15 'Disgusting' Foods Will Have Your Taste Buds Begging for Mercy

News
By published

Salty licorice

disgusting foods

(Image credit: Anja Barte Telin)

The salty tang of Finnish black licorice — flavored with ammonium chloride — is certainly an acquired taste, but many newcomers to the candy quickly learn to love it.

Baby mice wine

disgusting foods

(Image credit: Anja Barte Telin)

Found in southern China and in Korea, this alcoholic brew is infused with the bodies of hairless baby mice.

Nattō

disgusting foods

(Image credit: Anja Barte Telin)

In Japan, nattō — sticky, slimy soybeans fermented with the bacteria Bacillus subtilis — is a traditional dish and a popular breakfast food.

Sheep eyeballs

disgusting foods

(Image credit: Anja Barte Telin)

Pickled sheep eyeballs served floating in juice are sometimes used as a hangover remedy in Mongolia.

Su gallu

disgusting foods

(Image credit: Anja Barte Telin)

Made in Sardinia, su gallu is a cheese that ferments in the stomach of a slaughtered baby goat, made from the sheep's milk that was its very last meal.

Mindy Weisberger
Mindy Weisberger
Live Science Contributor

Mindy Weisberger is an editor at Scholastic and a former Live Science channel editor and senior writer. She has reported on general science, covering climate change, paleontology, biology and space. Mindy studied film at Columbia University; prior to Live Science she produced, wrote and directed media for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Her videos about dinosaurs, astrophysics, biodiversity and evolution appear in museums and science centers worldwide, earning awards such as the CINE Golden Eagle and the Communicator Award of Excellence. Her writing has also appeared in Scientific American, The Washington Post and How It Works Magazine.  Her book "Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind Control" will be published in spring 2025 by Johns Hopkins University Press.

More about food diet

Diagnostic dilemma: A man ended up in the ER after drinking 6 gallons of milk in 2 days

What is alkaline water, and does it have any benefits?

Colors are universal — even if our perception of them is subjective
See more latest
Most Popular
an illustration of a line of robots working on computers
AI can handle tasks twice as complex every few months. What does this exponential growth mean for how we use it?
an infrared view of a moon showing surface details through the haze of its atmosphere
There's liquid on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. But something's missing and scientists are confused
An Indian woman carries her belongings through the street in chest-high floodwater
Climate change is spoiling food faster, making hundreds of millions of people sick around the world
a picture of a woman's preserved body in a grave
5,000-year-old burial of elite woman with inlaid toucan's beak found in Peru
a woman clutches her belly in pain
What are ovarian cysts? All about cyst formation, symptoms and treatments
a small orb circles a large burning orb while leaving a trail of fire in its wake
Astronomers discover doomed planet shedding a Mount Everest's worth of material every orbit, leaving behind a comet-like tail
a researcher bends over and points to the boundary between a body of water and ice
New technologies are helping to regrow Arctic sea ice
Artist's impression of the exoplanet K2-18b
Did the James Webb telescope really find evidence of alien life? Here's the truth about exoplanet K2-18b.
an illustration of fluid blue lines floating over rocks
Mathematicians just solved a 125-year-old problem, uniting 3 theories in physics
A photo of dead trees silhouetted against the sunset
Ghost forests are growing as sea levels rise