It’s not by chance that the phrase “You can’t eat at everyone’s home” has gone viral quite literally everywhere. It's because it is true.

More often than not, it’s because of hygiene. Maybe their cats walk on the counters, or a pan is so burned it should probably be retired. But other times, their taste buds have been so viciously altered that every meal they cook should be considered a culinary crime. And some meals are so criminal that we’ve selected some of the worst ones folks have shared on r/FoodCrimes .

Something that tastes delicious to some may be absolutely atrocious to others. And, in part, it has to do with the density of our taste buds, says sensory psychologist Linda Bartoshuk , who identified differences in human tongues and found that some people simply have less sensitive tongues than others.

The study concluded that if someone has fewer fungiform papillae (or, in simpler terms, the small bumps on the tongue), they may have a less sensitive sense of taste, meaning they need stronger flavors to taste their food , which we assume is most people on this list. But then there are “supertasters,” who have a higher density of papillae and are much more sensitive to sweet and bitter foods.

© Photo: Go to hotdogs r/hotdogs • 18d ago tangoking

These taste-bud differences also help explain how genetic variations can make us experience completely different sensory worlds. Perhaps the best-known example is cilantro, or coriander. Experts explain that our perception of cilantro actually involves smell, and a variant of the OR6A2 olfactory gene can affect how people perceive the herb.

This variant, which is present in roughly 4% to 20% of the world’s population, can cause people to detect a soapy flavor in cilantro. This is because a small molecular difference in the gene affects how you smell cilantro . And since it can make the herb smell soapy, you may end up tasting something that resembles dish detergent when you eat it.