In my humble opinion, eating is one of the best parts of life. Sharing a delicious meal with friends and family members is a beautiful way to bond, and spending hours in the kitchen pouring love into a dish or dessert can be the perfect way to show someone how much you care about them. Food is a necessity for all of us, but it can be so much more. Having a picnic on a gorgeous, sunny day, splitting a milkshake at the end of a date, and surprising a friend with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies are some of the most wonderful things I can think of. But unfortunately, as with everything else, food can have a dark side too.

Nobody knows that better than the members of Foods With Threatening Auras U.S. This Facebook group, which was created on October 30, 2020, is dedicated to sharing disturbing food. And somehow, plenty of people can handle these unsettling photos, as the group has amassed nearly 3.5k members in only two and a half years. And even though not every single post in the group is an actual product or meal that someone would eat (thankfully), the posts are enough to make your skin crawl and your appetite go flying out the window. 

To learn more about how Foods With Threatening Auras U.S. came about in the first place, we reached out to the group’s creator, Alex Molina, on Facebook, and he was kind enough to have a chat with us. “I first got the idea from another page that was similar,” Alex told Bored Panda. “However, the other page only allowed posts to be made in a small time window. I decided to make a more inclusive page where people could post freely. It's been a joy seeing my page grow so quickly in the last 2 years.”

We also wanted to ask the expert what exactly he thinks qualifies as a food that can be shared in the group. “I would describe food with a threatening aura as any culinary art that invokes an unsettling feeling in its viewer,” Alex shared. “I come across them quite often and like to share as much as I can with my followers.”

When it comes to why the group members are so enamored with these disturbing photos, Alex says, “I think people enjoy the photos so much because it's something different. It might also be the possibility that it provokes the thought process, ‘How did they do that, why did they do that?’”

But even through running this page, Alex says that, thankfully, his appetite hasn’t gone into hiding. “I don't think it has impacted me in any particular way or even turned me away from any foods specifically. I'm a lover of the culinary arts, and I pride myself on my cooking skill. I'm willing to try anything once!”

It’s amazing how a photo of food can make us have such a visceral reaction. Many people love watching cooking videos and salivating over photos of beautiful donuts and incredible gourmet burgers. But at the same time, a simple picture of an unappetizing meal can make us immediately disgusted. I have to admit that these foods with threatening auras are extremely creative, so I’ll give the chefs credit for that. Who would have ever considered putting SpaghettiOs into a Jell-O mold or placing hot dogs inside of strawberries? Well, unfortunately, someone did, so now we all have the pleasure of getting to view it.

As fun as it is to make fun of these disgusting food photos, I can’t help but think about the fact that some people actually do eat these things. Yes, many of the photos are just jokes, but there is probably someone out there who is adventurous enough to try mac and cheese flavored ice cream or bake a Big Mac casserole. So this list begs the question: why do we all have different tastes when it comes to food? Is it due to nature or nurture? Do I crave peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because I’m American, and does my partner find them repulsive because he’s from Europe? Let’s explore this topic…          

One reason why we don’t all have the same preferences when it comes to food is because some people out there are supertasters, and others are subtasters. According to Popular Science, people who have a lot of “papillae”, or bumps on their tongues, are likely to find many flavors overwhelming. These are the supertasters, and they will probably need cream in their coffee and order their food mild instead of spicy. 

But when it comes to our individual taste, that has more to do with our buds’ ability to detect different molecules. “Although our brains can recognize the same five tastes—bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami (savory)—the suite of chemicals that can trigger those signals varies from one person to the next,” Emily Elert writes for Popular Science. 

“Alexander Bachmanov, a geneticist at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, says that humans carry a range of 20 to 40 genes dedicated to bitter taste receptors,” Elert goes on to explain. “Different sensitivities to bitter tastes probably arose from evolutionary pressures in different parts of the world. Most toxic plants taste bitter, and nomadic groups that came into contact with a variety of plants would have, over time, developed a variety of receptors.”

And the reason why we might love olives while our best friend hates them could come down to our DNA makeup. “A DNA sequence is like a recipe that tells your body how to make proteins, which are one of the most important building blocks in your body,” research scientist Nicholas Archer explains in an article he wrote breaking down our individual food preferences. “Each person has their own DNA sequence, or recipe, that is different to everyone else. DNA helps determine how you taste and smell and the messages sent to your brain about what’s nice and what’s not. So each of us taste the flavor of food differently.”

But there are plenty of factors that play into how we perceive foods, including where we live and what kinds of meals we grew up eating. The first time I saw people eating bright pink, cold beetroot soup, I thought I would be disgusted by the flavor. This was not a food I had come across until I was in my twenties, but it was a pleasant surprise to try it and realize that it’s actually delicious. The same can be said about spicy foods or meals that are culturally specific. If you never tried spicy peppers or hot sauce while growing up, you’re likely to have a low tolerance for heat as an adult. And if you live in a warm, humid climate, you might be more inclined to eat cold meals than someone living in Northern Europe. Perspective is a huge factor when it comes to how disturbing we find these food photos as well.