Foods That Need To Go Away In 2018 Gallery

The most pervasive food trend of 2017 was inspired by a mythical animal. Rainbows gave way to a stampede of unicorns, which left devastation (and millions of colorful Instagram pictures) in its wake. It affected (infected?) everything from bagels to wedding cakes, hot chocolate, Froot Loops, and booze, but the trend reached its zenith (or nadir?) when Starbucks jumped on the bandwagon in April and introduced its Unicorn Frappuccino: "a sweet dusting of pink powder, blended into a crème Frappuccino with mango syrup and layered with a pleasantly sour blue drizzle. It is finished with vanilla whipped cream and a sprinkle of sweet pink and sour blue powder topping." We'll pass.

You know why nobody thought to turn wine into a slushie before now? Because if you actually care about the flavor of wine, you'll know that freezing it completely kills it. Drinking a cold glass of rosé on a hot day is one of summer's great pleasures. Walking around with a plastic cup, drinking frozen wine through a straw? That's just sad.

A thin slice of beautifully fresh fish, drizzled with some high-quality olive oil and topped with a sprinkle of salt is unquestionably delicious. But we've gotten pretty tired of seeing crudo (usually of the hamachi variety, usually shoehorned into the appetizer section for no apparent reason) on the menu at seemingly every new restaurant.

Matcha tea is healthy, earthy, and slightly bitter. One thing it isn't is especially delicious. But just because it's green, it's showing up in everything from macarons to beer. If you're going to flavor your food with tea, why not use something a little tastier, like Earl Grey?

This trend has barely begun to take off, but it's already time for it to go away for good. The logical next step in the earthy-crunchy, from-the-source, "as Mother Nature intended" trend, "raw" water is groundwater, river water, and water from non-municipal sources that has been bottled without any treatment and marked up in price. Sure, there's an off-chance that river water might contain some additional minerals or nutrients, but getting a nasty case of diarrhea (or worse) from waterborne pathogens just because you've convinced yourself that plain old drinking water isn't "natural" enough — well, that's nothing short of absurd.

Tiger nuts are actually the edible tuber of a plant called the yellow nut sedge, and they're pretty healthy and are popular in West Africa. They also have the flavor and texture of cardboard, and if you eat too many of them in one sitting without thoroughly rehydrating them first, you risk fecal impaction. If you're looking for a way to incorporate tiger nuts into your cooking, don't.