In a recent AskReddit post, someone asked, “What’s your most controversial food opinion"?
Here you’ll find not only a roundup of some of the most provocative opinions from the thread, but a ranking: I have ordered them from, in my opinion, the least to most controversial opinions.
So in a way, these controversial food opinions may potentially gain a meta-layer of controversy by the way they are ordered below. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you disagree. You’ll be wrong, but I believe in your freedom to express your (wrong) opinions.
Enjoy!
A Ranking, From Least To Most Controversial
Licorice
Reasoning: This isn't so much because I personally hate licorice as because I acknowledge that it's a very polarizing flavor, and both loving and loathing it are valid stances.
Brussels sprouts
Reasoning: This is one of those foods that can absolutely be ruined if prepared wrong, but prepared well, they're one of the best vegetables out there thanks to their crispy leaves, soft interiors, and their compatibility with bacon bits.
Pineapple on pizza
Reasoning: Plain pizza is a perfect food. Adding pineapple unbalances the perfect equilibrium of pizza's flavor (salty cheese, garlic, savory but inherently sweet tomato), and this is why you most often find pizza paired with ham to even things back out. I'm all for it.
Chick-fil-a
Reasoning: After hearing people rave about Chick-fil-a for what felt like forever, I finally had my first sandwich — ordered exactly as advised by several Chick-fil-a fans — as a freshman in college. And you know what? It was utterly unremarkable. Underwhelming. Kind of dry and bland. I don't get it. Also, the hostage-style signs "written" by cows advocating for chicken murder are so freaking weird.
Watermelon in salad
Reasoning: A good watermelon is just plain good no matter what you do with it, and spruces up a salad big time. That said, I do love cucumbers. Why not both?
Sauces on food
Reasoning: I don't totally agree with this, but I kind of get it. Very often I find myself relying on sauce to make a bite of something taste good that would otherwise be bland, which is less an argument in favor of sauces than in favor of making sure the thing you are putting sauce on is good in the first place.
Ice in sodas
Reasoning: The problem isn't ice in sodas: it's how fast ice melts. What we need is to invent an ice that doesn't melt as fast. But I will not be giving up ice in my sodas.
Cream or dairy-based salad dressings
Reasoning: Sometimes I only get a salad as a vehicle for a cream-based dressing, like Caesar or blue cheese dressings. You might not always be in the mood for them, but they are incredibly good.
Pre-packaged sushi is good, actually
Reasoning: This Redditor has given me leave to abandon my shame around being drawn to shady packaged sushi. I'm not saying it's as good as the world's best sushi restaurant, but when something's good, it's good!
Oatmeal
Reasoning: Here’s what I want to ask this Redditor: how do you know what the texture of vomit tastes like? Oatmeal rules.
Nothing that isn’t food should go near your mouth
Reasoning: I do find some bones and shells kind of annoying at times, but there's something so satisfying about having to work for something really delicious, and it's also often a reminder of where your food came from. Also, the very fact of cooking something with or in its bone/shell often makes it taste far better, too. In other words, grow up.
Anything can be food?
Reasoning: Love the spirit of this one, but “bite-sized” as a bar for edibility is extraordinarily misguided, and I can say that based on a single piece of evidence: thumb tacks.
Eating to live vs. living to eat
Reasoning: I don't know that I'd say I live to eat, but I don't for a second believe that anyone truly only "eats to live," and if they do, that is downright sociopathic.
Eggs
Reasoning: What is wrong with you?
For more of Reddit's controversial food opinions, see the AskReddit thread.
