10 Stomach-Churning Foods That Are A Thing In America And Non-Americans Online Don’t Know Why

Food is one of those things people might find themselves arguing over. Not because it’s akin to politics, religion, and music, but because it’s a matter of taste—quite a literal one.

But sometimes, you have foods that you don’t even need tastebuds to understand that it’s just flat-out horrible. Either that or it begs the question of why. And how? And probably many others. Just like it did this time. Except, it was a question for non-Americans about disgusting American food.

10 PHOTOS

#1

Whatever sick f**k decided we needed to batter and deep fry sticks of butter need their mental health checked

#2

#3

A friend visited me from Italy and wanted to try Krispy Kreme donuts. He took one bite and said, "Now I understand why Americans are fat!" He made me take him back there twice. Not that I minded going :P

So, there was an AskReddit question asked of non-Americans about American food. Specifically, food that they thought was disgusting, whether visually, based on taste, or didn’t roll well on a conceptual level.

While by Reddit standards the post got a modest amount of upvotes, clocking in at nearly 4,000 upvotes, it generated a conversation of over 6,600 comments, and that’s something.

#4

#5

The chocolate out there is FOUL.

u/mostlikelynotasnail replied:
Ghirardelli, Guittard, Dove, Scharffen Berger, and hundreds of smaller companies are fine. Pretty much just avoid anything you would find near the register at a grocery store.

u/TomomiimomoT replied:
I tried a big-name American chocolate brand once but couldn't eat it due to the vomit smell and taste.

#6

Orange circus peanuts. What are they? How do they have so much sugar but taste so horrible? What science experiments created them?

And, you gotta admit, some food is just flat out eww. No, it doesn’t have to be solely of any nationality. Everyone is guilty of it. With no disrespect to anyone, there ain’t many people who genuinely like haggis or surströmming or vėdarai. These are honestly some of the milder options in the global cuisine.

#7

I'm sorry but those slices of American cheese have always tasted so fake and plastic to me personally.

#8

Corn syrup is everywhere.

u/yugosaki replied:
The prevalence of high fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, being in Canada, it's bleeding over the border as a lot of products here are manufactured in the USA.

#9

Now, it’s hard to draw a definitive line of what food is universally considered disgusting. You can argue that anything with excessive amounts of [insert any ingredient here] or an extreme lack thereof could constitute disgust. Others might argue that if it looks like something you’d fish out of the Mariana Trench. And yet others think eating bugs and fire is probably not something you should do in general.

No, it’s mostly subjective, and there’s a test for that.

#10

Sweet Potato Casserole recipe topped with pecans and marshmallows “traditional side at Thanksgiving table”

u/DonSmo replied:
Marshmallows on sweet potatoes are so gross and foreign to me.