New food trends pop up constantly, often spurred on by social media and influencers posting tantalizing or surprising photos to get attention. Some trendy fare is interesting and fun to eat, but just like cringey fashion trends, the novelty can wear off fast. Here are some food trends that have worn out their welcome, including one that is finally getting shown the door by younger generations: diet sodas and other “diet” products.
Related: Food Trends of the Past Decade That Aren’t Going Anywhere
‘Diet’ Anything
Millennials and Gen Z-ers don’t appreciate “diet” products, which means items including diet sodas are disappearing from store shelves. But that doesn’t mean the products are actually gone, or that younger customers are sipping only sugary drinks. Companies have figured out how to label their products differently so that they don’t imply an outdated, weight-centered view of nutrition. For soda, “zero sugar” is the preferred term now, because let’s face it: No one actually wants to be on a diet.
Related: Moxie, Cheerwine, and Other Regional Sodas the Rest of the Country Needs
Rolled Ice Cream
Want a show with your ice cream? Consider the far superior Bananas Foster or Baked Alaska. Someone with a putty knife making extremely icy rolls of frozen dairy is a boring show and makes an inferior ice cream. Even Cold Stone Creamery, where the add-ins are mixed into actual churned ice cream, is better.
Related: 50 Ice Cream Shops With Unique Treats Across the Country
Glitter Drinks
People don’t allow glitter into their house because it gets everywhere and never goes away. No one likes finding little specks of shiny junk months or years later. Mischievous people also make glitter bombs, that while cute, are meant to be extremely annoying. Why would you want to ingest any version of that nightmare fuel, edible or not?
Related: The Most Over-the-Top Fast Food of the Last 10 Years
Activated Charcoal
Beyond fun party foods at Halloween, nothing edible should be dyed pitch black with activated charcoal. Yet people are still dying things like ice cream, burger buns, and macarons jet black for shock value or Instagram fame. The New York City Department of Health even banned the stuff from food and drink in the city, so it’s time to give it a rest everywhere.
Unicorn Anything
While the joy of adorable foods is understandable, maybe unicorns shouldn’t be the default lovable thing. What about cute little turtles? Those fat goldfish with bubbly eyes? Puppies? Not every cute, animal-inspired food needs to have a twisted marshmallow horn.
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Rainbow Anything
Have you ever looked in the toilet bowl a day after eating a food coloring-dyed rainbow bagel or cake? Enough said.
House Pickles
Fermenting and pickling has become a huge trend in restaurants recently. So while chefs try their hand at pickling, you get to see “house pickles” on the menus of many independent restaurants. Pickles are great, but everything else on the appetizer menu is generally tastier and a better value.
Boards
Cheese and charcuterie boards, arranged beautifully and made up of fancy cheese, meat, and garnishes are lovely things. But putting an assortment of any loosely-themed items on a tray does not make it charcuterie, or even good eats. You can find “boards” for everything now, from pancakes to candy. We’re adults now — restaurants don’t have to fancifully display candy for us to enjoy it.
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Birria
Birria is a Mexican stew or soup made with goat or beef that’s cooked to the point that it shreds easily. It can be eaten many ways, such as put into tacos and served with the stew’s liquid for dipping, or made into birria ramen. It’s delicious, but thanks to social media users drooling over photos of the juicy, red tacos, it’s become extremely trendy. Let’s all remember that there are other Mexican dishes that are just as amazing as birria that you don’t have to wait in line for.
Related: Best Hole-in-the-Wall Mexican Restaurant in Every State
Smoothie Bowls
Smoothie bowls just seem like a way to charge more for the same smoothie you’d get in a cup with a few toppings like fruit or sunflower seeds tossed into the mix. They’re less convenient too, since you have to use a spoon and can’t really eat them on the go like a smoothie in a cup. Here’s hoping this trend doesn’t stick around any longer.
Nashville-Style Hot Chicken
Hot chicken is amazing, but only when it’s done well. The coating is crispy, the chicken is juicy, and the intense heat comes from a cayenne coating that doesn’t soak the crunchy coating. The problem is that everyone is doing it now, which means there are more terrible versions than there are good ones. It’s become so trendy that it’s difficult to find a version that lives up to the original thing, which means it needs to stop already.
Related: 17 Spiciest Foods Around the World
Fried Chicken Sandwiches
On another fried chicken note, the chicken sandwich wars have been going on endlessly for years now. There are still fast food giants that are releasing and revamping their chicken sandwiches. What did everyone eat before all these chicken sandwiches? Let’s go back to whatever that was for a while.
Related: Best Fried Chicken Sandwiches in America
Waffling Everything
There are some things that turn out pretty great when you slap them in a waffle iron, including Thanksgiving stuffing and canned cinnamon rolls. But things have just gone too far. Waffled spaghetti bun? Mozzarella stick waffles? Frittaffle? Give your poor waffle iron a break.
Weird Tacos
Tacos are great — but not everything needs to be stuffed in a corn or flour taco shell to be good. Are some restaurants just using tortillas as a way to sell food no one would buy from them otherwise? Sushi tacos, spaghetti tacos, Rueben tacos … They’re all filled with ingredients that are better in their original form.
Related: Extreme and Out-of-the-Ordinary Tacos You Have to Try
Bacon
This is a trend that just won’t die. Smoked and cured pork is fantastic, sure, but in appropriate uses and in moderation. Obsessing over bacon has turned into a character trait, especially for men, and restaurants are happy to encourage it by covering everything in bacon. The fact that the Baconator still exists and has become a meme unto itself is evidence we probably eat too much bacon.
Related: The Craziest Bacon Products You Can Buy
Gold Leaf
Didn’t everyone get over the novelty of Goldschlager, the cinnamon schnapps with little bits of gold leaf floating through it, back in college? Why is gold leaf still used as a food decoration? It hints of excess, richness, and frivolity, character traits that are pretty out of vogue.
Unnecessarily Complicated Coffee Orders
Customizing your drink at Starbucks is great and welcomed, to a point. Lately there’s been a backlash by baristas who are fed up with overly-complicated drink orders that take forever to create and cause a backlog of orders, and it’s hard to blame them. A few requests are fine, but could we stop with 15-plus modification orders?
Sparkling Water
Though flavored sparkling water has been around for decades, it’s been having a moment in the last few years. There are so many brands and flavors out there that it’s becoming difficult to choose. One could say that the market is getting oversaturated.
Related: 23 Tasty Spiked Seltzers to Try This Summer
Cheetos Dust
Cheetos dust, made by crushing up Cheetos and often Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, has somehow become a seasoning and ingredient in a lot of things. You can find it on ice cream cones, sushi, and as a breading for all kinds of deep fried things. Maybe people want to add a cheesy, spicy element to their food, but it seems like there are better ways to do that than adding a nuclear-red powder.
Sushi Burritos
Sushi is generally pretty portable and easy to eat. That’s why the appeal of sushi burritos, where all the same ingredients are just wrapped up in a bigger bundle of nori, is questionable. The proportions of sushi are precise, and putting it in burrito forms throws that off. You end up with bites that are just rice, or mostly fish.
Related: The Craziest Burritos Across America
Tomahawk Steaks
Steakhouses are known for expensive, flashy dishes. Tomahawk steaks are one of those, and they’re also the biggest ripoff. A Tomahawk steak is just a ribeye steak with a long, long portion of the rib bone still connected. You’re paying a premium for inedible bone so that everyone can see you have money to waste.
Related: The Most Expensive Steaks You Can Order
Serving Food on Anything But a Plate
There are some things that are acceptable to serve on non-plates, like the previously mentioned “boards,” but unless there’s a really good reason why it can’t be, actual dinnerware is the only logical choice. Slate tiles are a restaurant favorite, but are incredibly silly. Sauces and juices drip off and onto your table — or lap — all the time. Have you ever tried using a knife to cut steak on a piece of slate? The sound is like nails on a chalkboard. And that’s not even considering other weird plate alternatives, like dessert in an ashtray or sandwiches on a tennis racket. It turns out tableware has its shape for a reason.
