Food guilt is a real thing, but it doesn't always involve eating horribly (aka deliciously). Food regret can stem from a lot of things, as these 15 people more than demonstrate with their terrifying tales of the most regrettable things they've ever ate.
“This Apparently Harmless Sauce Crippled Me For A Whole Day.”
“I went on this cultural exchange program to work in an American restaurant for the summer. One day I come to work early and see all my compadres gathered around the counter. On it there was a plate of the most tender chicken crisps ever. I didn’t have a chance to grab breakfast so the hunger just hit me. I was so distracted that I didn’t even notice that they were overly enthusiastic for me to take some chicken and dip it in the amazing golden sauce next to it. Being European I wasn’t really familiar with the 1000s of sauces that you could have. The sauce in question was made from ghost peppers. I took a piece of chicken, drenched it fully in the sauce. Not even 2 seconds pass, and I feel this burning pain hitting my brain. Then everyone looks at me laughing and asks me if I’m Ok. I felt that my lips were melting and someone was trying to nail them back to my face with 1000 hammer hits per second. I don’t really remember what happened next. Just that I was sent home. As a bonus, I had Kim Kardashian’s lips for a whole week” (source).
He Was Just So Thirsty.
“I just got back home after running some errands and was thirsty like hell. I just opened the refrigerator and gulped down what I thought was cold water. Until I found it was this: white distilled vinegar. Oh, the sharp strong pungent flavor caused me to throw up. Within a few minutes my stomach started burning and for the next couple days I suffered from indigestion. The very thought of it again makes me cringe” (Source).
“KFC aka Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
“Extra crispy chicken covered with Colonel Sander’s secret 11 herbs and spices breading with just the right amount of crispness. Inside, the chicken is moist and slightly spicy. It is finger lickin’ good! Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Until I have my first bite. I am then reminded of the thick layer of fat under the crispy skin. And the oily breading. And the greasy aftertaste. Followed by regret of buying 6 pieces of chicken just because it is a great deal. Unfortunately I have short term memory. Every six months or so I will be craving it again. And regret it again. (Side note: I guess I know what I will be having for lunch today …)” (Source).
“I Love The Little Bombs Of Sickly Sweetness That Are The Cadbury Creme Eggs, But…”
“They were on sale for Easter at the grocery store so I grabbed a few to enjoy. Got home, was excited to enjoy my little treat. Absentmindedly I dug in, but what was that taste? Tasted like artificial flowers, and it permeated my entire respiratory system. But I wasn’t going to let that ruin my moment so I soldiered on, trying not to think about it. I was almost finished with the egg when I realized that during checkout, my eggs had been placed in the same bag as my boyfriend’s fabric softener sheets, and the strong fragrance had diffused directly into the chocolate. Gross! Forgot about it the next day and kept one of the eggs in my bag for the next few weeks, waiting for a moment where I needed to indulge myself again. Yesterday aunt flow was here, and bloated and cramping I felt I deserved it. Bit into it and there was the fragrance again, ah fook, I had forgotten! Fool me twice, shame on me” (Source).
PSA Warning.
“Disclaimer: this was definitely not my proudest, or most intellectual, moment. I was at my college apartment. One of my roommates had his family up for the day. His parents often brought us stuff for the apartment: cleaning supplies, food, decorations, etc. They had left the apartment and I was there alone. I saw a sandwich bag full of little round yellow-colored balls. Logically thinking, of course, I figured his family brought us a bag of candy. I had a weak spot for candy. So, I put one in my mouth expecting a sweet or sour taste. What I got instead was immediate gagging and the taste of what I could only imagine to be poison. What I found out it was later that day: Garbage disposal cleaner and deodorizer! Moral of the story: just as you’re taught to not take candy from strangers, also don’t take (what you believe to be) ‘candy’ from an unmarked sandwich bag sitting on your countertop” (Source).
Poor Man’s Whipped Cream.
“I was probably 9. My mother had asked me to go to the full-sized freezer in the basement and fetch some meat. When I opened the freezer I was greeted with a tub of Cool Whip aka poor man’s whipped cream. So with an impish smile I opened it up, scooped a big chunk out with my finger, and prepared to pop it in my mouth. As I had scooped it out, both the texture of it and its color had struck me as unusual–a little too greasy and not quite snow white enough. I had dismissed these warning signs, climbed the first step and popped it in my mouth, intending to finish it quickly before I entered the kitchen. Then it hit me, this was the vilest, nastiest, greasiest Cool Whip I had ever tasted. I screamed. When my mom realized what I had done, she nearly cried with laughter. She said the butcher had used old Cool Whip containers to store the lard from the pig we bought. Children, don’t ever eat frozen lard!” (Source).
“I Can Never Look At Chocolate Sprinkles The Same Way Ever Again.”
“When I was a kid, I used to really like chocolate sprinkles. Every time my mom brought me to the grocery store, the first thing on my list was chocolate sprinkles. I would eat them with or without bread, whether I was chilling at home or on my way to school. One day, I was playing hide-and-seek with my sister. As I was hiding behind my parent’s bedroom door, I noticed something that looked like a chocolate sprinkle, only somewhat bigger in size. I didn’t think twice and took a bite. Turns out it wasn’t a delicious chocolate sprinkle that I loved so much. It was from one of the things that I hated the most: a cockroach’s egg” (Source).
“Hidden Crab.”
“I’m allergic to crab. I live on the East Coast and crabs are our state food and hiding them in things seems to be our state sport. Others claim it is jousting but I never see jousting outside the Renaissance Festival where as restaurants hide crab in food all the time. Waiters seem to be incredibly coy about telling you it is there. ‘Our special today is a cold, fruit soup.’ ‘What’s in it?’ ‘Watermelon, tomato, red peppers, garlic, shallots and celery.’ ‘Wow, this is really good! Wait, is this crab at the bottom?’ (waiter gasps and looks ashen) ‘Are you allergic? It’s just a garnish!’ ‘A garnish that was in my food…that I was eating….’ ‘What is in the Beef Wellington?’ ‘Mushrooms, spinach, beef jus and all sorts of good things.’ After taking a few bites, ‘Hey, is this crab in the filling?’ (Crab is NOT a traditional filling for Beef Wellington!)” (Source).
THIS!
“What in the bloody h*ll made me think THIS would ever be a good idea?! I’ve had green smoothies before, so I figured wheatgrass couldn’t be all that different, right? WRONG. It tastes EXACTLY like…wait for it… GRASS. Shocker. And when I say ‘grass,’ I mean the kind your dad made you mow every other Saturday afternoon when you were growing up. Never and never and never again” (Source).
Go Big Or Go Home.
“When I was 12 years old I was left at home alone for the first time. I was really excited and so I did all of the normal kid things: played video games, used the swing set, ran around in my pajamas. It was great! But then I got hungry… I hadn’t planned for this. I went to the kitchen, only to find that the fridge was empty! My parents had left $25, but I wanted to pocket it, so I searched through the cupboards until I found something that looked palatable: a bag of white chocolate chips. I had never had white chocolate, but I figured that it would be similar to milk chocolate so I happily ate THE ENTIRE BAG. Instant regret. I was sick for all of the next day, and didn’t eat white chocolate for the next ten years” (Source).
Only In Japan.
“I was visiting Japan and my friends all had their own something that they wanted me to buy for them. The most requested item was Green Tea Kit Kats. But strangely, the Kit Kats were nowhere to be found. But during my last day in Japan I found a box in a small shop in the underground arcades of Shinjuku station. It was a green colored Kit Kat! I immediately bought it, but since there was only one, I guess I should just keep it for myself. It must be so delicious, why else would everyone rave about it? As soon as I arrived and unpacked my things, me and my brother finally opened the package, and began to eat it. I noticed that it smelled weird, but when it touched my tongue I realized that it wasn’t green tea Kit Kat at all. All the time it never occurred to me that something else was also green, which the hiragana on the box clearly stated: wasabi” (Source).
Sounds Yummy…
“Hákarl. This innocent piece of dried flesh is an Icelandic delicacy. It’s made from fermented shark because the meat is otherwise poisonous. Yum! So, instead of just eating something nice like a steak or maybe even some reindeer, Icelanders have figured out how to make this toxic food edible. Joy. How do they do it? First, they cut the meat into large blocks, and then stack them in a container. They place stones on top to create pressure on the meat. Then they leave it there for 2-3 months, with the goal of squeezing all the lovely liquid out. Then they cut those chunks into strips and hang it out to dry for several months. Oh, the anticipation! Finally after a grueling half year you can now feast on this rare Icelandic delicacy. Locals cut up the meat into small little cubes on toothpicks, presumably because they don’t want any reusable utensils on it lest they need to burn them. After you bring the morsel to your mouth, you are immediately hit with an intense stench that can only be mirrored by finding a kitty litter box that hasn’t been changed in weeks, sticking your face into it, and taking a huge breath through your nostrils. At this point, you don’t have to worry about tasting anything because you’ve lost all sense of smell due. The texture itself is kinda like a jerky that hasn’t quite been dried properly. It’s somehow both tough and mushy at the same time. Fortunately, if you’ve forgotten the smell of cat urine by now, each bite releases a spray of it back up into the deep recesses of your nasal cavity, so you can relive the eye-burning sensation. Locals drink some kind of alcohol called BrennivÃn that I can presume was invented only to kill your remaining tastebuds and sense of smell after eating a bite of Hákarl.” Source
Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.
“One day, my family got one of those cans of every flavor jelly beans for Christmas. Right away some moron said, ‘let’s all taste one each.’ I think this moron was me. There was me, my brother and sister each with a bean in our hand. I had a brown, speckle bean, that I was really hoping was chocolate pudding flavored or something. So I chewed it. It was dog food. A dog food flavored jelly bean. I never wanted to vomit more in my life. If I wanted that I would have eaten the vomit flavored one. I spit it into the trash first chance I got. There’s some things you just shouldn’t do to yourself. For reference, my brother got a cleaning wipe flavored bean, and my sister got the lemon lime flavor” (Source).
Shrimp Cocktails!
“During my second year of college, I developed a taste for shrimp cocktail. Someone had brought it to a friend’s party, and I instantly became hooked on the stuff. It was amazing! A few days later I went shopping and noticed that they had a platter of shrimp cocktail, so I decided to buy it. As soon as I got home, I ate a whole bunch of them. The next day, I ate several more. The day after that, I ate some more. Then I kind of forgot about it. About a week later, I was digging through the fridge and discovered that my tray of shrimp cocktail was still in there. I said ‘I wonder if this is still okay to eat?’ My roommate says ‘I’m sure it’s fine. Here, I’ll eat one!’ She eats one, doesn’t seem to suffer any ill effects, so I decided to scarf down about five of them. They tasted a little old, but they weren’t terrible. Later that day, my stomach had started feeling all gurgly, so I decided to lay down. But before long, my stomach was really hurting. The memory of those shrimp came right back to me as I puked my guts out in the bathroom. The next two or three days were just like that, repeated over and over again. I could hardly even sleep because I was so uncomfortable” (Source).
“On The Table Was A Bowl With Soup…”
“I looked at my wife to be (day after our first date) and asked if I could have some. She refused, telling me not to eat it. I persisted. She smiled and handed me the bowl and a spoon. I took a full spoon, put it in my mouth and … Inferno Tom yum soup from h*ll! My wife comes from Thailand and she eats spicy, even for Thai people. I swallowed, did not want to spit it out. It burned everywhere, sweat started to flow and tears were running nonstop from my eyes. I returned the bowl and resolved to listen to this woman when it comes to Thai food. The next morning this resolve became even stronger, it’s the only food I regretted eating not only once but twice” (Source).
