Grossest American Foods, As Ranked By Not-American Reddit

An AskReddit thread involving the grossest American foods to non-American Redditors flipped a common script — while Americans are often bemused by what people in other countries choose to eat, it turns out they’re not always fond of our delicacies, either. Wait, “aerosol cheese” isn’t beloved the world over?

Sure, it’s hard to imagine what in the all-American lineup comes off as weird, gross, or off-tasting to foreigners. But sure enough, those same people who eat Marmite, Vegemite, and other -ites think our snacky snack food is not always that snackable either.

What would you guess Reddit users found gross in American food conventions? Peanut butter? Sure, this apple pie-ish foodstuff doesn’t play as well in Europe… but there were a few more insights into standard fare here that’s yucky to our European and Aussie friends.

For instance (and I’d heard this one before Reddit tackled gross American food), Hershey’s chocolate is basically considered horrendous outside the U.S. Yes, it’s true. Give a Brit a Kit Kat and they gag, and it isn’t because their Cadbury is so much more delicious overall… which it totally is.

To them, an underlying taste of parmesan cheese or “sick” (UK English for “puke”) is often cited, and Redditor Protonbeamface explains:

“U.S. chocolate or candy is pretty unpleasant to me. Hershey bars have this dusty texture (like 5 weeks after Easter when you come across an uneaten egg) and the taste isn’t very rich. Cadbury Dairy Milk used to be awesome, but Kraft bought Cadbury a couple years ago and the recipe seems to be gradually changing.”

Another one mentioned that we’d heard before is bacon — when my Irish boyfriend visited his first American diner years ago, he was stunned and saddened to see what passed for bacon in the United States, much like Reddit user RTardDan:

“American bacon looks weird to me, it’s too thin and every time I see a picture of bacon that someone who lives in America has made they’ve always cremated it. Juicy bacon is far better!”

Pop Tarts, Snow Cones, and beef jerky all made the list — but also, not unlike Americans, our international Reddit friends sometimes decide on which American foods are grossest without understanding or trying them. (Kind of like American refusal to eat black pudding, a thing to which I totally admit.)

User BoChiggedyBoDiddley falls into this trap describing grossest American foods, scoffing at meatloaf:

“Why would I want a loaf of meat? Granted I haven’t had it, but it looks gross.”

Because, BoChiggedyBoDiddley, your mom makes awesome meatloaf and it is juicy and tastes like home. Uncultured cretins!

You can read Reddit’s rundown of grossest American foods over on AskReddit.