMOs were created in a lab. The best example of this? Corn. Corn literally did not exist as it is now before humans started messing with it. Humans started to selectively breed it to become something we could make better use of, and now we have something that basically can not exist in the wild. It HAS to be cultivated by humans. "Non GMO Corn" is the biggest oxymoron I've ever seen.
