There exists, in the vast and sunlit landscape of American cuisine, a shadow world — a culinary underworld of textures that slither, smells that linger long after the plate has been cleared, and flavors so aggressively divisive that they have torn apart friendships, ruined Thanksgiving dinners, and sent more than one grown adult fleeing the table in tears. This is their story.

In 2025, YouGov surveyed 2,239 Americans about which normal, grocery-store-available foods they simply could not abide. The results were, frankly, shocking — not because the foods on the list were exotic, but because so many of them are things your grandmother probably served with a smile and the words, “You’ll love it, trust me.”

Spoiler: we did not love it.

Man on the Street — Union Square, New York City
Gerald, 54, retired plumber
“Liver. Just liver. I’ve been avoiding it since 1987 and I plan to continue through the afterlife.”

The Official Enemies List
YouGov Survey, 2,239 U.S. Adults — % who dislike or hate

# Food % Dislike/Hate Hatred
1🐟 Anchovies56%
2🫀 Liver54%
3🐠 Sardines52%
4🫘 Tofu46%
5🦑 Squid44%
6🐟 Caviar43%
7🦪 Oysters42%
8🧀 Blue Cheese39%
9🍣 Sushi39%
10🫀 Chitterlings38%
11🫐 Beets35%
12🥬 Kale31%

§ 1 — The Barf Factor™Our Proprietary Rating System, Explained

In the interest of public service journalism, we have developed the Barf Factor™ — a scientific scale from 1 (mildly unpleasant) to 10 (you will need a moment) that rates each offending food on a combination of smell, texture, visual appearance, and the percentage of the population that would rather eat their own shoe than consume it. Peer review is forthcoming.

The Barf Factor™ Scale
Peer-reviewed by our editorial stomach
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“meh” yikes oh no WHY 🚨 BIOLOGICAL HAZARD

§ 2 — The AccusedIndividual Food Profiles with Full Barf Factor™ Ratings

🐟
Anchovies
56% dislike · America’s #1 Enemy
Tiny, oily, salt-cured fish that arrive rolled up like little fish cigars, usually on a pizza you did NOT order them on. They smell like the sea made a terrible decision and taste like a very angry mermaid.
🤢 BARF FACTOR: 8/10
🫀
Liver
54% dislike · #1 Most “Hated” Food
The most hated food in America when you count actual “hate” votes. Combines a metallic taste, a grainy-yet-dense texture, and the distinct sensory experience of eating someone’s feelings. A classic childhood trauma vehicle.
☣️ BARF FACTOR: 9/10
🐠
Sardines
52% dislike
Anchovies’ larger, somehow even more aggressively fishy cousins. They come in a tin that opens with a key, because sardines are old enough to remember when that was modern technology.
🤢 BARF FACTOR: 7/10
🫘
Tofu
46% dislike
A white, jiggling block of soybean curd that is deeply inoffensive on its own — and yet. Critics cite a texture variously described as “cold sadness,” “wet styrofoam,” and “the texture of a broken promise.”
😬 BARF FACTOR: 4/10
🦑
Squid
44% dislike
A boneless sea creature that, when fried into calamari, is beloved by millions — but when encountered in its full tentacled form, causes the same instinctive recoil one feels upon discovering a spider in the shower.
😰 BARF FACTOR: 6/10
🫧
Caviar
43% dislike
Tiny fish eggs that pop in your mouth in a way that is either “transcendent” or “an experience you will think about at 3am and shudder.” People who love it will tell you about it. Often. Unsolicited.
😨 BARF FACTOR: 5/10
🦪
Oysters
42% dislike
Raw and served in their own shell, these are essentially the ocean handing you a mouthful of seawater in a mucus wrapper. Connoisseurs call them “briny and mineral.” Skeptics call them “no thank you, I’m fine.”
🤢 BARF FACTOR: 7/10
🧀
Blue Cheese
39% dislike
Cheese that has been deliberately inoculated with mold. Blue cheese aficionados will note that it is complex and pungent. Critics will note that it smells like it has been left in a gym locker since 1994.
😨 BARF FACTOR: 5/10
🍣
Sushi
39% dislike
The “raw fish” reputation has haunted sushi unfairly — much of it isn’t raw at all. Still, 39% of Americans will look at a California roll and see a cry for help wrapped in seaweed.
😕 BARF FACTOR: 3/10
🫀
Chitterlings
38% dislike
Slow-cooked pig intestines. The cooking process alone — which can take all day and fills an entire house with a smell that neighbors remember — causes preemptive gagging in people three blocks away.
☣️ BARF FACTOR: 9/10
🫐
Beets
35% dislike
A deeply earthy root vegetable that turns everything it touches a vivid blood-red. Haters say it “tastes like dirt.” Lovers say that’s the point. Both are making eye contact too intensely.
😕 BARF FACTOR: 3/10
🥬
Kale
31% dislike
The yoga-class darling that promised to save your health and delivered a mouthful of bitter, fibrous leaves that require ten minutes of chewing to subdue. Still, kale remains deeply smug about this.
🙄 BARF FACTOR: 2/10
“It was liver and onions. I was seven. I am now forty-three. I have not forgotten. I will not forgive.”

§ 3 — Eyewitness AccountsMan (and Woman) on the Street

We dispatched a correspondent to gather testimony from Americans in the wild. What follows are their unedited accounts. We cannot vouch for their composure.

Man on the Street — Farmers Market, Austin, Texas
Tamara, 38, yoga instructor
“I know I’m supposed to love kale. I teach people how to breathe. I make my own kombucha. But kale? I put it in a smoothie once and my blender gave me a look.”
Man on the Street — Pier 39, San Francisco
Hank, 61, maritime consultant
“I live near the ocean. I respect the ocean. I will not eat an oyster raw. You might as well ask me to lick a tide pool. Which, for the record, I also would not do.”
Man on the Street — A Pizza Parlor, Chicago
Dana, 29, graphic designer
“My roommate orders anchovies on a shared pizza. I found a new roommate. I want this on the record. This is why.”
Man on the Street — A Farmer’s Market, Portland, Oregon
Phil, 47, software engineer
“I tried tofu three times. Each time I thought, ‘maybe I’m doing it wrong.’ The third time I realized: no. The tofu is doing it wrong.”
Man on the Street — Outside a Steakhouse, Dallas, Texas
Beverly, 72, retired schoolteacher
“I cooked liver every Friday for twenty-two years because my husband said he liked it. He told me last year he was just being polite. We’ve had some difficult conversations since then.”

§ 4 — The Usual SuspectsThe Categories of Culinary Contempt

Across every survey conducted in recent years, hated foods fall reliably into a few camps — almost as if human disgust has its own organizational chart.

Fishy & Briny anchovies · sardines oysters · squid caviar 🐟 Organ Meats liver · chitterlings kidneys · tripe 🫀 Bitter Vegetables kale · beets · okra brussels sprouts eggplant 🥬 Fermented/Funky blue cheese · olives capers · pickles black licorice 🧀

Fishy and briny foods top every list, punished for their smell, their saltiness, and their habit of tasting exactly like you fell into the sea. Organ meats combine metallic flavors, dense textures, and what researchers delicately call “childhood dinner trauma.” Bitter vegetables are hated by those genetically predisposed to detect certain bitter compounds more intensely — yes, this is a real thing, and it’s why some people are completely unbothered by Brussels sprouts while others act like they’ve been asked to eat a pine cone. And fermented and funky foods — the blue cheeses, the capers, the olives — split opinion straight down the middle. People who love them experience a rich complexity; people who hate them experience someone accidentally left the food out too long.

Man on the Street — Outside Whole Foods, Boston
Marcus, 33, finance professional
“Look, I eat well. I know blue cheese is ‘sophisticated.’ But when I open it in the office fridge, three colleagues have filed HR complaints. That’s not sophistication. That’s a hazmat situation.”

§ 5 — Honorary MentionThe Rhubarb Situation

Rhubarb — a stringy, aggressively tart stalk that botanically speaking is a vegetable but culturally insists on being served as pie — does not quite crack the top-ten hated foods in national surveys. This is less because people like it, and more because most people have simply chosen not to think about it.

It has, however, all the hallmarks of a deeply suspicious food: it is fibrous, it requires industrial quantities of sugar to be edible, and the leaves are actually poisonous, which seems like relevant information that rhubarb should have led with.

Man on the Street — A Farmers Market, Vermont
Janet, 58, librarian
“I don’t dislike rhubarb, exactly. I just think of it as nature’s way of saying ‘you really needed that sugar, not me.’ The plant is just a delivery vehicle for sugar. It’s honest about it. I respect that.”

§ 6 — ConclusionsWhat This All Means for Humanity

After extensive field research, several man-on-the-street interviews, and one regrettable anchovy tasting session in the office, we can report the following findings:

First: Liver is objectively, statistically, the single most hated food in America — not just the most disliked, but the most actively loathed, with 40% of Americans saying they hate it with specific, personal intensity. It has earned this distinction through decades of unwavering commitment to metallic flavor and traumatic school-night dinners.

Second: Anchovies are the most widely disliked food, meaning more people have an opinion about them — almost certainly because someone keeps putting them on the pizza.

Third: The categories of hated food have remained remarkably consistent across surveys and across decades. We as a species have apparently always recoiled from things that smell strongly of the sea, have been exposed to controlled rot, or once constituted the inside of an animal. This is, some would argue, wisdom.

And finally: if you are someone who genuinely loves liver, chitterlings, and anchovies on your oyster-topped blue cheese pizza — first, we respect you. Second, please do not tell us. We’re still recovering from the research phase.

“There are no bad foods. Just foods that most people will not eat for any amount of money.”