Food production is a huge industry, meeting our vital need to stuff our faces. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible for food producers to avoid 100% contamination. Despite the fact that it’s taboo in every culture in the world, many foods contain traces of fecal matter. And not just the exotic foods you can’t pronounce. We’re talking about things you probably eat every day, like …

10Leafy Greens

Leafy greens are often grown using synthetic fertilizers, rather than manure. However, even these crops can be invaded by various forms of fecal matter from nearby animals. According to research conducted by the Yuma Agricultural Center (YAC), fecal matter from cows can increase the possibility of contaminating crops with the bacteria E. coli. The research further indicated that dog, rabbit, bird and the feces from other animals didn’t pose as high of a risk for contamination.

There have been a number of E. coli-related outbreaks linked to leafy greens, such as spinach. The study conducted by the YAC determined that crops can become contaminated when the fecal matter containing the bacteria contaminates the irrigation system. The water used for the crops then spreads contamination. The study also indicated that furrow irrigation was the safest practice to avoid contaminating crops, though it could still occur even then.

9Organic Food

Many people have opted to pay for high-priced organic food, convinced that it is healthier than other modern options. They purchase and consume the food because, understandably, they don’t want to put pesticides or other chemicals in their body. However, studies have shown that organic food is at a greater risk for fecal contamination.

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2012 revealed that five percent of lettuce was at a greater risk for fecal contamination and 65 percent of organic pork was contaminated with E. coli. Another study conducted by the University of Minnesota found that 9.7 percent of their samples from organically grown produce were contaminated with E. coli, whereas only 1.6 percent of their conventionally grown samples contained the bacteria.

8Candy and Chocolate

Children and adults alike enjoy a tasty piece of candy or a delectable chocolate treat from time to time. Many are drawn in by the smooth and flawless appearance of these foods and the enjoyable texture and flavors when they consume them. What many aren’t aware of is that certain types of candies and chocolates contain ingredients that are produced from insect feces.

Confectioner’s glaze or resinous glazes are ingredients that are used to produce a smooth, shiny coating on certain types of candy and chocolates. These particular ingredients are produced by the female lac insect and are derived from its feces. Tastes sweet, doesn’t it?

7Spices

There’s nothing better than the aroma of a home-cooked meal that has been lovingly seasoned with a variety of carefully selected herbs and spices. These special ingredients add a delightful flavor to food and certain herbs and spices have also been known to have health benefits. Oh, and of course they contain feces. Have health benefits ever tasted so good?

The FDA permits a certain level of contamination in food products before they take action, herbs and spices included. According to the FDA’s website, “contamination of these products by animals usually results from either gnawing or defilement by excreta. Whole rodent pellets, bird droppings, and other pieces of animal dung are typically found.” Who knew that insect and animal excrement could add such flavor?

6Wheat

Wheat is an ingredient used in an endless variety of food products. Bread, pizza dough, cakes, cookies and a long list of other products contain wheat as one of their main ingredients. Those that cook at home often use wheat flour as an ingredient in much of their baking. It’s an ingredient that is widely consumed by a countless number of individuals. The fact that we eat so much of it doesn’t matter–the FDA allows 9 milligrams or more of rodent pellets per kilogram of wheat. In other words, a small percentage of rodent feces is tolerable in wheat and permitted to enter our food supply. Bread, anyone?

5Imported Seafood

Americans consume a large quantity of seafood from overseas. For example, America received approximately eight percent of its shrimp from Vietnam, some of its shellfish from Hong Kong and some of its tilapia from Hong Kong. Although the FDA inspects these shipments, it is only able to do spot checks (about three percent of these imports).

A significant portion of the seafood that is imported to the United States from these countries has been raised on feces, including pig and geese feces because it is cheaper to use than commercially sold fish food. Some claim that the fish don’t actually consume the feces, but rather the algae that are produced from using it. Either way, the idea of fish consuming and/or floating in swine feces isn’t exactly appetizing.

4Peanut Butter

Peanut butter can be a nutritious snack. Enjoyed with crackers or apple slices, it’s a great treat to feed the kids and an excellent alternative to sugary snacks such as cookies or ice cream. Peanut butter also contains some extra ingredients that you won’t find listed on the nutritional label–one of which is rodent feces.

As with other food items, the FDA finds that a certain amount (five percent) of rodent feces or other rodent filth such as hair, is permissible in peanut butter. As long as you get crunchy peanut butter, you probably won’t know the difference. Right?

3Ground Turkey

Ground turkey is often purchased as a healthier, leaner alternative to ground beef. But it’s not exception to the “must include some feces” rule this list is working on.

In a recent Consumer Reports study, 257 samples of ground turkey sold in the United States were tested. Of those samples, more than half were contaminated with bacteria from fecal matter. The study found that 69 percent of the samples contained enterococcus and 60 percent contained E. coli. In most cases, the bacteria discovered in the ground turkey can be destroyed by cooking thoroughly but a fecal burger sounds decidedly less appetizing than a “turkey” burger.

2Soda Fountain Machines

A small study conducted in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia found that soda fountain machines contained the bacteria coliform, which can, you guessed it, indicate fecal contamination. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has even banned the bacteria from being present in drinking water because it may be a sign of contamination by feces.

Of the samples tested, 48 percent were contaminated with coliform and 20 percent of the samples tested had a detectable amount of coliform that exceeded the limit allowed by the EPA. It is assumed that the contamination is not from the soda itself, but rather the machines. It seems the contamination occurs within the plastic tubing and is then deposited into the soda when patrons go to fill up their cups. Is anyone getting thirsty?

1Human Feces Steak

A sensational hoax that just won’t die is that of the steak created using human feces. According to internet legend, a Japanese scientist developed the steak using human feces and a few other simple ingredients. He even taste-tested the fecal steak and gave it his seal of approval.

Many legitimate news agencies reported the story as fact. But if they had done some digging, they would have discovered that the YouTube video that brought this poop steak to the web was actually a hoax–with many subtle clues available in the video footage.

It’s unlikely that humans will ever purchase human feces meat, but if they ever do, perhaps it would pair nicely with a side of shiitake mushrooms.

Kelly is a freelance writer and the owner of ColoradoSocialSolutions.com, a social media and content management service.

Everyone loves a hamburger or pizza every once in a while. However, enjoying fast food often involves shutting out the knowledge that the places we get it from are usually seven kinds of horrible. They can be owned by bigots, staffed by malicious teenagers (or complete maniacs), and cleaned up by almost no one. And sometimes, things get really weird.

10Chick-Fil-A Gets Homophobic

For most fast-food joints, a customer is a customer. As long as they’re not buck naked or drunk out of their minds, they are welcome to stuff their faces with greasy deliciousness. A fast-food restaurant is a neutral zone—political views or sexual orientation rarely play a part.

Unless you go to a Chick-Fil-A. These days, many view the mere act of eating there as a political statement.

In June 2012, it was revealed that the chicken sandwich chain had made significant contributions to organizations that opposed the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community. The CEO of Chick-Fil-A then made a number of statements that made it obvious that he (and, by extension, his company) was very much against same-sex marriages. This caused an immediate outrage and boycott from the LGBT folks. This, in turn, caused a backlash from conservatives, who went as far as inventing a Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day to salute the restaurant’s political stance.

The company soon stated that they would leave political conversations to politicians and later ceased all donations to anti-LGBT organizations. Yet the scandal has made its mark. To this day, few pro-LGBT people frequent the restaurant if they have any other options.

9Ajisen Ramen Soup Base Scandal

Most successful fast-food companies have a signature dish (such as McDonald’s Big Mac) or a secret sauce (such as, well, McDonald’s Secret Sauce) that is meant to set them apart from their competition. For Ajisen Ramen, a famous Chinese fast-food chain, that dish was their soup stock. Ajisen Ramen’s menu was based around noodle soup, and their secret was that the stock used for every soup came from “a broth of pork bones simmered to perfection.” That broth was their secret recipe, the entire selling point their empire rested on.

Imagine their embarrassment in 2011, when the media found that their precious soup base was made from concentrates and flavoring powders instead of actual pork bone stock. Their stock (market, not soup) plummeted and customers were revolted.

What’s worse, the company had always claimed that their soups were extremely nutritious, containing “four times the calcium content of milk and 10 times that of meat.” The test sample mentioned in the report was taken from the concentrate instead of actual soup.

Ajisen Ramen is still operational, but their reputation will probably never be the same.

8 Burger King’s Horse Burgers

When we dine in a hamburger joint, our biggest fear is that a disgruntled employee spits in our burger. However, sometimes the foreign and unwanted substances in our meal don’t need help . . . because they’re already there.

When the 2013 horse meat scandal swept through Europe, US-based fast-food companies were left relatively unscathed, save for one or two. Findus (the food company whose beef lasagna served as Patient Zero for the scandal) took the biggest blows. However, Burger King was the company that suffered the biggest embarrassment. Burger King stores in outbreak areas were quickly and aggressively declared 100 percent horse-meat-free by the company. However, despite their claims, testing soon found horse DNA in Burger King hamburger patties that were supposed to be pure beef.

What saved Burger King was their quick reaction: they immediately severed all ties with the meat company that provided the “beef” patties. Then, they gave the public a heartfelt apology and continued business as usual. Although this got them out of trouble, some people feel it was not enough. The company gave very little information to the public, and apparently offered no compensation to the numerous people whose burgers they accidentally horsed up.

7Domino’s YouTube Scandal

Sometimes, all it takes to send a company to crisis is hiring the wrong people. Domino’s Pizza learned this the hard way in 2009, when some of its employees shot a video in which one of them stuck raw ingredients in his nose, and then put them in the food they were preparing for a customer. They put the video on YouTube, where it became an instant Internet hit.

Domino’s quickly located, fired and sued the responsible parties. Other than that, the restaurant chain chose a very poor way to handle a social media crisis: they decided to shut up about the incident completely. The lack of positive media visibility (and the impact of the gross video) soon tore their carefully built brand image to pieces in a matter of days. Although the company took to Twitter and embraced social media soon afterwards, some say the damage still hasn’t quite healed.

6Pizza Hut Delivery

In 2011, a Pizza Hut delivery driver from Iowa briefly became the world’s least favorite person to handle food. When the customer he was delivering to didn’t have enough money for a tip, he decided to leave a little tip of his own and urinated on her front door.

Unfortunately for the driver (and Pizza Hut), the customer was less than pleased with the yellow pool by her front door and decided to go public. Her apartment manager provided a local news channel with surveillance footage of the incident, and it became a popular news story.

Luckily for Pizza Hut, the manager of the restaurant did all the right things. He was very cooperative from the start, actually visiting the customer and viewing the surveillance tapes. He then immediately fired the driver. Later, the driver himself (who was probably feeling very guilty and embarrassed at that point) came to apologize the customer and clean the mess he had made.

5Starbucks Coffee

In Starbucks, everything starts with water. You can’t make coffee (or any other beverage) without it, so it’s extremely important it’s clean.

At least, that’s what you’d think. A Starbucks manager in the business district of Hong Kong had a very different attitude. The water he brewed his coffee with came from a tap in a nearby bathroom.

Although the tap itself had been kept relatively clean, the fact that it had been in a dirty restroom immediately created a scandal. The entire Starbucks franchise in Hong Kong is still in turmoil. Even in many other parts of the world, Starbucks-related Google searches are beginning to turn up unsavory suggestions such as ”Starbucks Toilet Coffee Lawsuit.”

4Subway “Footlongs”

Fast food may be unhealthy. It may sometimes be prepared in unsanitary conditions. But there is one golden rule that must never be broken: there needs to be lots of it. After all, this is the industry that introduced the concept of “super-sizing” meals. At the very least, people expect their food to be as big as the restaurant advertises. A quarter-pounder with a patty that weighs any less would be a tragedy.

Still, some companies see things differently. When an Australian Subway customer decided to measure his “foot-long” sandwich, he found it was quite a lot shorter than the advertised length of one foot (30 cm). Subway Australia tried to explain this as an individual manufacturing error, before finally stating that the “Footlong” is just a name and not a measurement. This was interesting, because the company had always specifically stated the exact opposite.

Meanwhile, an American newspaper found that many stateside Subways were also quietly shrinking their subs. It wasn’t just about the length, either: they were reducing the size of their cold cuts by up to 25 percent, too.

Subway responded to the international criticism by sticking to their guns and claiming that the “Footlong” really is just a descriptive name. Then, they just stopped all communication and started hoping for the crisis to go away. How well this tactic serves them in the long run remains to be seen.

3Arby’s Finger Sandwich

In 2012, an unfortunate Michigan teenager got a taste experience he’s not going to forget in a hurry. He was enjoying a delicious roast beef sandwich at a local Arby’s when he bit into something strange and rubbery. As the boy removed the foreign object from his mouth, he found to his horror it was human flesh. A restaurant worker had accidentally sliced off part of his finger and left his station without telling anyone. The human meat had then somehow ended up in a sandwich that was served to a customer.

Although Arby’s was quick to apologize what it accurately called “an unfortunate incident,” the restaurant’s reputation took a blow.

2McDonald’s And Children

Children are the future, and the future is looking larger than ever. Childhood obesity in first-world countries is higher than it’s ever been. In the United States alone, a third of the children are obese and the situation (along with the health issues that come with it) is not getting any better.

All fast-food companies are happy to serve children, but McDonald’s in particular is a master of targeting children in its advertising. Their Happy Meal (a simple hamburger meal with a toy included) is possibly the best-known kid’s meal there is. McDonald’s is estimated to give away over 15 billion toys per year as part of their cross-promotions with popular toy lines, thus giving the children an early taste of the fast-food nation they will grow up into.

The strange thing is that McDonald’s refuses to admit they’re doing it—seemingly even to their own shareholders. Their shareholders have asked that the company take responsibility of its (presumably not insignificant) part in America’s childhood obesity problem. Yet the McDonald’s board has dismissed the issue, because associating the company with childhood obesity issues would be “unnecessary.”

To be fair, McDonald’s has made some changes to their Happy Meals to make them healthier. They now come with complimentary apple slices and a milk drink instead of a soda.

1Taco Bell

Taco Bell’s history is spotted with embarrassing events that range from slightly awkward to truly terrifying. Their taco shells have been recalled because they were made with genetically modified corn. Their meat has been revealed to be just 36 percent actual beef (the rest is tasteless fiber filler and various seasonings). The company has been linked to multiple food-borne disease outbreaks, including an E. coli outbreak that killed three people and gave 200 more customers the stomach bug of a lifetime.

With the advent of social media, it looks like the company (together with many of its competitors) is heading for even more hot water. In June 2013, a picture of a Taco Bell employee licking a stack of taco shells was posted on the company’s own Facebook page, to the disgust of loyal Taco Bell fans everywhere.

Pauli Poisuo also writes for Cracked.com. Why not follow him on Twitter?

There are many common microorganisms that sometimes make their way into the local and national news. These may include microorganisms that cause food poisoning, fever, pneumonia, and more. However, these common pathogens, usually residing unnoticed on the different parts of our body, can actually turn against us and begin eating our flesh! This ranges from killing surrounding tissues to actually ingesting flesh and brain matter.

10 Streptococcus Pyogenes

Streptococcus pyogenes, also known as group A streptococcus (GAS), is a normal flora of the human body. Under ordinary circumstances, it resides on our skin and other parts of the body. Since it is naturally pathogenic, it can sometimes cause diseases such as strep throat and scarlet fever.

In more severe cases, this bacterium can actually eat our flesh in what is called necrotizing fasciitis. In 1999, the CDC reported 600 cases of necrotizing fasciitis by S. pyogenes. The bacterium releases toxins and enzymes that directly attack and kill surrounding body cells.

If left untreated, it can eat away large parts of the body and cause death. Unfortunately, a newly discovered strain of S. pyogenes called emm89 is becoming prevalent and is a potent, causative agent of necrotizing fasciitis.

It is important to know that flesh-eating disease is only common to those with immunocompromised bodies, such as diabetics.

9 Apophysomyces

Soil harbors an extreme number of microorganisms, including a fungus called Apophysomyces. Although infection from this fungus is quite rare, it can still cause a flesh-eating disease called mucormycosis.

Mucormycosis is not unique to Apophysomyces. Other fungi belonging to the order Mucorales, such as Mucor and Rhizopus, can also cause it. To be pathogenic, it must be delivered deep into the flesh.

One unfortunate incident with this disease occurred when a tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, in 2011. Thirteen injured survivors soon found themselves infected by the fungus. As the fungus grew, it invaded nearby tissues using its mycelia, damaging blood vessels and restricting blood flow.

Starved of blood and nutrients, the tissue began to die. As scientists discovered, the sheer force of the tornado delivered the fungus from the soil to deep inside the wounds of the victims in an unusual and extremely unlucky event.

8 Leishmania

Even a normal fly bite can progress to a flesh-eating disease in certain circumstances. Leishmania is a parasite common in the tropics and subtropics, including countries in southern Europe. Its life cycle needs both a human and a sand fly host.

After living in a sand fly and maturing to a certain degree, Leishmania is transferred to the human body through a fly bite. The parasite then matures more in the human body and invades nearby cells. The affected cells burst and die after serving as residences for the parasite.

Flesh eating almost always happens around the bite and can enlarge significantly if left untreated. On rare occasions, the parasite can become systemic, migrate to other parts of the body, and begin to eat them, too.

There are two types of leishmaniasis: cutaneous and visceral. The former type manifests as raw, erupted skin, while the latter affects the internal organs. Right now, war-torn Syria is experiencing an outbreak of leishmaniasis. Travelers to the Amazon and Africa are also susceptible to this infection.

7 Aeromonas Hydrophila

Aeromonas hydrophila is common in fresh and brackish waters, such as estuaries. It can also contaminate drinking water when purifying equipment malfunctions or is suboptimal. Travelers are usually infected by this bacterium, which manifests as diarrhea (aka traveler’s diarrhea).

The bacterium can also contaminate food products when water used to clean the facilities or products is contaminated. Since Aeromonas hydrophila is resistant to cold temperatures, storing the contaminated foods in the refrigerator may not effectively eliminate the contamination and may later affect people who eat the products.

Though it is rare, a person can be infected by this bacterium and experience flesh-eating disease when wounded parts of the body come in contact with contaminated water, as in the case of a woman from Georgia in 2012. The bacterium entered her body through a wound acquired from a zip line accident.

Amputation and removal of some affected internal organs are common treatment options to stop the spread of the disease. So try not to dip in the water if you have open wounds.

6 Bacteroides Fragilis

Bacteroides fragilis thrives in the oxygen-deprived environment of the human gut, especially in the colon. It is a normal resident of our body and actually aids in digestion. This bacterium also prevents the invasion of other pathogenic microbes by competing for space and nutrients. Since the bacterium is well-adapted to the gut environment, foreign and invading microbes are at a disadvantage most of the time.

Ironically, when this commonly friendly bacterium leaves the gut, usually during surgery or a traumatic accident, it can cause severe necrotizing (flesh-eating) infections. These infections are usually characterized by excessive puss and edema in the surrounding tissues.

Unfortunately, treatment of a B. fragilis infection is moderately cumbersome. The bacterium is capable of destroying penicillins and its relatives by producing enzymes that break down the antibiotic. Usually, higher forms of antibiotics, such as carbapenems, are needed. However, frequent use of these higher-generation antibiotics may also lead to increased antibiotic resistance.

5 Clostridium Perfringes

Clostridium perfringes, a cousin to the Clostridium botulinum bacterium that causes botulism, is another common pathogenic species of the Clostridium genera. It is commonly found in soil and the human gut. It is also common in raw meat and poultry products.

When these products are eaten uncooked, the bacterium may cause food poisoning. In extreme cases, C. perfringes can cause necrotizing fasciitis, just like Streptococcus pyogenes, Aeromonas hydrophila, and Bacteroides fragilis.

Clostridium perfringes may eat the surface of the skin or the deeper parts of the muscle, usually leading to amputation. In addition, C. perfringes may cause gas gangrene.

Gas gangrene is a serious infection and involves the muscle instead of just the skin. It is characterized by gas production on the dying muscle tissues. Usually, infection by this bacterium happens when a wound comes in contact with contaminated soil.

This scenario is common in the battlefield, where wounds may be left open and exposed to dirt. Common treatment options are skin grafting and amputation.

4 Klebsiella Pneumoniae

Klebsiella pneumoniae is considered a normal resident of the human body, usually in the gut and in the nasopharynx areas. Considered to be one of the most antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, Klebsiella pneumoniae is associated with numerous diseases, such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and meningitis. Infection by this pathogen is common in hospital settings, where the bacterium resides in catheters and breathing apparatus.

On rare occasions, Klebsiella pneumoniae may cause flesh-eating disease. The first case in North America was documented in an article published in the Western Journal of Emerging Diseases. An elderly Filipino woman living in California presented with muscle necrosis caused by K. pneumoniae. According to the paper, such cases are normally found in southern Asia where the bacterium is prevalent.

Infections from Klebsiella pneumoniae are particularly hard to treat because they are resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics. In fact, it is well-known that K. pneumoniae is resistant to all penicillins and increasingly resistant to higher generations of drugs as well.

3 Vibrio Vulnificus

Vibrio species are usually found in marine environments because they require salty water for growth. Both Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, and Vibrio vulnificus are members of this genus.

Vibrio vulnificus is usually contracted from marine foods, such as crabs, and may cause diarrhea and vomiting when the bacteria is ingested. On rare occasions, susceptible individuals may also develop liver disease. When open wounds are exposed to seawater contaminated with V. vulnificus, necrotizing infections may occur.

Necrotizing infections caused by V. vulnificus are common to areas near the coast, like US states that border the Gulf of Mexico. In 2015, several cases of flesh-eating disease caused by V. vulnificus were recorded. In fact, Florida has as many as nine deaths per year due to this bacterium.

Infection is most common in May and October. To prevent necrotizing fasciitis caused by Vibrio vulnificus, it is better to keep open wounds away from saltwater environments, especially during the warm season when the bacterium is prevalent.

2 Staphylococcus Aureus

Staphylococcus aureus (aka Staph) is a common pathogen that may reside transiently on the human skin and other parts of the body. According to the CDC, 30 percent of the global population carries the bacterium in their nasal region. In most cases, they are nonpathogenic events.

Staph is associated with bloodstream infections and infection of the heart valves (aka endocarditis) when introduced to the bloodstream via open wounds or surgical operations. When ingested, it may cause food poisoning when the bacterium releases toxins. Cooking may effectively kill it, but the toxins remain undamaged.

In extreme cases, Staphylococcus aureus may cause necrotizing fasciitis. This is common with patients who have underlying illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. With impaired immune defenses, the bacterium can easily invade and kill body tissues. Treatment of these infections may be difficult because many of these cases are caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is tolerant to many available antibiotics.

1 Naegleria Fowleri

The next time you dive into a freshwater environment, you may want to cover your nose as a safety precaution. Common to lakes, rivers, and other freshwater environments, Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba that actually ingests brain matter.

Upon entering the nose, the amoeba travels through the olfactory nerves until it reaches the brain, where it feeds. Although its usual diet includes bacteria, that particular type of food is severely lacking in our brains. So Naegleria fowleri switches to actually eating our brains instead.

Although natural bodies of water are common sources of this amoeba, contaminated pools or tap water may also harbor this zombie pathogen. It is important to know that contaminated water must pass through the nose for infection to occur. Infection cannot happen if the amoeba is ingested through the mouth or any other body openings.

Infection by Naegleria fowleri is rare but almost always leads to death when it occurs. Currently, there is no standard drug used to treat this type of infection, which usually requires surgery as a last resort. To avoid infection by this brain-eating amoeba, avoid untreated and warm freshwater environments. Properly chlorinated pool and tap water is generally safe.

Matthew is a premedical student majoring in microbiology.

Someone once said “everything in moderation” and it was probably about alcohol or betting on robot fights but it can apply to almost everything. Food is one of the best examples because, as we know, overindulging in almost anything can have negative consequences. Eat too many gas station burritos and you may spend the rest of the day in the bathroom. There are pitfalls everywhere, but some foods are less obvious when it comes to potential dangers. They’re not necessarily bad in an obvious way, but there are circumstances that can make them dangerous, especially when you overindulge.

10. Too Many Brazil Nuts Can Give You Selenium Poisoning

Do you enjoy mixed nuts? At Christmas, you can find the most robust mixtures available and they include things like walnuts, hazelnuts, and the ever-elusive Brazil nut. In North America, the Brazil nut isn’t unknown, but it’s not super popular, either. They’re larger than the average nut and you can often find a weird-tasting one in a mix. But they’re worth avoiding in large numbers.

For one, you may have heard that Brazil nuts are actually radioactive. That’s true, thanks to the roots absorbing radium in larger doses than you’re likely to find in most foods. But the radioactivity isn’t Incredible Hulk level so, again, moderation is the key. Except that’s not the only reason to avoid large amounts of Brazil nuts. You need to be wary of the selenium.

One ounce of Brazil nuts, or about 8 nuts in total, contains 777% of the daily recommended amount of selenium. So that math on that means you should probably not eat more than one nut a day, really, but you’re likely safe at that one-ounce mark. 

Too much selenium causes selenosis. Symptoms of selenosis include nausea, rashes, bad breath, and diarrhea. At high enough levels you’re looking at kidney failure, cardiac arrest, and death. 

9. Eating Too Much Shellfish Infected With Domoic Acid Can Cause Brain Damage

If you ever go to a buffet that does crab legs you’ll know just how much people love shellfish. Literal fights break out over them and that’s kind of horrifying. Crab and lobster are considered some of the finest of foods, at least for folks who like that sort of thing, and they will indulge whenever possible.

The problem with shellfish is that, like any food from the sea, the medium in which they live can be suspect. Regular fish can have mercury or microplastics but shellfish can present another danger you’re probably less familiar with: Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning.

Certain kinds of algae can get into your clams and crabs and start producing domoic acid. The clam eats the algae and keeps the domoic acid in its body until it’s caught, cooked, and served to you. Crabs can get it by eating the clams.

As the name suggests, when you get infected by the domoic acid, you can develop short-term memory problems. Vomiting, diarrhea, confusion, and dizziness can develop in 24 to 48 hours. If you consume enough of the infected shellfish, you can permanently lose your short-term memory. Death is also possible.

Moderate consumption of razor clams and oysters shouldn’t be a problem and these algae are pretty much always in the water. But if conditions are right and algae blooms get severe, then clams, oysters, and crabs can potentially take on much higher levels and become more dangerous, especially for those who eat a lot. 

In 2016, these algae blooms were so bad that a huge chunk of the shellfish industry in Maine had to be shut down entirely because of the potential risk. 

8. Eating Too Much Lean Protein Can Starve You

If you’re trying to eat right and lose weight, maybe gain muscle mass, you may be tempted to eat lean protein. In general, it’s never a bad idea to eat lean protein but we’re not talking about things in general, are we? We’re talking about when you go a little overboard, and you can definitely do that with lean protein.

Too much protein without fat and carbohydrates to balance it out can cause something called rabbit starvation or salmon starvation. That kind of sad name came from some of the earliest known cases of people experiencing it when they ate little but lean protein, like rabbit, and found themselves losing weight and growing sick despite having plenty to eat. 

You can’t survive on just one macronutrient, at least not well, and not forever. Protein, fat, and carbs have to all exist in balance to keep you healthy. Pure protein can provide calories but lead to nausea, weakness, low blood pressure, slow heart rate, fatigue, and more. 

7. Too Much Fat Will Give You Milky Blood

Like protein, too much fat in your diet is never a good idea. There are some obvious reasons for that and it seems pretty common sense to want to avoid a full-fat diet. But do you know what happens if you eat too much fat besides, you know, gaining weight? The effect of excessive fat on the human body is actually very off-putting. It turns your blood milky white.

A man in Germany had his blood drawn after going to the hospital in 2019 complaining of a host of health problems. They couldn’t take it by normal means, which is to say with a syringe, so they had to dust off the medieval practice of bloodletting because his blood was so thick. Pictures of it show vials that appear to have a small amount of red blood in the bottom and then about three times as much milky white fluid on top. That was all fat, like when you leave a pan of bacon fat sitting out.

It turns out the man, who had various health issues already, had an incredibly high amount of triglycerides, a type of fat, in his blood. 150 mg/dL of triglycerides is normal and 500 mg/dL is high. This man had 14,000 mg/dL. His heart was essentially pushing butter through his veins.

Even if you just have a heavily fatty meal before having blood drawn, your plasma triglyceride levels can be high for hours causing your blood to take on that milky hue. 

6. Pine Nuts Can Cause A Bitter, Metallic Taste That Lasts For Weeks

Pine nuts are not typically a nut most of us snack on, but some people do. They’re also very common in pesto. Like our friend the Brazil nut, you want to be careful with pine nuts and not go overboard with them lest you face the scourge known as pine mouth.

It’s not every pine nut that can cause pine mouth, which is good. But it’s also unclear which pine nuts cause it or why. But if you eat enough, you may endure what is not deadly but entirely awful, nonetheless.

Between 12 and 48 hours after you eat the nuts, you will start to experience an inexplicable metallic taste in your mouth. People have likened it to sucking on some pennies and then spitting them out. That penny aftertaste is what is in your mouth all day every day for as much as two weeks or more. 

5. Too Many Carbs Can Cause Drunkenness With Auto Brewery Syndrome

We saw what happens to some people with too much protein or too much fat so it seems only reasonable to look at carbs now. Not everyone who indulges in pasta and bread is going to have this problem but for an unlucky few auto-brewery syndrome is a real problem.

The condition is rare so there’s a very small chance you or anyone you know has it. If you do have it, your stomach essentially works as a fermentation tank so that starches and sugars, what we call carbohydrates, dropped into it are converted into alcohol right inside of you. The more you consume the worse it would get.

Some people who suffer from the condition have been arrested for drunk driving because they didn’t even know they had it, and tests later confirmed this to be the case.

4. Ramen Noodles Are Linked to Cardiometabolic Syndrome

In 2022 the human race consumed over 121 billion servings of ramen. That’s a heck of a number. People like ramen because you can make it even if you only have a kettle handle, it takes about five minutes tops, and it’s dirt cheap. A lot is going for it. But there are some downsides.

Aside from not having a ton of nutritional value and almost all the salt you need in a day in a single serving, some serious health issues can be caused by excess ramen consumption. 

Eating ramen two or more times a week has been linked to cardiometabolic syndrome. That, in turn, puts you on track to worse things like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Women also seem to be at a greater risk than men so keep that in mind next time you put the kettle on to have a quick noodle lunch. 

3. Eating Lychee On An Empty Stomach Could Be Fatal

Lychee still hasn’t caught on very well in North America but you can still find them at many markets, especially Asian ones. These unassuming fruits are kind of grape-like once you peel them and fairly mild in flavor. Because they’re small, you could potentially eat a lot of them in a sitting, but you don’t want to do that on an already empty stomach.

For decades, children in a region of India were getting sick and dying and no one could figure out why. The reason, it seems, is lychee. But not just lychee, lychee on an empty stomach. That’s why it was hard to pin down, because some people could eat them and be fine. 

Lychee produces compounds that lower blood sugar. If you eat too many on an empty stomach with already low blood sugar, then your blood glucose can drop dangerously low to the point of being fatal. Those afflicted suffered brain swelling and seizures before dying.

2. Eating Raw Flour Is the Real Danger in Raw Cookie Dough

Have you ever heard that it’s bad to eat raw cookie dough? And have you also ever heard that it’s not bad because most raw eggs aren’t going to be infected with salmonella so the cookie dough is safe if it’s eggless? Those are two pretty common things you’ll find online. But eggs were barely ever the problem.

Raw eggs may have bacteria that make cookie dough dangerous but it’s actually the raw flour you need to be worried about. This flies in the face of most of baking history as we tend to dust our cutting boards with flour, lick the batter off of spoons, and even make homemade Play-Doh for kids with the stuff.

Wheat can be contaminated with E. coli and salmonella while it’s still in the field. It gets dried out and ground into flour and then bagged, bought, and placed in your kitchen where not a single thing has been done to kill the bacteria that are all over it.  

The CDC has tracked outbreaks linked to flour in 2023, 2021, 2019, and 2016. Flour and baking mixes are recalled when they’re found to be contaminated but it has such a long shelf life people can have them for years without knowing.

1. You Can Overdose On Carrot Juice

There are a handful of things in the world that you can overdose on and the result is tragic. Drugs, of all kinds, are the most obvious. Too many lives are lost every year due to accidental and intentional overdoses. 

There are also some things you can overdose on that you never in a million years would have believed you could overdose on and carrot juice has to be near the top of that list. 

As with everything on this list, it’s not the carrot juice in and of itself that’s dangerous, it’s just some of what you’ll find in the carrot juice. In this case, it’s beta-carotene. The pigment that makes carrots orange (and other fruits and vegetables as well) is converted into vitamin A inside your body. It’s also not something you need too much of.

In 1974, a man in England died from having too much carrot juice. The 48-year-old, called a “health food enthusiast” was drinking a gallon of carrot juice per day and had decided that it might also be a good idea to take 70 million units of vitamin A over 10 days. His corpse was apparently bright yellow, and he was suffering cirrhosis of the liver as it was unable to process all the carrot juice. 

Others who have survived this kind of carrot overload still have yellow skin as it’s an unavoidable side effect, but it will go away in time if you cut back.

We take great pains to make sure our food is as clean as possible. There are even government agencies dedicated to the task, and some of the most common practices in our own kitchens are geared to keep our food clean. Its in our nature. Still, we have free will and we can choose to defy our nature, even if sometimes it really seems like we shouldn’t. Humans have developed food items made from some of the things that most disgust us.

10Kopi Luwak

83 percent of adults in the US drink coffee. We love the stuff, and it comes in as many varieties as we could want, from exotic locales the world over. But one locale in particular might give even coffee lovers pause: A cat’s butt.

Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world, is produced from coffee beans that have passed through the digestive system of a civet cat. This cat, native to Southeast Asia, loves coffee almost as much as we do. It eats the choicest coffee cherries, but it doesn’t digest the beans. Instead, it deposits them. Having gone through the digestive process, the bean is made less acidic, lower in protein, and lower in caffeine. Ultimately, this produces the smooth, aromatic, and low bitter Kopi Luwak coffee, prized the world over.

Fun Fact: when a civet wants to mark its territory it sprays a thick repulsive smelling oil. That oil is gathered up and is used as a perfume additive in the luxury perfume industry. Historically Civet musk traders would taste the oil to make sure it wasn’t adulterated with human feces (which is much cheaper and equally repulsive smelling). And like its close relative the Meerkat, it is not actually related to the cat family.

9Panda Dung Green Tea

Pandas famously diet on little except bamboo, but according to one tea entrepreneur, they digest only about 30 percent of the nutrients found in that bamboo. This leaves their excrement still rich in the vitamins and minerals present in the plant, in a form perfect for fertilizer. That tea entrepreneur is named An Yashi. He is a Sinchuan University lecturer and wildlife expert who has put that panda dung to work in making a unique green tea.

His tea is fertilized with the dung, to special effect. He says, “Just like green tea, bamboo contains an element that can prevent cancer and enhance green tea’s anti-cancer effects if it is used as fertilizer for the tea.” An Yashi’s panda dung green tea has a price tag of $35,000 a pound.

8Un, Kono Kuro

This beer’s name is a pun on the Japanese word for crap, Unko. Produced by Kanagawa-based brewery Sankt Gallen for April Fools 2013, this beer sold out within minutes of becoming available. The stout is made with an ingredient unusual for beers: coffee. Even more unusual for coffee, the beans were collected from the helpful elephants of Thailand’s Golden Triangle Elephant Foundation. Like Kopi Luwak, the beans pass through the digestive system and arrive at the other end. Unlike with the civet cat, most of the beans perish in the process. 33 kilograms of beans go in, but only 1 kilogram of usable beans emerge out the other end.

One reviewer, Mr. Sato, said of the beer, “After downing the last drop, slowly rising from my throat and mouth was that afterglow. The combination of bitter and sweet stayed fresh and lingered in my head. It was a familiar aroma that accompanied me through the entire beer. For some time after, I could still feel as if my body was saturated with that warm scent.” $104 dollars will net you 35 grams of this unique coffee, should you wish to enhance your own micro brews.

7Traditional Chicha

Chicha is a corn beer brewed in the Andes. The beverage dates back thousands of years and played a large role in the cultures of groups such as the Incas and Aztecs, who thought of drunkenness as a spiritual activity and sharing a drink as a sign of friendship.

Though you may have enjoyed a glass of Chicha, traditionally, the drink is brewed differently than most versions in the modern day. To begin the fermentation process, the Chicha brewers would begin by working maize thoroughly with their tongue, completely moistening it with their own saliva. The enzymes in our spit are enough to work the cornstarch into fermentable sugar. After a drying period, the maize cakes would be ready.

This step happens before the beer is brewed, so the final product is sterile, and some breweries still make the drink in the traditional fashion. One modern brewer was quoted by The New York Times during the first saliva-filled step of the process: “Would it be bad if I thed we bit off maw than we could thew? Heh, heh.”

6Honey

Bees have two stomachs, one of which is completely dedicated to storing the nectar they collect from flowers. When full, this stomach can weigh as much as the bee itself. These honeybees return to the hive after visiting upward of 1,500 flowers. Once there, they pass off the nectar to worker bees by vomiting it up out of their second stomach and into the worker bees’ waiting mouths. This regurgitation process is repeated until the partially digested nectar is finally prepared and then deposited into a honeycomb. From there, the water is fanned out of the nectar, which reduces the substance into the syrupy bug vomit we all know and love.

5Shellac

Shellac is an ingredient commonly used as a glaze. Though the name may be unfamiliar to us, we’re all likely familiar with the foods its used in. Coated candy, chocolate, and even waxed fresh fruit can contain shellac.

Just what is this versatile substance? Shellac is the purified form of lac. Lac is a secretion of the Laccifer lacca Kerr insect, cultivated in India, Thailand, and Burma. The secretions form on twigs, which are then soaked in water to clear away any debris such as insect parts and then soaked again in sodium carbonate to remove acid. This purified bug poop finds its way into many of our foods but is also useful as a varnish or wood primer.

4Baby Poop Sausages

Bacterial fermentation plays a huge role in the making of sausage. That spicy flavor pepperoni gives your pizza? It’s a result of bacteria. So it may not seem like a stretch when researchers say they’ve developed a way to ferment sausage that could result in a healthy, bacteria-rich food, like probiotic yogurts. The catch? The bacteria used was gathered from infant feces. Human infants, mind you.

The researchers behind this invention cultured the collected bacteria from 43 stool samples and used them when making six batches of fuet—a pork sausage. These sausages were all tested by professional tasters, who reported that the flavor was indistinguishable from normal fuet.

3Kuchikami No Sake

Much like Chicha, the preparation of sake has changed over the years. This rice-based alcohol is sometimes called “rice wine” but has more in common with a beer. Today, the rice is usually fermented with a mold (Aspergillus oryzae) that has the enzymes necessary to convert the rice starch into sugar, but before this mold was discovered, a different ingredient was used: Human saliva.

The brewers would begin by chewing rice, chestnuts, or acorns to begin the fermentation process. This special brand of Sake is called Kuchikami No Sake or “Mouth-Chewed Sake” and is still sometimes made today.

2Ambergris

This substance is an intestinal slurry produced in a sperm whale’s stomach or throat. Because of its rarity and variety of uses, it can fetch about $29 a gram. Some of those uses have famously been perfumes, but it has also been used in cooking eggs, ice cream, and even cocktails. The smell is said to be that of highly concentrated ocean.

One of the most common misconceptions about this miraculous slurry is that it’s the vomit of the sperm whale. Rest assured, this is not the case. Ambergris is much more likely to be pooped out than to be vomited.

1Yan Wo

Described as “the caviar of the east” because of its high cost and status as a delicacy in China, this ingredient is bird’s nest. The swiftlet, a swallow-like bird, produces these nests out of its own saliva secretions. The nests are built expressly for the purpose of raising young and are abandoned once this task is complete.

The protein-rich Yan Wo are used in soup, tonics, and even desserts. A decade ago, there were an estimated 1,000 swiftlet farms, and now, there are some 60,000. The industry behind these saliva nests has blown to an estimated $5 billion value.

And if that isn’t gross enough for you, it gets worse: the texture of Yan Wo when cooked in soup is like lumps of snot.

When it comes to food, there are generally two types of people. Some like to stick with what they know, ordering the same food from the same places every time, while others like to seek adventure and try new things.

Part of that adventure is the fact that you can end up with some strange, sometimes just downright scary, dishes. Below are examples of live animals you could find in front of you if you let yourself venture into the dining extremes.

10 San Zhi Er

While you might be inclined to run and call the health inspector if you were to spot mice in a restaurant, not everyone feels the same way. For some, those mice are exactly the reason they went there in the first place.

Although it’s not a particularly common dish, some residents of the Guangdong province in China like to indulge in a relatively unknown specialty: newborn mice.^[1]San zhi er, which translates as “three squeaks,” is a meal where baby mice are served live with a dipping sauce. The name derives from the three squeaks the mice will make during the meal: the first when they are picked up, the second when they are dipped, and the third when the diner bites down.

9 Fish Bucket Soup

If mice aren’t your cup of tea, don’t worry. There are other animals you can dip in sauce and eat alive. Another option that is easier to make and more suitable for social occasions is to grab a bucket of live fish and a bowl of soup.^[2]

This technique made a bit of a stir last year, when a video surfaced showing several people sitting around a bowl of soup. Using chopsticks, they lean over to pluck a live fish out of the bucket, before tossing it in the soup, where it splashes around before being eaten. The video is believed to have been shot in Southern China, based on the Cantonese that can be heard in the background.

8 Monkey

You may not think of monkeys as a source of food, but for many people around the world, eating monkey is akin to eating chicken. Most of these people can be found in isolated forest communities, such as those in the Amazon rain forest, where monkeys are just as common as any other animal. But even if a community sees no problem with eating monkeys, you’d think the vast majority of people would have a problem with eating them alive. But not all.

Macaques are extremely common in Cambodia, with the lowest possible conservation status ranking (least concern). This may explain why people have no problem eating them, but it does little to explain why they feel the need to eat the brains out of the still-living animal’s skull.^[3]

Macaque brain is a delicacy in Cambodia, and the fresher the meat, the better. For this reason, macaques can be drugged or tied up, before having the tops of their heads cut off. They are then placed beneath a table with a specially carved hole for the monkey’s head, which acts as a bowl for the brains. As well as guaranteeing freshness, this is done out of a belief that the fear will make the animal’s meat taste better.

7 Shrimp

We’ve spoken before about the different types of live shrimp you can order in Japan or China, but if you’re living stateside and looking for something a little closer to home, just head on down to Slow Fish in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles.^[4] Here, you can pick yourself up a portion of dancing shrimp, so called because of the way their legs, antennae, and body convulse when they are served.

The dish is prepared by chopping off the shrimps’ heads, removing the shells, and bringing them immediately to the diner. With both the bodies and the heads still moving, the main part of the shrimp is eaten straight away. The heads are then brought back to the kitchen, where they are deep-fried before being served again, this time motionless.

6 Lobster Sashimi

Despite all the evidence we have seen for the wide variety of unnecessarily cruel dishes around the world, lobster remains one of the most famously controversial dishes in Western society. The idea of picking them out and then placing them in water to be brought to boil just doesn’t sit well with some people. However you may feel about that practice, it has certainly overshadowed the controversy in how many other foods are prepared, including another lobster dish.

Sashimi is a Japanese dish where meat or fish, as fresh as humanly possible, is thinly sliced and served raw. And if you live in the Houston area, you can experience a lobster sashimi so fresh, it’s still moving.^[5] The dish is made by cutting the lobster in half, scooping out the flesh in the back, slicing it, and putting it back in. With the back half of the lobster made into a little display, the dish is served on a bed of cold rocks, with the front half of the lobster struggling around for effect. One critic described the dish as “awe-inspiring” and “utterly delicious.”

5 Cockroaches

There have been many suggestions in recent years that thanks to skyrocketing global population figures, we may have to turn to eating insects to meet our demand for food. Certain insects are already a common snack in some countries, with celebrities like Salma Hayek admitting they adore the little creepy candies.

But while cooked bugs may be a good source of protein for some people, live cockroaches were intended to be a good source of pythons for others.^[6] In 2012, over 30 people competed in a cockroach eating contest in Florida, where the winner would be rewarded with a new pet python. Unfortunately, the competition did not go well, and a 32-year-old participant choked to death as he reportedly ate dozens of the creatures.

4 Bats

The Mariana flying fox is a species of fruit bat found on the Mariana Islands. Although they once numbered about 60,000, their population has dwindled to several hundred after decades of being hunted by humans. With thousands of them all over the islands, the bats soon became a reliable source of food for both humans and farm animals.

Usually reserved for special occasions, ka’ka’du fanihidu fanihi is a dish where the bat is caught and washed before being placed in a pot of boiling water.^[7] It is then served whole in a bowl of coconut milk and eaten more or less in its entirety (save for bones and teeth).

But unlike most of the entries on this list, this dish is one that may actually be lethal. After World War II, scientists noticed that a large number of the residents of Guam were dying of a mystery illness. We now know that between a quarter and a third of were dying of ALS, which they were developing as a result of their batty diet. The bats feed mainly on cycad seeds, which results in high levels of dangerous toxins that can lead to ALS when consumed by humans in the long term. Fortunately and unfortunately, the bat population in Guam has dwindled so much that this is now, for the first time, a dying dish.

3 Eels

Raymond Blanc is a French chef who runs some of the most well-respected restaurants in Britain. As you might expect from a chef of his stature, Blanc has traveled the world and tried all sorts of rare and unusual dishes. Of these, he says the strangest meal he has ever eaten is a bowl of live eels.

Blanc says that while dining in Japan, a large glass bowl filled with thousands of tiny eels was brought to the table.^[8] The bowl was placed in the middle of the table, and the eels would jump out, hopefully landing in your bowl. At less than an inch long, the eels are intended to be swallowed whole so you can experience them wriggling down your throat. Despite trying the dish himself, Blanc said it was an example of how “perverse” Japanese cuisine can get.

2 Cobra

Whether you eat lobster or not, we’re all familiar with the tradition of customers choosing which lobster they want out of the tank. In Vietnam, diners can have a similar experience by choosing which cobra they want out of a cage of angry snakes.

When you have picked out your snake, the chef will grab it with a stick and throw it on the floor. They’ll usually antagonize the snakes as well, either by shaking the cage before you make your choice or poking your snake afterward. This is possibly done to make sure the snake’s heart beats faster to magnify your experience.

The snake will be sliced down the middle and held above a half-full glass of rice wine, allowing all the blood to drain into the wine.^[9] The still-beating heart of the snake is then removed and put into the same drink, while the appetizing juices of the gallbladder are drained into a second glass of rice wine. The idea is that you down the first glass, beating heart and all, and follow it up with the second glass to cleanse your palate as the snake meat is taken away and made into slightly more normal dishes, such as spring rolls or soup.

1 Witchetty Grubs

It may seem unfair to include insects in a list made up primarily of more complex life-forms, but the size and ubiquity of these grubs warrants them a place. Encompassing the larvae of several different types of moths, witchetty grubs are native to Australia and have been a staple of the aboriginal diet for centuries. The grubs are high in protein and contain lots of other nutrients and vitamins, making them one of the best sources of food in the Outback.

Witchetty grubs can grow up to 12 centimeters (4.7 in) and are usually eaten live, in which case they have an almond taste and a gooey center.^[10] However, they can also be lightly toasted either on a barbecue or in a mix of hot ash and sand, which is said to give them a chicken and fried egg taste.

You can follow Simon as he tweets living creatures.

Many consumers take advantage of the foods often found at local grocery stores. We assume that they would never deliberately sell us toxic products. We also believe that commonly encountered ingredients could never be harmful.

The truth is that we eat many mainstream products in our daily lives that could lead to poisoning or even death. Here are 10 of these surprising foods and spices.

10 Cinnamon

Cinnamon comes in two forms: “regular” and “true.” Ceylon is “true” cinnamon, and cassia is the “regular” alternative sold by most grocers. Ceylon is often pricier, so most people are eating the cassia alternative. While cinnamon does have many benefits, it can also be a contributing factor to certain health issues.

For example, cassia cinnamon contains a compound called coumarin. Small doses are not harmful and may even produce health benefits. But studies on coumarin have shown that substantial intake may lead to an increase in the risk of cancer and other liver issues.^[1]

Substantial use over an extended period is the concern of most experts. Due to the elevated risk associated with high consumption, they recommend that cinnamon is best ingested in moderation, especially for those with liver problems.

Anyone with a liver condition should be very wary of cinnamon as it could worsen the situation. For individuals in this category, it may be wise to avoid this spice.

9 Mushrooms

Mushrooms are a delicacy that come in many shapes, forms, and sizes. Ranging from super cheap to ultra expensive, these little fungi are found in a multitude of dishes. Generally speaking, the fresher, the better—because no one wants to eat a slimy and moldy mushroom.

However, every once in a while, these tasty morsels may sit too long with broken plastic wrapping or get canned improperly. The result is no less than slimy mold on the skin and the bacteria botulinum.

Botulinum is found in the intestinal tracts of animals and can be left behind on fresh produce to grow under the perfect conditions. Moldy mushrooms may be an indicator of this deadly bacteria.

Botulinum is a neurotoxin that prevents the nervous system from reacting correctly. Also known as Botox, this toxin is often used in cosmetic procedures. While small doses and injections are not usually toxic, a large intake of improperly stored or canned mushrooms can lead to muscle paralysis and difficulty breathing.^[2]

8 Potatoes

Potatoes and a variety of other vegetables are members of the toxic nightshade family. Despite the deadly connection, these starchy vegetables are usually very safe to eat. Greening potatoes are another story, though.

We usually dismiss a greenish hue on potatoes as chlorophyll due to exposure. However, consumers should be wary. This coloring may also indicate signs of damage that could mean a rise in dangerous levels of a toxic glycoalkaloid called solanine.^[3]

In foods like potatoes, solanine content is rarely an issue. But if high levels of this toxin are ingested at once, it can be harmful to the body. For anyone who eats substantial amounts of these tainted buds or has sensitivities to nightshade family members, a reaction can cause everything from headaches to gastrointestinal problems.

As a result, it is wise to avoid green potatoes, especially in large quantities. Anyone thought to have allergies may also want to reconsider before including them in their diet.

To be on the safe side, be choosy when buying potatoes from the store and cut away any green parts. If an area still tastes bitter after peeling, it may be safest not to eat it.

7 Nutmeg

Nutmeg is a universal spice used in everything from sweets to curries. It is also often used in medicine around the world to treat nausea, diarrhea, and other stomach issues. In earlier years, it was even known as an anesthetic in dentistry. For anyone allergic to nutmeg, it is also an unpleasant hallucinogenic.

Nutmeg contains myristicin. Substantial doses and allergies make myristicin deadly when ingested. Overdoses of this toxin can contribute to many unpleasant side effects that are also known as acute nutmeg poisoning. The symptoms may include hallucinations, drowsiness, delirium, and even unconsciousness.^[4]

Nutmeg can create a “peyote-like” high, but the aftereffects are said to be very unpleasant. As a result, most people use nutmeg for its tasting qualities instead of as a recreational drug.

Anyone thought to be sensitive to nutmeg should ask about the ingredients in homemade products to ensure that there is no substantial use of the spice. This is especially relevant around the holiday season.

6 Alfalfa Sprouts

These tasty little greens are often added to salads, soups, and even burgers. For many nutritionists, alfalfa sprouts also make their lists of “superfoods.” However, eating them raw has raised a few health concerns.

For one thing, alfalfa sprouts are likely to become contaminated with E. coli. If the grower and the consumer take proper precautions, though, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Many store-bought veggies are just as likely to pose a similar risk. However, the most significant concern with alfalfa sprouts is that they contain a toxin called L-canavanine.

This nonprotein amino acid naturally occurs in many plant species to provide a defense against insects. But it also causes severe responses in autoimmune-compromised persons.^[5]

Studies on animals with autoimmune tendencies have shown that consuming vegetables containing L-canavanine caused an increase in conditional flare-ups. Some people have even found it to be a contributing factor to the development of specific diseases like lupus.

Specialists are still conducting studies in humans to nail down the exact connections between raw sprouts and autoimmune problems. For now, though, they recommend that anyone with a compromised immune system steer clear of these little sprouts.

5 Cassava

Cassava is another starchy vegetable not commonly seen in American kitchens. However, many people around the world use this strange root in their cooking.

People eat cassava in many different forms. Unfortunately, it contains a deadly toxin known as linamarin. Few individuals realize that cassava is fatal if improperly prepared.

Linamarin is like sugar in its makeup and structure. When cassava is ingested raw, the human body converts the linamarin to the deadly poison cyanide. Chemical companies use cyanide to create fertilizers, pesticides, and fumigants, and it has even been used as a potent chemical weapon.

When prepared correctly, the cyanide is no longer present in the cassava root. If it is not adequately cooked, a meal of cassava can turn into a story with an unfortunate ending.^[6]

For those preparing or trying cassava, know that it is a very healthy and filling food that is eaten regularly without issues around the world. Just remember that it can be deadly, too, so you should ensure that it is correctly prepared.

4 Mangoes

The mango plant is a part of a genus that belongs to the Anacardiaceae family. This family produces fruits called drupes, which are known for their fleshy outsides and stony insides. Blackberries, cashews, and mangoes are all in this category of tasty treats. Unfortunately, sumac and poison ivy are also members.

A few plants in the Anacardiaceae family produce a substance known as urushiol—the white, sticky substance that oozes from the mango rind. Allergies to urushiol are not an issue for the majority of the population, but anyone with a sensitivity to it will break out in a blister-like rash.

Many individuals only experience these problems, known as mango itch, when dealing with the skin of the fruit. By wearing gloves when peeling, these effects are easily avoidable. For those with a hypersensitivity, contact with the rind, leaves, and flesh can lead to rashes and even anaphylactic shock. If you experience symptoms of mango itch, avoid dealing with the skin and overeating this raw, tasty treat in the future.^[7]

3 Sweet Potatoes

This potato alternative isn’t actually a potato at all but a member of the bindweed or morning glory family. Many people enjoy this food as a traditional holiday favorite, and some prefer to eat it for its health benefits. Although sweet potatoes contain many vitamins and nutrients, consumers need to be wary of the potential health hazards from mold growth.

Due to many different storage and age factors, mold can grow on the skin of sweet potatoes. This specific mold can cause hepatotoxicity when ingested. The deadliness of sweet potato mold was mainly discovered due to cattle herds. In more than one reported case, details came in that the bovines were experiencing unknown respiratory issues. These issues were eventually traced back to moldy sweet potatoes.^[8]

This toxic fungal growth is also unsafe for human consumption. Although most people recognize moldy food and tend to throw it away, a piece or two may sometimes slip through the cracks. As this mold may cause hepatotoxicity, it is wise to check the skin of sweet potatoes thoroughly. Discard the tuber if there are any doubts about the state of the peel.

2 Red Kidney Beans

Many favor red kidney beans for their use in tacos, chili, soups, and more. With these beans found in most stores and rarely seen as harmful, few people realize that proper bean preparation is essential. Consuming raw kidney beans can be fatal.

Beans contain phytohaemagglutinin, a natural toxin found in many legumes. The amount of lectin found in these foods is not very toxic, but it is highest in raw red kidney beans. The USDA refers to this compound as kidney bean lectin.

Cooking and soaking breaks down this lectin, but it is still present if the legumes are undercooked. As little as a handful of undercooked beans can induce a reaction and cause food poisoning to occur.^[9]

To prevent issues, follow the cooking directions on the packaging. Soak beans overnight, and always cook for the recommended amount of time at the proper temperature.

1 Quail

Although quail isn’t commonly found on everyone’s dinner plate, many people still enjoy hunting for and eating this delicacy. Quail themselves do not present any potentially harmful issues. However, what may cause problems is precisely what these birds are eating.

Quail are small scavenging fowl that consume seeds, various grains, and random insects. During migration, they move across the country and add other varieties of foods to their diet—including hemlock.

Hemlock is a plant with a high toxicity level for most animals. Quail actually show resistance to the plant and appear to eat it without adverse effects. Unfortunately, humans do not share this trait. As a result, quail poisoning (aka coturnism) occurs when a person eats one or more of these tainted fowl.^[10]

Reports of coturnism have appeared throughout history but with very few linking attributions. Unfortunately, many quail connoisseurs don’t realize that they could be eating tainted meat. Suspected cases often report dinner guests as suffering from vomiting, muscle soreness, and pain. These symptoms associated with toxic quail are hard to pinpoint, but many experts have linked them to eating tainted birds.

Coturnism is a rarely seen phenomenon. It is familiar enough, though, that it should be recognized in the culinary community. If the tainted quail is eaten in small amounts, a person may experience nothing more than indigestion.

However, the unlucky few who consume too much of the fouled fowl can experience permanent damage to the nervous system and other parts of the body. In the worst-case scenario, coturnism can lead to coma and even death. As a result, experts warn us to be wary of quail in migration mode.

Sharon Seals has previously worked as a linguist, teacher, roofer, waiter, and tattoo artist. She now lives in the mountains and happily works as a freelance writer. She lives with her boyfriend and Schnoodle and specializes in travel, content, copywriting, and anything art related. Contact her on LinkedIn.

Each country has their own traditional dishes like England’s roast dinner, Spain’s paella and Italy’s lasagne; however there are some countries that have more unusual delicacies. We might not fully understand right now why people around the world eat everything, just like Chines. Taking a look at the list of 10 bizarre foods from around the world and see if your perspective on trying international cuisine doesn’t change.

You had probably never eat any of these top 10 bizarre foods, most of them are popular in their respective regions for pretty good reasons.

Top 10 Bizarre Foods That People Usually Eat

Haggis

This Scottish dish contains the internal organs of a sheep, including the liver, heart, and lungs. Mix this with some chopped onions, raw beef or mutton’s fat, salt, and spices. Mixed with stock and traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach.

See also: Top 10 foods that make you happy

Yak Penis

Yak penis is a Chinese delicacy and is also known as “Dragon in the Flame of Desire”. It is most commonly served in the Guolizhuang Restaurant in Beijing which is famous for serving penis and testicle dishes, the yak penis dish is very popular as it is supposed to be very good for skin!

See also: Most Expensive Foods and Spices in the World

Fried – Brain Sandwich

A fried-brain sandwich is generally a sandwich with sliced calves’ brains on sliced bread. Long before the era of Mad-Cow Disease, a sandwich made from fried calves’ brain, thinly sliced on white bread was a common item on the menus in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. The sandwich is still available in the Ohio River Valley, where the brains are now heavily battered and served on hamburger buns.

In El Salvador and Mexico beef brains, lovingly called sesos in Spanish, are used in tacos and burritos. Brains from cows over 30 months old at slaughter are no longer permitted in human food in the United States. Some restaurants have taken to serving pigs’ brains instead of cows’ brains due to Mad-Cow Disease.

See also: Top 10 Highly Fattening Foods We Eat

Fugu

Fugu is the Japanese word for the poisonous puffer fish, filled with enough of the poison tetrodotoxin to be lethal. Only specially-trained chefs, who undergo two to three years of training and have passed an official test, can prepare the fish.

Some chefs will choose to leave a minute amount of poison in the fish to cause a tingling sensation on the tongue and lips as fugu can be quite bland. Perhaps the fuss of fugu is more in surviving the experience than the actual taste of the deadly fish.

See also: Best Foods to Boost Your Metabolism

Sannakji

Sannakji or sannakji hoe is a variety of hoe, or raw dish, in Korean cuisine. It consists of live nakji (a small octopus) that has been cut into small pieces and served immediately, usually lightly seasoned with sesame and sesame oil.

The nakji pieces are usually still squirming on the plate when this dish is served and, if not chewed carefully, the tiny suction cups can stick to the mouth and throat. This is not a dish for the fainthearted.

See also: Most Poisonous Foods in the World

Balut

Balut seemes to be on every strong and bizarre foods list, One of the most popular dishes in the Philippines, where it is commonly sold as streetfood. A balut is a fertilized (mostly half fertilized) duck or chicken embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell. As unappealing as half-developed ducklings are, balut is high in protein and also, an aphrodisiac.

It’s up to you to decide if that’s all worth it, but if it’s any consolation, the people who’ve tried balut say it tastes much better than it looks. These are common food in countries in Southeast Asia, such as Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. These are often served with beer.

Fried Spider

Fried spider is a regional delicacy in Cambodia. In the Cambodian town of Skuon the vending of fried spiders as a specialty snack is a popular attraction for tourists passing through this town. Spiders are also available elsewhere in Cambodia. These spiders are fried from a species of tarantula that is about the size of a human palm. Typically only the legs are eaten, with mixed reviews on eating the abdomen.

Rocky Mountain Oysters

It is a well-known novelty dish in parts of the American West and Western Canada where cattle ranching is prevalent and castration of young animals is common. Rocky Mountain oysters are bull calf testicles used for human consumption.

Sometimes pig or sheep testicles are used. They are often deep-fried after being peeled, coated in flour, pepper and salt, and sometimes pounded flat. This delicacy is most often served as an appetizer with a cocktail sauce dip.

See also: Top 10 Important Foods to Fight Fatigue

Tuna Eyeball

These type of foods Commonly eaten in China and Japan. Tuna Eye can be found staring up at you in most Japanese stores for less than a Pound. In Japan, the dish is served fried with garlic and soya sauce. Apparently it tastes a bit like squid and the eyeball comes surrounded by fish fat and severed muscles that are also meant to be quite tasty. To cook, you simply boil it and then season to taste.

Chicken Cartilage

Chicken cartilage no doubt one of the most bizarre foods, is commonly served in bars in Japan as a tasty snack. It can be eaten fried or on a shish kabob. The texture is very chewy and sometimes can take quite a few mouthfuls to break it up properly.

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For most of us, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. How we eat this meal has certainly evolved over the ages, from a simple fuel-up of milk and bread to the myriad forms it can take today.

Whether we enjoy a big, cooked breakfast or grab a quick, convenient one on the go, there are a number items which you will find on many breakfast tables around the world. We may take these things for granted today, but many have bizarre origins, and others were actually invented by mistake.

How many of these items are on your breakfast table?

10 Coffee

We all enjoy our morning cup of coffee to get us started for the day. In fact, coffee has long been the world’s favorite drink, with around 150 million bags of coffee consumed worldwide each year. You would assume that such a popular beverage was developed by an ancient civilization. However, according to legend, it was actually discovered by a herd of goats!

In the past, an Ethiopian goatherd noticed strange behavioral changes in his flock of goats. They had become more lively and active, having trouble settling at night. Following the goats one day, he found them feasting on the berries of a particular tree. The goatherd shared his story with the local abbot, who experimented with making a drink from the berries.^[1]

The abbot got such a buzz from the newly discovered beverage that it soon began to spread, becoming the world’s favorite “pick-me-up” which is found on most breakfast tables.

9 Tea Bags

A good “cuppa” tea is almost as popular as a cup of coffee. In fact, in the UK alone, 36 billion cups of tea are consumed each year. According to the UK Tea Association, 96 percent of British tea drinkers enjoy the convenience of a tea bag. So you would think the tea bag was a clever invention to improve the morning “brew.” However, the tea bag was invented entirely by mistake.

During the early 1900s, a US tea merchant was looking for a way to send samples of his tea to customers around the world, without spoiling the contents. Thomas Sullivan made small silk pouches to ship tea samples to customers around 1908. Soon, he began receiving feedback from customers that the mesh on the bags was too fine. Instead of emptying the contents into a traditional infusers as he had intended, the customers were actually placing the bag into a cup of boiling water instead.

Sullivan used their mistake to develop gauze bags, with a string and tag to hang over the edge to make it easier to remove the soggy bag. By the 1920s, tea bags were being mass-produced, making the morning cup much quicker and easier.^[2]

8 Cheese

We’ve been enjoying our cheese since long before Little Miss Muffett sat on her tuffet eating curds and whey. Cheese has been around for centuries and can be found on many meal tables around the world. We enjoy it melted on toast or on a European platter for breakfast, in sandwiches for lunch, and in a variety of dinnertime recipes.

Cheesemaking has become a refined craft in many cultures to provide us with the vast range of options we enjoy today. No one knows for sure who first created cheese. According to another legend, an ancient Arab merchant was carrying his milk in a rennet pouch on his journey across the desert. When he stopped for the night, he found his milk had curdled.

The heat of the desert had caused the milk to react with the insides of the pouch, and it had separated into the curds and whey we are familiar with today. Unperturbed, or probably very hungry and thirsty, he drank the contents and then ate the milk curds. The cheese he had mistakenly made became a worldwide favorite food.^[3]

Today, in the US alone, up to one third of milk production is for cheesemaking.

7 Margarine

A tub of margarine can be found in the middle of many breakfast tables today. Many varieties are thought to be healthier than butter, and some can often be cheaper.

Have you ever wondered how this everyday food originated? It was actually the result of a competition Napoleon III held to come up with a substitute for butter to feed the troops during the 1800s. Not only did butter spoil quickly, but it was also very expensive, making it impossible to carry on military campaigns.

In 1869, a French chemist named Hippolyte Mege-Mouries concocted a mixture of beef tallow, water, and milk. His spread was originally called “oleomargarine,” as he believed it contained oleaic and margaric acids. A Dutch company improved on the original mixture, using plant oils and a yellow dye to make it look more like butter.

Dairy producers, however, were unhappy when production of the butter substitute began in the US during the 1870s. Laws were actually passed restricting and even banning the production and sale of margarine. It wasn’t until 1967 that the last of these laws was finally repealed.^[4]

Today, you can choose from a huge range of butter alternatives to spread on your morning toast.

6 Sliced Bread

Imagine painstakingly cutting a hunk of bread off the loaf, only to find it was too thick to fit in the toaster in the morning.

We’ve been eating bread in some form or another for around 30,000 years, carving chunks off the whole loaves to eat. Over time, we refined our dining habits to carefully cut slices off our store-bought loaves. However, despite the fact that we’ve been eating bread on a daily basis for many thousands of years, it wasn’t until the 1920s that sliced bread was actually invented.

In 1928, Iowa engineer Otto Rohwedder designed a commercial bread-slicing machine for his local bakery. The convenience of sliced bread was an overnight hit, and by 1929, Rohwedder was making bread-slicing machines for bakeries all over the US.^[5] Today, sliced bread is available in a variety of thicknesses, including a special “toast” thickness for breakfast.

5 Ketchup

Americans call it ketchup; others call it tomato sauce. Whatever you call it, the tomato-based sauce is slathered all over tons of meals every day. However, does squirting fermented fish guts on your breakfast sausages sound appealing? This was actually the origin of the sauce so many know and love today.

The Chinese ke-tsiap was a pungent sauce made from fermented fish. During the 18th century, the British tried to copy the unique flavor of this Asian sauce using foods such as anchovies, mushrooms, and nuts.

Tomatoes were eventually added to the recipe in the early 19th century, but the tomato-based ketchups spoiled easily. Ingredients such as coal tar were added to the mix in an attempt to improve the shelf life of the sauce.

It wasn’t until the late 1800s that a man named Henry Heinz decided to not only modify the type of tomatoes used but to take advantage of the fruit’s natural preservatives. He also added a healthy dash of vinegar to the mix to make the world’s favorite condiment we enjoy today.^[6]

4 Vegemite

A jar of vegemite can be found on almost every breakfast table in Australia. It has been Australia’s most popular breakfast spread for nearly a century, and it is the number-one request for “care packages” sent to friends and relatives overseas. However, it is also renowned around the world for being particularly vile-tasting.

The thick, black spread was born in 1922, when a food company hired a chemist to provide a food which would double as a vitamin B supplement. Dr. Cyril Callister spent months in the lab perfecting a tasty spread containing brewer’s yeast. Clever marketing, including a number of advertising “ditties” which have become Australian folklore, saw the spread become a national icon.^[7]

The trick to enjoying your vegemite on toast? You scrape it on sparingly, rather than spreading it on thickly.

3 Corn Flakes

Each morning around the world, quite a few breakfast tables feature corn flakes. In the late 1800s, Seventh-day Adventists were experimenting with various grains to create new vegetarian meals that accorded to the diet called for by their church. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, himself an Seventh-day Adventist, fed these concoctions to patients at the Michigan sanitarium of which he was the superintendent.

In 1894, he and his brother left some wheat to cook for too long. They decided to try to get dough out of it anyway, but instead, they got flakes, which they decided to toast and serve to the patients. The original flaked wheat dough was patented in 1895, and packages were sold by mail order. (And yes, Kellogg hoped that the bland meal would curb certain other behaviors.) In 1898, a larger factory was established to produce the wheat flakes, and competitors began producing the breakfast cereal, which was becoming increasingly popular.

In 1906, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes debuted after a period experimentation involving making the cereal from corn with malt, sugar, and salt added.^[8]

2 Packaged Milk

Every morning around the world, we reach into the refrigerator to grab the milk carton. Milk might be one of our most consumed products. We drink it, pour it in our tea and coffee, eat it with our cereal, and use it in many recipes.

We’ve been drinking milk (other than our own) for roughly 10,000 years, since we first began using the milk from domestic animals such as sheep, cows, and goats. Ancient Egyptians reserved milk for the very wealthy, but dairy products ultimately became a dietary staple.

By the 14th century, cow’s milk was favored over sheep’s milk. One of the first jobs of the morning would be to go out to the cowshed to fill a pail with steaming milk for breakfast. Needless to say, this untreated milk was full of germs and bacteria. In 1862, Frenchman Louis Pasteur began experimenting with ways to process and package milk to make it safer and more convenient.

The first milk bottle was invented in 1884 in New York state, making it easier to transport milk from the farm to the breakfast table. “Milkos” would visit each morning to replace the empty bottles left on the front doorstep.

The plastic-coated milk cartons we know today were invented in the 1930s. The original paper milk cartons were refined over the years, from “Tetra packs” designed during the 1950s to the carton we all use today. A Detroit engineer designed the first “gable top” milk carton during the 1960s. While it took a little while to take hold, by 1987, 98 percent of milk purchased came in one of these cartons.^[9]

1 Instant Breakfast

The pace of life in the 21st century has become so busy that many of us don’t have time to sit around the breakfast table enjoying our tea, toast, and corn flakes with milk. We need a quick and easy breakfast option that we can eat on the go, something we can easily consume on our morning commute. Instant breakfasts are a popular option today, despite debate over the nutritional value.

Instant breakfasts were first developed as early as the 1960s and originally promoted as a weight loss product. However, in the mid-1960s, the Carnation food company was marketing an instant breakfast powder that provided “all the nutrients of a complete breakfast” when dissolved in a glass of milk.^[10]

The popularity of these quick and easy breakfast products grew, with new options constantly developed. Liquid breakfasts are one of the most popular instant breakfast products available today. These days, you can suck your cereal and milk through a straw from a cardboard drink carton on the way to work.

Lesley Connor is a retired Australian newspaper editor, who provides freelance articles to online publications and also her own website.

Donuts are a staple of humanity. Every culture that has access to oil has, at some point, developed a donut of some kind, from the Argentinian kreppel to the Zambian vitumbuwa, humanity loves fried dough.

Some people, unfortunately, think that they know a better way for donuts to be. They’ll pair those sweet little balls of fried dough and sugar with any number of things, everything from hot cheese to cold meat . Sometimes, this gives us something incredible, like the Luther Burger, a delicious meeting of cheeseburger and donut that will no doubt give you a heart attack, but is well worth it for the taste.

Sadly, this list is not about those successes, but instead the failures, the worst things ever done to the innocent glazed goodies we all love. You won’t find any of these at your local grocery store, and for that, we should all be very thankful.

If you can stomach it, we’re about to dive into the 10 worst donuts ever made.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Failed McDonald’s Products

10 The Buffalo Crunch Donut

Tim Horton’s is a beloved staple of Canadian culture. Friends from Canada tell us endlessly about the wondrous taste of their coffee, their donuts, and TimBits, whatever those are. You’d think, then, that with a long history of making great donuts, they’d know what not to do with those lovely little sugar bombs.

Unfortunately for us, no, no they do not.

In 2014, Tim Horton’s released a monstrosity onto the world for the New York State Fair, one that would scar tastebuds and make grown men weep for their tongues.^[1]

The abomination known as the Buffalo Crunch Donut was born, a combination of sweet, pull-apart donut and spicy buffalo sauce glaze, topped with crushed buffalo chips and a puddle of buffalo sauce for dipping in.

The awful demon of a donut reportedly came in two flavors, mild and hot. Personally, I’ll have neither. Shame, Tim Horton’s! Shame!

9 The Sloppy Joenut

Krispy Kreme, wow, I can’t believe you’ve done this. This is terrible. I’m almost personally offended by this move, and that’s saying something!

Krispy Kreme is another company known for making delicious donuts. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say they are the face of American donuts, their crackly glazed donuts a fixture in offices and break rooms across the nation.

In 2013, however, Krispy Kreme betrayed us, the consumer, by unleashing onto our unsuspecting tastebuds the Sloppy Joenut.^[2]

Partnering with Chicken Charlies in Del Mar, California, Krispy Kreme allowed chef Charlie Boghosian to slap ground beef, sloppy joe sauce, and cheddar cheese between the halves of a bisected glazed donut, soaking the poor donut in sauces and grease. A soggy mess is what this thing is, Krispy Kreme. Shame on you, too!

8 Foie Gras Donut

With the exception of the already praised Luther Burger, it’s been established that meat does not belong in a donut. This goes double for organ meat. Actually, it may even go triple for organ meat.

Foie Gras, for anyone not in the know, is the liver of a duck or goose that has been force fed to the point of obesity. It’s one of those strange garbage-y sounding foods that rich people are particularly fond of, and Jeff Warner of the Do Or Dine restaurant on Brooklyn, New York made the, let’s call it ‘brave’, decision to place it inside a donut.^[3]

Animal rights concerns aside, this just sounds awful. Organ meats rarely belong in a non-stew dish to begin with, but to place it inside a donut just seems like going above and beyond to ruin things.

Stuffed with fatty duck liver and jam, and clocking in at a cost of $11 per donut, this is something that should never have existed, and in a just and merciful world, would not, or would at least be less expensive.

7 Seaweed Pork Floss Donut

Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself, “You know what would be a nice way to start my day? A donut covered in pork and seaweed.”

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Dunkin’ Donuts seems to think that it sounds wonderful, however, since they made it a menu item in some of their restaurants: a traditionally glazed donut, topped with pork floss (a cotton-candy like form of shredded pork) and dried pieces of seaweed. Sorry, did I say traditionally glazed? I meant to say it’s glazed with chili-oil.^[4]

This one, thankfully, is far, far away from us, safely placed in China. That being said, Dunkin’ Donuts, why? Why would you make this?

According to the company, customers in China prefer a ”traditional, savory breakfast food”.

I’m not entirely sure that pork and seaweed on a donut is either of those things, but the company knows best, I guess.

6 Kimchi Donut

Dunkin’ Donuts, again with this? Again with the weird flavors?

If you’re not in the know, like me when I started down this terrible rabbit hole of culinary atrocities, Kimchi is a traditional Korean side dish made by taking nappa cabbage, Korean radish, and a mix of seasonings and flavor vegetables (such as spring onions and ginger) and fermenting them in large earthenware pots buried in the ground through the winter and summer.

Although special refrigerators are made now so that the process can be done in the house in jars or Tupperware, there are still adherents to the traditional way of fermenting it.

What does that have to do with donuts? Well, Dunkin’ Donuts, in trying to appeal to a Korean customer base, decided the best course of action was to take this side dish, stuff it into some sugared dough, and fry it up, creating the Kimchi Donut.^[5]

Dunkin’, why must you be this way?

5 The S’moracha

Who did this? Seriously, who? I cannot seem to find an origin point for this monster, although I did stumble across it’s recipe, so we unlucky travelers, side by side on this horrible flight, can make this in our own kitchen or laboratory.^[6]

The S’moracha is exactly what it sounds like: a donut that is equal parts s’mores and sriracha. From the outside, it even manages to look like an ordinary, perhaps even tasty donut, covered in all the wonderful, sweet things you would expect a donut to incorporate.

Filled to the brim with chocolate, marshmallow, and Graham cracker sugar, this donut should have been, could have been, a delicious treat, a sweet delight that satisfies every sweet toothed child and adult it encounters.

Alas, the S’moracha has a 4th, secret, out of place ingredient, like an evil chemical X: Sriracha, the spicy, eye watering, tongue scorching Asian hot sauce that comes in a clear bottle with a black rooster stamped on the front.

This is the kind of donut you give to a person you hate to make them suffer, it is the ultimate evolution of the hot sauce drenched muffin.

4 Bone-Marrow Donut

New York seems to be a haven for the culinary creative, but seeing this particular creation makes me wonder if we as a society shouldn’t, perhaps, stifle that creativity just a little, just a smidgen.

The Bone-Marrow donut sounds like something you would make up during Halloween season, a donut that would turn out to just be full of whipped chocolate made to look like bone marrow, a fun ‘spooky’ gimmick to get in the customers.

Oh, how I desperately wish that were the case here. Instead, we are faced with the reality that deep in New York City’s twisting streets, a place called The Doughnut Project is collaborating with Hudson & Charles’s Butcher Shop to create the Bone-Marrow donut, a donut filled with chocolate…and real beef bone marrow, pulled from beef and pork bones, roasted, and stuffed with the chocolate into the center of the donut, which is then glazed with clementine glaze and chocolate shavings.^[7]

When will we as a society learn that animal parts don’t belong in sweets?

3 Texas Style Kolache

As I said in the beginning, every culture that can get their hands on oil eventually develops a donut of some sort. The Czech Republic is no different, creating the Kolache for weddings. A soft, airy pastry filled with cream, sweet cheeses like cream cheese, or fruits, they were an exemplary form of the donut, a delicious, soft treat that makes you smile and think of childhood.

Then the Texans came. Of all the states, Texas is the state that loves their meat and beer the most, and this loves apparently extends even to donuts.^[8]

The Kolache Factory, which is exactly what it sounds like, is the biggest offender, stuffing the traditional Czech wedding pastry with sausage poached in beer, cheese, and jalapenos.

These thing on their own or in, say, a biscuit or some other sort of fried shell are delicious, and I applaud Texas for this delicious combination, but at the end of the day, none of that belongs in a sweet, sweet donut.

2 Golden Cristal Ube Donut

Technically, this donut isn’t as offensive to the taste buds as the others on this list, but it is offensive to the wallet, and to common sense.

The New York (of course) based Manila Social Club has created a donut that sells for 100 dollars per sweet, an outrageous amount for a simple fried pastry. What makes this fried dough so expensive?

They drape it with a blanket of solid gold.^[9]

The donut itself is pretty simple, if a little high concept: the usual fried dough, filled with ube mousse, a type of whipped, fluffy, cream-like filling made from purple yams, and topped with champagne infused (and colored) frosting. The expense, and the awfulness, comes from the thin layer of 24 karat gold draped over the finished product.

While technically it is edible, that’s still metal. It also has no taste. It serves no function but to make the donut exceptionally expensive.

This is a no from me.

1 The Luxury Zebra Cro

There are exactly two kinds of eggs that belong in a donut: a chicken egg, for making the dough or topping a Luther Burger, and a Cadbury Creme Egg, to make the filling or as a topping on Easter. At no other time, and in no other way, should an egg of any sort come in contact with a donut.

Especially not fish eggs. Unfortunately for you and I, that is exactly the kind of egg that Paul Hurley, the founder of Dum Dum Donutterie, has placed on his extra expensive cronut.^[10]

The offending morsel is a small, donut-croissant mixed pastry that contains, among other things, champagne, vanilla beans, and chocolate, all the most rare and expensive types of course.

The disgusting part comes into play when the creator reveals that as an added bonus, and to really bump up the price, he’s added caviar and gold leaf, bringing the total cost of these donuts up to $2,000 per donut and the edibility of this malformed misuse of ingredients to somewhere around zero.

A great buy if you have infinite money to waste and hate your sense of taste, I suppose, but for anyone else, probably not the best idea to buy or even sample.

About The Author: Deana Samuels has recently gone on the lam to hide from the donut experimentation mafia, wanted for exposing their crimes against food.