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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Anyone else suddenly put off a food after an unpleasant association?

136 replies

CrowsInMyGarden · 17/05/2026 20:14

A few years ago my friend had this weird thing where she saw a dead thing (mouse? bird?) in her garden covered in maggots and ever since then she can't bring herself to eat rice or orzo as it reminds her of the maggots. I thought this was a bit weird but a few weeks ago I was eating a curry that I had made and whilst eating a chewy mushroom my brain just screamed "snail!" I spat it out but could not eat any further mushrooms. I've not been able to eat one since. Has anyone else got the ick (can I use that expression here as it is about food and not a man?) with food they usually like? If so, have you managed to get over it and eat that food again?

OP posts:
CatCaretaker · 18/05/2026 19:59

Yep, vomited during pregnancy after eating gnocchi with sundried tomatoes. Can't eat either since. I only vomited twice during pregnancy, but that dish was the unlucky one. Can't face a sundried tomato especially since.

CatCaretaker · 18/05/2026 20:16

TheOnlyMooncat · 17/05/2026 21:44

I haven't eaten tomato soup for about 40 years after I had it for lunch and then we went on a long car journey. I was very car sick as a child, it wasn't pretty 😂
Also, I refused to eat cheese for about 5 years because someone snuck a bit of cucumber in my cheese sandwich. I do not like cucumber. I do eat cheese now though.

Agreed, cucumber taints anything it touches.

Yellowsubmarine55 · 18/05/2026 20:17

I had a twix 40 years ago just before sickness bug. I've not eaten one since although they probably weren't related.

Crikeyalmighty · 18/05/2026 21:20

Shinyhappyapple · 18/05/2026 19:41

Oh - you’ve reminded me of when I was that age and was sick after drinking Malibu and pineapple juice - I couldn’t even use my Hawaiian Tropic sun cream! I can use the coconut body cream again now, and I love the taste in a curry, but I won’t drink that drink again. That’s forty years ago.

Ha ha- just even seeing bottles of anything rum related and it reminds me - I was staying at my grans villa in Spain and was sick all up her walls

x2boys · 18/05/2026 21:22

Oh and i havent bern able to drink milk since primary school in the late 70,s early 80,s when we were made to drink those horrible little bottles that had been left in a warm classroom all morning 🤑
Would it have killed them to either have given them first thing or kept them in a fridge?

Rhaenys · 18/05/2026 21:35

I wasn’t able to eat falafel for years after I was ill after eating it. I don’t think it was even the falafel that made me ill either, it was a bug.

almondflake · 18/05/2026 21:48

I felt sick after eating prawn cocktail skips while I was pregnant , that was 38 years ago and I’ve not eaten them since . The thought of them is enough to make me feel queasy even now .

CrushingOnRubies · 18/05/2026 22:35

Chicken drumsticks since I got food poisoning from one 15 years ago.

Latenightreader · 18/05/2026 22:39

I ate a banana when in labour. It reappeared a little later. Haven't been able to touch one since. Weirdly I didn't have the same reaction to the fruit tea I'd drunk just before the first contraction made me sick.

Oxo01 · 19/05/2026 02:26

Years ago i used to buy chicken thighs but one day I was preparing them and one had the exact shape of a small baby turtle.
Once cooked I couldnt eat them and haver done so since.

Ihopeithinkiknow · 19/05/2026 03:57

My daughters hamster died when she was about ten and before she buried him in the garden she said he looked like a chicken Kiev and it put me off them for life haha

Sartre · 19/05/2026 05:28

Not food but I can’t drink disaronno anymore. Went to gay pride years ago, drank probably half a bottle, had to leave early to puke and it was just that stuff so it was all I could taste and smell. Haven’t touched it since.

ShiftySquirrel · 19/05/2026 07:09

I won't touch a certain bakery Cornish pasty after eating one and being sick for 6 weeks after. I was off work all that time with a fever and vomiting. I couldn't keep much down at all. The NHS settled on gastric flu being the cause- not an eating disorder which was frustratingly suggested by more than one doctor. God forbid being young, skinny and ill.

I lost about 2 stone I couldn't afford to lose. Then put it all back on again slowly when I got better.

CoffeeCantata · 19/05/2026 08:45

I had a craze for meusli in the late 70s when I was a young teenager. My mum rolled her eyes at the numerous bowls I got through during each day.

Then I got Hepatitis A and the last meal I ate for some weeks was meusli. It's taken 40 + years for me to be able to enjoy it again! Also, I remember we had Pears soap during my illness (and before). It also took a long time before I could used that without feeling bilous.

CoffeeCantata · 19/05/2026 08:48

ShiftySquirrel · 19/05/2026 07:09

I won't touch a certain bakery Cornish pasty after eating one and being sick for 6 weeks after. I was off work all that time with a fever and vomiting. I couldn't keep much down at all. The NHS settled on gastric flu being the cause- not an eating disorder which was frustratingly suggested by more than one doctor. God forbid being young, skinny and ill.

I lost about 2 stone I couldn't afford to lose. Then put it all back on again slowly when I got better.

Oh wow - that sounds like much more than gastric flu. It sounds like what I had (Hep A), or campylobacter??

I'm assuming the bakery name rhymes with 'begs'? Or am I being unfair?

It could have been re-heated inadequately, but I'm sure that would only cause the usual food poisoning...what you describe sounds like (sorry) faecal contamination from handling after cooking.

bladeo13 · 21/06/2026 14:25

Got drunk on rum and black 62 years ago still can’t stand the smell

Allseeingallknowing · 21/06/2026 14:36

CherryRipe1 · 18/05/2026 19:09

I can't eat packs of premade mixed rice with vegetables after I found a curled up millipede in mine.

Thanks for that!

Nottinghillrose · 21/06/2026 14:46

Another one here who can’t eat the Lindt lindor truffles. Couple of years ago I was happily working my way through a box and my friend said it was like eating lard. Instantly that mouth feel hit a nerve and I’ve not been able to touch one since.

LakieLady · 21/06/2026 14:58

cinnamonmilkandhoney · 17/05/2026 20:17

I haven’t eaten chicken since October 2024. Campylobacter. It’s not that I think I’ll get sick again from it but it’s like the association with alcohol you r been really ill off
just the thought of chicken makes me turn green

I couldn't eat lasagne for 2 or 3 years because I caught Campylobacter from eating lasagne in a pub that had poor kitchen hygiene!

After a few years, I just fancied lasagne one day, so made one and it was absolutely fine, so I'm ok with it now.

Member869894 · 21/06/2026 15:19

I went to Aldi for one of their surprise bags which turned out to be 4 kilos of mushooms. I didn't feel partcularly well but spent the day chopping them up and making mushroom soup to freeze. Later that night I became more unwell and by the following afternoon i was in hopsital with sepsis. I can't even look at mushrooms now

dizzydizzydizzy · 21/06/2026 15:21

A few years ago, I had an e-coli infection and could no longer eat the last thing I had eaten before I started felling ill, even though it was definitely not the source of my illness.

Schoolstressed · 21/06/2026 15:23

My daughter vomited directly after eating a pulled pork bap. Neither she nor I can even look at pulled pork now.

ChimpanzeeThatMonkeyNews · 21/06/2026 15:26

cinnamonmilkandhoney · 17/05/2026 20:17

I haven’t eaten chicken since October 2024. Campylobacter. It’s not that I think I’ll get sick again from it but it’s like the association with alcohol you r been really ill off
just the thought of chicken makes me turn green

Jesus. You poor thing. That’s fucking horrendous.

footballsizedballofwool · 21/06/2026 15:31

Cider and black- got very very drunk on this as a 19 year old at uni and redecorated my friend's bathroom with pink vomit.

Melted cheese, especially on pizzas. A Morrisons cheese meltdown gave me an attack of gallstones that I didn't even know I had. The same gallstone attack tried very hard to kill me- sepsis, critical care, emergency surgery and far too long in hospital. The only pizzas I will eat now are 2 from M&S. The details and red olive pizza and their chicken flatbread pizza thing which doesn't have much if at all any cheese on.

lordbaddingham · 21/06/2026 15:35

I am okay with runny egg yolk but the white must be completely done. Any transparent white and the whole thing is rejected. Also hate jelly type puddings, milky jelly being the worst. But I quite like panna cotta. Couldn't eat fish and chips for years after a vomiting bug, the chips came back almost fully intact.

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