Candy, by its very nature, should taste, well, “good.” Why else would people want to take it from babies? However, somewhere along the line, some folks didn’t get the memo and ended up making candy so gross, it couldn’t even lure a child into a skeevy van. I’m not talking about weird shapes, like chocolate that looks like poop or taffy that looks like One Direction. I mean candy that actually has an awful, dry heave-inducing flavor, like taffy that TASTES like One Direction. Why would anyone concoct such crimes against humanity? Why does evil exist? It’s just one of those eternal questions whose answer we’ll never know. While you ponder that, consider these examples of candy that, were you to take it from a baby, it would be viewed as merciful rather than cruel.
Vegetable Candy
Via: mcphee.com
There is no logic behind this product existing. Vegetables and candy are polar opposites and simply cannot exist in the same space. This is like meat-encrusted tofu or humble Kanye. Parents typically give candy to kids as a reward for eating things like vegetables, so maybe this is some sort of punishment for kids who eat too much candy? Or maybe to some exasperated parents who’ve just given up on life, this is the easiest way to get their kids to eat “healthy”? Coming in green bean, corn and carrot flavors, the best thing I can say about this product is that it at least picks three of the least wretch-worthy vegetables. I can’t imagine anyone would dare put cauliflower caramel, beet brittle or Brussels sprout bubble gum in their mouths.
Wasabi Candy Canes
Via: mcphee.com
Who needs candy to be sweet when you can have the pungent, horseradish-y flavor of wasabi? I don’t know if even Japan would go for these. The target demographic has to be either 1) hipster contrarians who insist through their reddened, tear-stained eyes that they love the hot mustard taste, 2) sadomasochists who eat it on top of ghost peppers dipped in shards of glass or 3) people whose holiday spirit encompasses making someone they love gag and retch on Christmas morning. There hasn’t been a product that besmirched the traditions of a holiday this badly since pickled eggnog, or when your mom tried to get fancy and stuffed the Thanksgiving turkey with sushi and escargot. You don’t have to be a scrooge to say “Bah, humbug” to this spicy spawn of Krampus.
Pickle Lollipops
Via: pickleaddicts.com
Pregnant women, rejoice! Now you can enjoy (?) the sour taste of rotten cucumbers with your ice cream whenever you want with these repulsive dill pickle lollipops. If the flavor doesn’t disgust you, the look – complete with “all the lumps, bumps and ridges of a real pickle” – will. I realize some people like the taste of pickles, but do you really want it lingering in your mouth for the hours (or what will surely seem like hours) it takes for this lollipop to dissolve? Why not just suck on a urinal cake while you’re at it? Because unless I’m mistaken, I’m pretty sure it’s pee that pickles are stewing in when they’re in those jars, right? It’s not? Well then, with that low bar set, maybe they’re not so bad after all.
Thanksgiving Gumballs
Via: Amazon.com
Since we already ruined Christmas with wasabi candy canes, why not obliterate Thanksgiving? These holiday-themed gumballs come in three levels of increasing wretchedness. The first flavor, cranberry, actually doesn’t sound too bad if you like the taste of cranberry sauce but get icked out by the weird gelatinous slicing aspect. The next flavor is pumpkin pie, a taste that is fine in and of itself, but do you really want to chew pumpkin pie and never be able to swallow? Sounds like torture to me. Finally, we get to the piece de resistance: turkey. Meat candy? Why is this a thing? Do vegetarians want to taste flesh without cheating on their diets? Sure, there have been a lot of bacon-flavored sweets over the past few years, but as unappetizing as that is, bacon is at least still bacon. Turkey is so…bland. Why would you want anything other than turkey to taste like turkey? I barely want TURKEY to taste like turkey, for goodness’ sake.
Gravy Candy
Via: mcphee.com
Well, if you have turkey gum, you may as well have gravy candy, I guess. It’s like if grandma exploded in the kitchen, and her purse full of hard candies got coated in the “herb-infused gravy” she was cooking. Ugh. At least it doesn’t come covered in bluish-gray old lady hair. The only thing that would make this confection more gross is if it had a gushy center filled with chunks to replicate the consistency of grandma’s lumpy gravy. I won’t even bother to speculate as to what sort of meat spawned this gravy candy, but judging from the low cost, I’m leaning toward horse. And let’s be clear: the only flavors of candy that should come in brown are chocolate, caramel and butterscotch. Otherwise, you’re asking for something pretty nasty and probably quite unsanitary.
Onion Ring Mints
Via: Pinterist
I don’t know if I can think of two flavors that DON’T go together as much as mint and onions. Maybe liver and…well, anything else. Taste aside, though, do you take these mints to cover up your bad breath, or do you take them to CAUSE bad breath? This entire product is an oxymoron. I can only imagine what it does to your insides; it’s like a cold front and a warm front meeting in your stomach, causing a gastrointestinal hurricane that could have you wearing rubber pants. Some users have claimed that there’s no actual minty taste, but if that’s the case – and that’s still a big if – who wants to feel like they’re sucking on a greasy onion ring? It’s like a cholesterol Tic Tac: higher blood pressure guaranteed, or your money back!
Dark Chocolate Sriracha Bunny
Via: incrediblethings.com
Speaking of foods that will have you leaking from all your orifices, here’s a product that will ruin yet another holiday (not to mention a pair of pants). It’s bad enough shafting some poor kid on Easter with a bunny made of bitter dark chocolate, but then you throw in the added twist of spicy sriracha sauce? Why not go ahead and tell them there’s no Santa, since you have no qualms about crushing souls? The “powers that be” have been pushing sriracha on Americans relentlessly over the past few years – sriracha chips, sriracha jerky, sriracha hummus, sriracha nuts, sriracha burgers, etc. – but chocolate is where I draw the line. Probably even in Thailand, where sriracha is from, they’d look at this and say, “Hells to the no,” or however that translates in Thai.
Japanese Kit Kats
Via: Pinterist
Ah, Japan. No list of weirdness would be complete without you. You’re like that lovably oddball friend who’s independently wealthy for no apparent reason and spends all of his time collecting Elvis Buddha statues and taking up made-up hobbies like underwater sandwich art. While in the US, Kit Kat bars come in basically one flavor – chocolate – your assortment of Kit Kat varieties is legendary, bordering on hoarder-like, with flavors that can only be attributed to some sort of weird fetish, including: soy sauce, grilled corn, red bean sandwich, potato, vegetable juice and apple vinegar. It’s like you had a dart board filled with names of entrees and condiments and threw darts to figure out the next Kit Kat offering. Mayonnaise pizza? Sure, why the heck not? Toss it on the pile of 1970s TV Guides in the corner.
Salted Tomato Candy
Via: gaybot2000.blogspot.com
Japan strikes again! Let’s see, what do people generally want in their candy? Salt? No. Tomato? Nope. Well, Japan won’t let a little thing like “taste” or “popular demand” stop them. Thus, we have “shio tomato ame,” or salted tomato candy, combining two tastes nobody ever craved having in candy form. This seems like it would be one of those old-timey things your grandparents would talk about eating back during the Great Depression, like hardtack, stick candy and human flesh (hey, those were tough times). In fact, I can imagine them salting tomatoes and taking a bite out of them like they were some sort of refreshing delicacy. “Hoover apples, we used to call them, and we’d wash ’em down with a tall glass of goat spit – if we were lucky.”
Musk-Flavored Sticks
Via: Flickr
Musk, as far as I know, is more generally associated with scent (or in the case of Elon Musk, failed trips into outer space) than with taste, so I imagine it’s hard to describe the flavor of this Australian concoction, which has been called “reminiscent of musk perfume.” So, just think about that time when you accidentally spritzed perfume or cologne in your mouth, then concentrate it into solid form so you can chew on it and relish a flavor bordering on roach spray. Mmmm…you can almost taste the poison! I assume they color it pink to trick your brain into thinking you shouldn’t induce vomiting and rush to the emergency room after eating these. On the bright side, if you’re ever in a pinch with a bad case of B.O., you can just grab some sticks and rub them all over for a nice, musky odor that will attract, if nothing else, ants.
Fish Candy
Via: stupid.com
Unlike many other items on this list, this one at least has the sense to market itself as a gag gift, knowing that the self-described taste of “rotting fish” is not something anyone would actually want in their mouth hole. Two questions come to mind, though, as I look at this product. First, was the flavor of NON-rotten fish not repulsive enough to make this worthy of a gag gift? Did some quality control tester come along during this candy’s development and say, “Hmmm…The sensation of sucking on raw trout doesn’t sufficiently make me want to blow chunks. Can you make it taste like the trout has been sitting in the sun for two weeks?” Secondly, why the heck does it say it’s only for ages 14 and up? Exactly how dangerous is this stuff? If a 10-year-old were to try one, would they end up in the hospital with mercury poisoning or something?
BBQ Potato Chip Chocolate Bar
Via: wildophelia.com
As someone who’s had my share of cheese popcorn on vanilla ice cream, I’m not opposed to some out-of-the-box combinations of sweet and savory, but barbecue potato chips covered in chocolate is nothing short of a sin against nature. Dark chocolate itself is an acquired taste, but blending it with the onion, garlic and paprika blend of barbecue – not to mention what is sure to be a gnarly texture – is too much to expect anyone to digest. Do these come wrapped in barf bags? I don’t know who the Wild Ophelia who made these is, but I’d venture to guess she hates anyone with taste buds. Perhaps she lives alone in a secluded cabin in the Montana wilderness, secretly plotting out her next stomach-turning product that will show those people back in culinary school that she was NOT crazy for trying to invent socks that doubled as soup strainers.
Takoyaki Drops
Via: foodettereviews.com
Meanwhile, in Japan… Takoyaki is apparently a popular dish in Japan consisting of octopus cooked in batter and topped with mayonnaise and green onions. For many Westerners, that description alone may make you lose your appetite… and if it does, then maybe you should stop reading now. That’s because this product replicates that taste in candy form. Suck on THAT. No really, you’re supposed to suck these unholy hard candy “drops,” presumably so you can really absorb and appreciate the tangy seafood flavor. You have to wonder which of these three ingredients you’d never want in a candy is the dominant one here: octopus, mayo or onions? Onions would probably not do your breath any favors. I get nauseous just thinking about mayonnaise, because I imagine the equivalent is eating Hellmann’s by the spoonful. And octopus, well, I can barely conceive of what sort of dank fishy flavor it has, because I can’t get the thought of chewy suction cups out of my brain.
Cricket Lollipops
Via: Candy Warehouse
Ewww. Like, seriously, just looking at this makes me start talking like a valley girl. Yes, this is exactly what it looks like: a lollipop with a dead (hopefully) cricket encased inside. What is wrong with this world? “Will you lick down to the cricket?” the advertising asks, a question that, until now, I would assume had a sexual connotation, but my mind can’t get past these monstrosities long enough to dive into the gutter. The makers claim the flavors include orange, grape, blueberry and strawberry, but I dare you to tell me that a hint of cricket doesn’t come through. I love how the only disclaimer for this product doesn’t have anything to do with swallowing a leg or antenna, but rather the fact that its sugar-free sweetener might cause “a mild laxative effect.” THAT’S what might cause a mild laxative effect? Well, then again, they might be right; the laxative effect of the cricket itself would be atomic, for sure.
Plain Candy Canes
Via: thegreenhead.com
Ho, ho, NO. This might not be the most disgusting item on this list at first glance, but can you imagine sucking on a candy cane that has no taste whatsoever? Flavor is what separates food from…not food. Otherwise, this is just a decoration you hang from a tree. The only difference is that it just happens to not kill you if you accidentally eat it. And when I say this candy has no taste, I should clarify that it probably has SOME taste after being manhandled and passed around, as gag gifts tend to be. That is, it tastes like sweaty palms. There’s probably a touch of unwashed toilet hand and do-my-pits-stink finger too, to make it all the more well-rounded. So, by all means, lick this germ-encrusted filth stick, and while you’re at it, rub your tongue along the underside of a middle school lunch room table. That will probably taste more like food.
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