Chances are, you’ll spot at least one photo of mouth-watering food the second you open your Instagram feed. You know, those carefully curated posts filled with dazzling colors of kimchi, home-brewed kombuchas, and vibrant açaí bowls that get your appetite immediately going. But the truth is, these are all trends that have filled our kitchens, plates, and bellies during these past few years. And if there’s one thing we’re sure of, they tend to come and go.
So a few days ago, Redditor AndShesNotEvenPretty felt inspired when she came across old recipes that looked completely unappetizing by today’s standards. So the user reached out to members of the ‘Cooking’ subreddit with a very fine question: “What cooking/food trends will seem revolting in the future?” Foodies immediately jumped to the comment section and shared their sizzling takes about the latest fads that will age so bad, they’ll turn sour.
From rainbow-colored meals to dishes decorated with gold, we’ve gone through the thread and hand-picked some of the most interesting responses for every cooking enthusiast to enjoy. So get your aprons ready and continue scrolling to upvote your favorite ones! Do you have any thoughts about what food trends should cease to exist? Be sure to tell us all about them in the comments, we’d love to hear them.
#1
it’s not really a food trend per se, but i’m really tired of looking up a recipe online only to have to scroll through 20 pages of a life story full of anecdotes just to get to the ingredient list.
Image source: dr1zzzt, Jeff Sheldon
#2
Fondant. Cakes are supposed to taste good first and look good second, not look beautiful and taste awful.
Image source: ostentia, Chris Martin
#3
Eating live animals like octopus etc.
Image source: AuntiLou, mickamroch
#4
Deconstructed food. I do not give a sh*t about your creative attempt to try to ‘invoke’ cheesecake by having all the elements on a plate separately. I want the damn, fully assembled cheesecake
Image source: Substantial_Layer_13, Sean MacEntee
#5
Binge eating for competition.
Image source: AuntiLou, zabo Viktor
#6
Food decorated in gold. I don’t judge people for fine dining or enjoying expensive meals, but that gold leafing sh*t is over the line for me. It’s pure ostentatiousness without even pretending that it improves the taste of food.
Image source: potatolicious, Quinn Dombrowski
#7
I already think they’re gross but those “Stunt Burgers” that are stacked so damn high you can’t even eat it properly and the combination of all 25+ ingredients probably won’t even taste that good together. First We Feast Instagram I’m lookin at you.
Image source: grawktopus, evgrieve
#8
I want to hope that future people will be revolted by the giant, flavorless beefsteak tomatoes we chose to selectively breed and then pick early and refrigerate into oblivion to be the way they are, right now, *on purpose.*
Image source: PlaidBastard, Jeremy Keith
#9
Keurig coffee. Passing boiling water through plastic cups for a burnt, under-extracted cup. If it doesn’t turn out to be outright dangerous to human health, it’s still an environmentally wasteful way to make a bad cup of coffee.
Image source: FunctionalFox1312, Angela CoffeeRank
#10
Hopefully sugar and corn syrup being put in *everything*. So much sugar…
Image source: steveman1123
#11
*Fois gras*. I think in the future the objections to *fois gras* will continue to grow to where it will no longer be found on menus. It will go the way of the ortolan.
Image source: Position_Extreme, Charles Haynes
#12
Large portions — why? French cuisine is really rich, sweet, and salty, but their portions are just smaller. I don’t need to eat a 0.5-1 burger with all the fixins. Why are burritos the size of my arm?
Image source: bilyl, Sincere Finchy
#13
I would add the milkshakes that have three desserts stacked on them and are spilling all over the place.
Image source: nom-d-pixel, Judge Pera
#14
Foam. It’s disgusting. And unfortunately appears on dishes in high end restaurants. Where it looks like something someone spit onto the plate. Horrifying.
#15
Deep fried sticks of butter at the state fair.
Image source: Skilled1
#16
The Instagram food era. Everything over the top so it looks great on insta but more often than not it’s just a mess. It’s all about how the food looks not tastes. Can anyone tell me that adding 25-30 toppings to an ice cream cone all made of sugar actually makes the ice cream better? At a certain point you have an ice cream sundae that is all toppings
Image source: VapeThisBro
#17
Mukbang.
Image source: ChicoryCoffee_Isbest, Eat with Boki
#18
Stuff that’s cooked inside of a plastic bag, liner, etc. Not to be a conspiracy theorist but I don’t think we quite understand how bad plastic leeching is for humans.
Image source: DoktuhParadox, Ralph Aichinger
#19
Artfully smearing a sauce so it looks like a s**t streak on your plate.
Who the f**k thinks that’s appetizing?
Image source: hamilkwarg, Mgg Vitchakorn
#20
Hopefully – industrially farmed meat. It’s an incredibly cruel system that inflicts massive amounts of suffering to animals _and_ humans and does great damage to the environment and atmosphere, all for cheap hamburgers. I think we’ll look back on it and treat it like other barbaric systems of the past. My hope is that plant based options continue to grow in popularity and people who still choose to eat animal flesh now and then opt for less damaging ones.
Image source: thedancingwireless, Jeremy Bronson
#21
Sloppy, wasteful, revolting food concoctions made for the purposes of entertainment. I would hope that in the future someone would be scorned and derided for doing something like covering your entire countertop in spaghetti and chocolate sauce. I would hope that future historians look back on phenomena like that and think something must have seriously been wrong with us.
Image source: gahidus, Dan Zen
#22
Those dumb “hacks” or flashy foods on TikTok and Facebook.
Image source: YukiHase, Shingi Rice
#23
Bloody Marys piled high with extra ingredients like bacon, shrimp, a lobster claw, and all kinds of pickled and spicy things.
Image source: sparklingsour, David Ashleydale
#24
Hot Cheeto Burrito
Hot Cheeto Fries
Hot Cheeto powder for your corndog or cheese stick
I don’t get it. I loves me some hot cheetos, but they aren’t an ingredient.
Image source: banoomg, Devarya Ruparelia
#25
Hopefully all the pre-packaged and processed garbage our stores are filled with today. People need to re-discover actually cooking with real ingredients, not just re-heating processed industrial nonsense.
Image source: HardwareLust
#26
“Secret menu” food items got really old really fast. As a former barista, I was expected (by customers) to know every single “secret menu” item that some rando on the internet came up with? No thank you lol.
#27
Meal prep delivery services. It seems like a step in the wrong direction when it comes to wasteful packaging. Every ingredient is individually packaged not to mention perishable ones need extra packaging.
Image source: _AlreadyTaken_, George N
#28
I long for the day that people who use the word “EVOO” are expelled from polite society, then are forced to wander the wastelands to survive on beetles, and hair.
Image source: sloowshooter
#29
The pastries that are heavily preserved and sold in plastic packaging. Like the Little Debbie cakes.
Image source: 1gardenerd, Ann Larie Valentine
#30
deep fried foods like oreo, ice cream etc. stacking calories over calories.
Image source: 2morereps, SHAYAN IZADI
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