eric`s Top 10 Foods I Think Are Gross

We all have foods that we just don`t like. Some of these I can tolerate and others I never even attempt to eat.

eric`s Top 10 Disliked Foods:

#10... Pickles. Or pickled cucumbers to be more precise. Fresh pickles from a jar aren`t so terrible, but once you put them on something there is no going back.

All that pickle juice just gets into everything and the flavor doesn`t go away, even if you remove them. For reasons that I will never understand, nearly every restaurant puts pickles on their burgers by default. The worst is when you get hot, slimy pickles instead of fresh ones.

#9... Sauerkraut. Since I don`t like pickles, you can bet sauerkraut is a big `no` also. Cabbage by itself is bad enough, but the fermenting process makes it all disgusting and creates a terrible smell.

Like pickles, you can`t just remove sauerkraut and enjoy your meal because it permeates everything. I know a lot of people that love `kraut (including my mom), but I have a hard time being near it.

Alas, no Reuben sandwiches for me.

#8... Vinegar or acetic acid - as I think of it, pretty much ruins everything. Vinegar is often used to produce both pickles and sauerkraut, so that explains a lot.

I can`t grasp the concept of using vinegar as a dressing, which is something else my mom is into. I`d rather breathe gasoline fumes than smell strong vinegar.

On the upside, it is also used in a lot of yummy hot sauces and the preparation of sushi, so it`s not all bad. Just keep it off my fries or salad.

#7... Swiss cheese. This may seem like an odd entry because I am a big fan of cheese. Truthfully, I can deal with it if I have to.

There are certainly worse examples out there, but Swiss is a very common hard cheese and it smells bad.

This is another reason that there won`t be any Reubens in my future.

#6... Peanut Butter & Jelly. When I was young, it was assumed that every kid just loved PB&J sandwiches. This is not the case.

I like peanut butter just fine, but please don`t mix it with processed fruit smush. To this day you can`t get me to eat one of those things.

#5... Fruit Pies. If I don`t like jelly, I`m not going to like pies stuffed with a fruit concoction.

Many people have pleasant thoughts of apple pie, or cherry pie, but I am not one of them. The picture below supposedly looks delicious, but I don`t get it.

#4... Raisins. Like Swiss cheese, I can deal with raisins if I have to. They are just dehydrated grapes, and I like grapes, but the dried-up version isn`t that great to me.

I disliked raisins a lot more as a kid. It was always a childhood disappointment to bite into a raisin cookie when you thought you were getting chocolate chip.

#3... Cornbread. My Southern friends are going to yell at me and probably say that \"I just haven`t had good cornbread\".

It`s not that I find it disgusting, but one could get the same experience by eating sawdust cakes.

#2... Banana Peppers. I never understood this because I like hot peppers and bell peppers, but these things gross me out.

There are menu items that seem otherwise enticing, but come with these peppers. Much like pickles or sauerkraut, you just can`t remove them to get rid of the flavor.

Every once in a while I give banana peppers another try, but always end up picking them off and choking down the food they ruined.

#1... Chewy Bacon. Don`t get me wrong, bacon is awesome, but it has to be cooked enough (and I don`t mean burnt to a crisp). As I feel about most meats, if I have to chew through fat, forget it.

Topping a burger with a bunch of floppy slices of bacon is almost as bad and loading it up with hot, slimy pickles. Eww.