A New Study Reveals Illinois' Most Hated Food

There aren't many foods that make my "Won't Eat That" list, and the one that Illinois residents apparently hate the most isn't on it.

Growing up as the child of two people who were raised during the Great Depression, I found it was not a good idea to proclaim that I didn't like something, and even worse to say that I refused to eat it. I not only got the "kids are starving in India" routine, I also got first-hand accounts of what it was like to go to bed hungry (as both my parents did at times during their childhoods).

It was better, and far more peaceful to just choke it down--and, I learned early not to tell my mom to "send my plate to India." Bad idea. Very bad.

Bottom line: I don't like liver, cooked carrots, canned spinach, or Lima beans. That's about it. You can have my sweetbreads, too.

As to what food Illinoisans seem to hate, an online dating app called "Hater" asked their over 600,000 users from coast to coast to weigh in on hated foods. MentalFloss, in publishing the results, points out that:

Some state’s top hates should come as no surprise: Residents of Washington, America’s coffee capital, take a strong stance against Keurig K-Cups, and in Vermont, which is known for its cheddar, spray cheese is looked down upon. In the middle of the country, land-locked Kansas natives avoid shellfish, and people living in steak-loving Oklahoma can’t stand veggie burgers.

Which makes the most hated food in Illinois, "Biting String Cheese," just seem kind of stupid. What does that even mean? We don't like biting into string cheese? Or, we don't like string cheese with a sharp bite to it? We hate it when it's not peeled? I mean, come on fellow Illinois residents, can't we even hate foods properly?

Some hated foods from around the Midwest: