Whenever you go on social media, there’s a big possibility you’ll be greeted with some kind of food-related bit of content. And it’s not surprising – after all, these platforms have become the perfect space for foodies, influencers, chefs and regular peeps to showcase their culinary masterpieces, try out viral trends and share helpful hacks. Sounds great, right? Well, it might not always be the case.

The Reddit user u/MsVibey went online to ask fellow community members to share the worst, weirdest or the most dangerous cooking and culinary-related ‘crimes’ that are perpetuated on social media.

#1

The fact that when you click on a recipe, you have to scroll down through adverts and rubbish telling you all about the food, when you just want the recipe!!

Image credits: oportoman

#2

Most of the responses here are just bad taste, but bad taste isn’t criminally negligent.

The crimes are coming from some of that viral tiktok s**t. People are deep frying with a pot 90% full of oil, dropping thing into the oil towards themselves, and pulling it out dangerously under cooked. I saw a woman the other day say “if you like rare steak, you’ll like rare sausage.”

Some of those videos, man, if you follow them to the letter you’re going to get 2nd degree burns and salmonella poisoning. But these f*****s present themselves as some kind of experts. They are, in a legal sense, actually criminally negligent.

Image credits: propagandavid

#3

Wearing giant fake nails in the kitchen. It’s disgusting and you’d be thrown out of any commercial kitchen if you showed up wearing them.

Image credits: furrywookiebutts

#4

I hate when people make something just to troll. Just for rage clicks. Including super expensive or really indulgent. You know the food is just getting wasted. I don’t mind tossing a mistake. But intentionally f*****g it up for clicks is so “spoiled rich kid with no empathy.”

Image credits: QuesoChef

#5

Less about food or food preparation itself, but about how food videos are titled. I’m at a point where I unsub from cooking channels once they start resorting to shi*baity video titles like: *This Romanian casserole is my DAILY DRIVER* *I can’t STOP eating this boiled Norweigan dessert* *I’m OBSESSED with this South Pacific second breakfast treat* *This Appalachian raw horse foot literally SAVED my summer* *Watch as this single Afghani pea made me CUM and SEE CHRIST* I’m looking at you, Chlebowski and Yeung Man Cooking

Image credits: CaravelClerihew

#6

The lie that onions can be caramelised in 5-7 minutes of frying.

Image credits: danjohnson10

#7

Putting onions and garlic in the pan at the same time…

Image credits: Tibs_red

#8

Anything that is titled “food hack”

Image credits: oportoman

#9

How often I see extra virgin olive oil used to fry or sauté items. It surprises me how many otherwise (seemingly) well-seasoned home/internet “chefs” pour really high-quality, visibly green EVOO in a med-high skillet and start cooking meat or veg in it. What a waste, and it usually ends up burning the oil obviously.

Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying regular or light olive oil are a problem for high temperature cooking. But **extra virgin** has more particulate left from the olives and has a much lower smoke point than more filtered versions. Personally I use light olive oil or avocado oil for high temp cooking.

#10

That cover-the-whole-table-top with nachos, spaghetti, whatever gross food they dump out over the surface for everyone to dig in at once. That should be reserved for seafood boils only.

Any of those wanna-be charcuterie boards where cream cheese (or icing, butter, hummus, etc) is spread over the whole tray and topped with stuff for everyone to just dig in and get their fingers on everything.

Image credits: SaltywithaTwist

#11

Trying to use appliances in a way they’re not meant to be used.

Saw this one video on Facebook a while back of someone making a full breakfast in a toaster. Yes, including the bacon and eggs.

I’ve also seen a couple posts of people trying to cook salmon in the freaking dishwasher.

You. Have. A. Stove. Use it!

Image credits: 101bees

#12

Adding stupid amounts of cheese to everything. Sure, cheese is tasty, but I want to be able to taste the food, not just mask everything with the taste of melted cheddar.

Also, for some reason, the algorithm seems to insist on showing me “clever” ways to cook eggs that mostly just involve frying an egg in a less convenient way that makes more mess than just cracking an egg into a hot frying pan with a bit of oil

Image credits: PassiveTheme

#13

Making cooking seem way more complicated than it really is. It turns people off from actually cooking themselves. Like measuring each spice separately into a tiny bowl

#14

This is specific to bread, but when they take a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven and it’s still steaming hot and they cut it in half to show you the inside. They just ruined that loaf of bread, it needs to rest!

#15

I hate all the f*****g rage baiting. They’re just destroying and wasting food. And thousands of people are watching them, and they’re making money off of it.

Image credits: M1ndS0uP

#16

Touting food such as the Kylie Jenner ramen “recipe” as some kind of magnificent amazingly weird and unique thing. People have been doing that for a long time and there is absolutely nothing special about it.

Image credits: That_Murse

#17

Those ladies who dump like 15 raw ingredients into an aluminum pan, including whole logs of Velveeta and raw pasta, and mix it all together and throw it in the oven with a caption that says “I learned this in Texas” or some stupid s**t. You know it’s literally going straight in the trash because whatever is coming out of the oven is completely inedible. It’s just a blatant waste of food for Tiktok views.

Image credits: DarlingDrak3

#18

All of it. This thread has summarised it well.

Those ten second recipe shorts with 3000 cuts at light speed are my personal bugbear. I’ve no idea how they’re of any benefit to anyone.

The biggest issue is that people see the cooking genre as a means of advertising themselves or their ‘brand’. They try to create entertainment rather than useful tutorials. We’ve got lives, messy kitchens, a shortage of time and space and we’re stressed out. The last thing I need is Sam ‘the cooking guy’ waffling on and on for fifteen minutes about nothing in particular whilst I look for the (blink and you’ll miss it) recipe step.

Also this modern trend of combining sweets/pastries whatever and acting like you’ve created a new dish. Cronuts, cruffins, brookies. Give me a break.

Image credits: tellthatbitchbecool

#19

Liquid cheese on everything! WTF?

Image credits: voitlander

#20

For me it’s the addition of sugar, or sugary ingredients, to savoury dishes. No, you don’t need to ‘balance flavours’ by adding all 4 (or 5) to everything. Some dishes are supposed to lean towards acid, or bitter. And many foods have plenty of natural sweetness in them already.

#21

Washing chicken.

Image credits: Sivy17

#22

15 minute instant pot recipes. It takes that long for the damn thing to even start pressure cookinh

#23

People who get a full meal of ingredients that do not pass together at all and then make a 20 minute video of themselves saying “omg you’re not gonna believe how good this comes out,” while cooking, for example, macaroni in a pan with a block of Velveeta, a few eggs, a head of broccoli, chunks of steak and strawberry marmalade, and probably f*****g chewing gum too, so that at the end they can act like they’ve made some gourmet meal… I guess it’s supposed to be satire? Idk I’ve never understood it and it literally makes me angry to see those videos.

#24

Seriously, the guy on this sub a few hours ago asking if he could serve precooked burgers that were kept warm for hours in a slow cooker at the cookout.. for real .. that guys the real villain..

Image credits: originalonpaper

#25

When people pour the food on a countertop or in the sink to mix ingredients.

Image credits: anon

#26

When they start rolling their eyes back like its the MOST AMAZING!! thing theyve ever eaten. And its only like a pasta with cheese and marinara

Image credits: savvysearch

#27

Fake recipes. There are some low effort sites that crank out weak recipes and people put in a lot of effort at get togethers that are important to them and are highly disappointed. Never serve a first attempt at a recipe to friends or at an important event. *Test your recipes before you serve them!*

Edit; Well, you can serve first attempts to friends… as long as they know they are crash test dummies.

Image credits: Thud2

#28

Bacon weave, cheese, Doritos, block of cream cheese, more cheese, bacon weave. Bake. OMG soooo good.

FML

#29

Gordon Ramsey always [angers me] because at some point he says “ throw it in the oven for x amount of time”. At what temperature a*****e!

#30

Making some things without sautéing aromatics

Image credits: allflour

#31

Wait what’s wrong with putting chicken breast in a slow cooker? I didn’t even know that was a social media thing but I’ve put a few breasts in with chicken stock, seasonings, maybe a little oil, something acidic, and a few hours later I have healthy pulled chicken that’s great for tacos, enchiladas, etc

#32

If you go on Instagram you’ll have an entire encyclopedia of cooking crimes.

Absolutely no reason to put Mac and cheese, burger patties, French fries, bbq pork, and chicken nuggets in a giant tortilla and batter the entire thing and deep fry it

Image credits: Spokesman93

#33

I’m an admin for a cajun recipe group on Facebook with over 375K members so I’ve seen it all. My personal pet peeve is food left in the “danger zone” between 40° and 140° People will post asking something like this ” My husband left a whole pot of gumbo out on the counter last night and we didn’t notice it until this morning. Is it still good to eat?” and the amount of people commenting yes, it’s fine, we do it all the time etc just blows my mind. Let’s me know where not to eat lol. It’s obvious none of them have ever worked in a professional kitchen to learn proper food handling techniques. And that’s a big reason why I don’t like to eat at pot lucks. You have no idea what goes on in their houses..

Image credits: Imacrazycajun

#34

Literally jack scalfani’s entire channel (cooking with jack). Take any video. Choose randomly. It doesn’t matter which one you pick. It will be the worst thing you’ve seen all day. From what can only be described as “great depression food” to “a skilled veterinarian could bring that back to life” to dishes literally missing the primary ingredient… it’s all a train wreck.

He’s been at it 15 years. If he’s trolling, he’s in it for the long haul.

Image credits: GimpsterMcgee

#35

That crazy lady who made mashed potatoes out of potato chips. I’m 99% sure she’s a troll but it still makes me deeply sad.

Image credits: Jerkrollatex

#36

That you have to wear black gloves to cook

Image credits: Dookimus

#37

Those nacho table things where people roll out foil and just pour everything on top ?

Image credits: psychadelicphysicist

#38

Always wearing black gloves to touch meat. Just wash your hands!

#39

Putting caviar and duck liver into literally everything to make luxury dishes.

#40

It’s fine when you want the chicken shredded. I do this a lot in big batches and use the meat for things like salads, enchiladas, chicken and dumplings, etc.

Image credits: carissaluvsya

#41

I just followed a recipe for boneless, skinless breasts in the crockpot and they were terrible. The sauce and flavors were decent so I’ll try again with thighs as a starting point.

#42

I mean chicken breasts covered in bbq sauce in the slow cooker really isn’t too bad. I’ve done it a few times

Image credits: Sweaty-Gopher

#43

Your chicken isn’t juicy, it’s wet. There’s a difference.

Image credits: Spaghettiboobin

#44

The crock pot meals with a block of cream cheese.

Image credits: TheSocialIQ

#45

Those cake-in-a-cup type things you see sometimes taste fine, but they are a nightmare to clean when you are finished.

Weird insane carb on carb combinations like mac n’ cheese grilled cheese. Seriously? you’re going to put a bunch of noodles between two pieces of bread?

Image credits: StrawInANeedleStack

Source: boredpanda.com