You have likely eaten a bug at some point in your life. And when someone says something “tastes like cardboard,” you likely understand exactly what they mean. 

However, a few unfortunate souls have had something unpleasant meet their taste buds. They’ve shared their experiences in the comments section of this Reddit question: “What’s something you’ve tasted that most humans have not?” 

This list features firsthand accounts of people ingesting elephant carcasses, ladybug secretions, possum meat, and rat droppings. Some are a bit nasty, so proceed with caution. 

But if you’re a fan of weird stories that can get graphic, enjoy scrolling through this list.

#1

I was injured in a rocket attack in Afghanistan. I remember lying in the dirt and my ear felt weird, like swimmer's ear. I have sensitive ears, so I stuck my finger in my ear to try to drain it, only to have my finger come away with a thick syrupy substance. It was dark, so I couldn't see what it was, and my nose was broken and bleeding. I decided, f**k it, I licked it. It tasted mildly sweet.

It was cerebrospinal fluid. From my brain.

Image credits: meme_medic95

#2

A ladybug flew into my mouth when I was riding my bike as a kid. Ladybugs secrete a yellow bitter goop when they get eaten as a "f**k you, don't eat me" mechanism, so that happened. Had to run inside and rinse out my mouth, which didn't really help.

Edit: Wow, there are a lot of ladybug tasters in here. My people ✊️.

Image credits: Hellspark08

#3

Used a glass of water to put cig butts in when I smoked. Woke up in the middle of the night desperate for a drink and swallowed 2 chuggs before I realised what was going on. It tastes even worse than you might expect.

Edit it seems from the comments many more people than I expected have drunk cig butt juice!

Image credits: Serberou5

#4

18 Molar Sulphuric Acid

Back in the day you sucked things into a pipet. Sometime I sucked too hard. This time I got a mouth full of acid. I tasted sweet for two weeks.

Image credits: No_Ground7568

#5

My own breast milk.

Image credits: Fabulousmo

#6

Bronze Age cremated human bones.
Had my coffee cup standing right next to the tub I was cleaning them after excavation. Scrubbed the sediment off of it with a toothbrush and it sputtered together with tiny fractions of the bones all around and also in that coffee.
The last sip felt a little coarse and on the bottom of the cup were still white particles between the sand and coffee grounds.

Image credits: Spearofaesir

#7

Inside of my mouth got burned so bad it blistered my gums and tongue so bad everything boiled up and shed eventually. Healing sucked because when I talked, I’d accidentally bite down and pop a blister…. tasted like pus. Hated that time of my life lol.

Image credits: Dontknoworcaretbh

#8

Elephant?

For context, it wasn't hunted. It was already dead. Got hit by a train☹️

So technically, it was roadkill. So that's 2 things I guess..

Image credits: Woodland-Wench

#9

Possum was really common in rural nz back in the 70s/80s it’s disgusting I was 4 and still remember the taste.

Image credits: Any-Difficulty-8694

#10

Moose burgers. I was a little kid, and my god, it was delicious. We were guests, and I embarrassed my parents by asking if I could have another. (They thought people would think they were starving me. Not so … it was just a damn tasty burger.).

Image credits: seaboardist

#11

Jesus water: water taken from a 2km well at the south pole. Ice is millions of years old, so drinking water from a time never lived.

Image credits: sureptitiouscasanova

#12

Rat s**t. I used to have pet rats when I was in the uni, and I was one carrying one of them from one dorm to another. He left a few droppings in my jacket pocket he was in (it was short walk so I just put him in my roomy pocket).

I didn't notice, and few weeks later I forgot about it at all, put some nuts in the same pocket and started eating them, until one of them tasted really weird.

Image credits: yurri

#13

The asphalt on the crosswalk in front of the Flatiron building in NYC. Potholes are a b***h.

Image credits: karaokechameleon

#14

Probably Rattlesnake. Not much flavor, very stringy, and has a lot of bones.

Image credits: Extension_Cress_2084

#15

A bat slow-cooked whole, skin, guts, and all, tossed right into the pot.

Image credits: atzizi

#16

Yew berries. The only nonpoisonous part of a tree that every other part is deadly. Including the seed inside.

Do not recommend.

Image credits: PuzzledWildebeest

#17

Jellyfish salad. I wasn't convinced when I first saw the dish, but I ended up liking it.

Image credits: Izniss

#18

A prickly pear. They’re native to my country so we eat then regularly, but whenever I’ve seen someone react to it (that’s not Mexican), they just act like it’s something from another planet.

Image credits: Scary_Course9686

#19

Termites, and it was surprisingly good. Minty if I recall correctly, was many years ago.

Image credits: MehhRobot

#20

We grew up on a farm and my brother watched some survival TV show where they were hunting for their own food and cooking it after. He was able to catch a toad, created a fire and cooked and sliced it up afterwards. Me, as the little girl looking up to her older brother (me: 6, him: 8), of course had to taste it. I don’t think it’s really common….

Image credits: klausmarcel44

#21

Witchetty grub. It looks like a fat shiny white caterpillar, an aboriginal elder came to our school when I was little (1989?ish) so we tasted bush tucker.

Image credits: Thackham

#22

Dunno if this counts but I know a guy who ate a paper cup, just straight up ate a paper cup.

Image credits: Chaosdemond

#23

Welp, I had a pidgeon die inside my place's water tank (it had a hole) and I drank that water for months... So I guess I had dead pidgeon tea.

Image credits: First-Ravioli-Sauce

#24

Well, not me, but my daughter ate a stinkt bug once... That was an intense experience... Stank on the way in...and on the way out...

Image credits: ChampionshipAlarmed

#25

Cow s**t.
I was explaining something to fresher farm workers when the cow decided to stomp into a pile of it.

Image credits: Cucumberneck

#26

Reindeer.

It was when I was younger, very similar to other red meat.

Image credits: Polz34

#27

Chicken dipped in chocolate .

Image credits: hughsboner

#28

Pig s**t. I’m not proud of it, but sooner or later in every livestock farmers career you’re going to get some floor s**t splash about. And someday some of that splash will unfortunately hit your open mouth. And you will internally cry. God I wish I didn’t know this. It’s kinda like the smell of death tho I’ve found that to be somewhat more common.

Image credits: Slight_Respond6160

#29

Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.

Image credits: SpecialistTry2262

#30

A 10'000 Dollar Whisky.

Image credits: SirShortarm

#31

Camel hump stew in egypt.

Image credits: MotherSpinach9280

#32

Not me but someone i knew tasted radiation. It sounds weird but high intensity radiation apparently leaves a metallic taste in your mouth, as if you just licked a penny after holding it for a while. He was a chernobyl liquidator.

Image credits: LoginPuppy

#33

I licked a glacier.

Image credits: majeresdj02

#34

Possibly horse sashimi.

Image credits: HoppokoHappokoGhost

#35

Turtle, dugong, jellyfish, crocodile would probably be the most exotic.

Image credits: willthisgetkarma

#36

Cougar and bear. Used to go hunting in Wyoming every year with my dad. The hunting guide did everything from Bears, cougars, elk, deer, bison, turkeys, prairie dogs, etc. He was one of those people who had an industrial meat grinder in the back, and his wife used most of their kills for meals in the house. He joked that he hadn’t bought beef in 20 years. Made the mistake of asking him what the weirdest meat was in his fridge. He Got the most wicked smile and came back with some homemade summer sausages. he gave me a slice and asked me if I could guess what it was. It was incredibly gamy, only thing that made it palatable was the spices he’d mixed with it. It had a very odd aftertaste that kind of reminded me of the flavor you get in your mouth after drinking diet cola. Never in 1 million years would’ve guessed it was cougar and he was dying of laughter at the look on my face when he told me. He also had some sausage made out of bear. That one was also gamy and had a very strange “butter” flavor to it, but it was not delicious like butter…
Still, it was good to know he wasn’t putting the animals to waste.

Image credits: Warrior_White

#37

Raw plantain. It's worse than petrol.

Image credits: Ormidale

#38

Actual battery acid, stupid I was I thought the stickyness I suddenly had on my finger was from the candy I just ate NOPE it was from the TV remote I used.

Image credits: Kaffekjerring

#39

Literal bull s**t, straight from a bull. It's not what you think. I mean, it's not what I would think, with that first sentence, but it's every bit true.

I was riding in a pasture of heifers, looking for why they'd been freaking out, when I saw one in the middle stand up, suddenly half again the size of every other bovine in the area. Oh.

One of the young bulls somehow got out of a nearby barn and paddock overnight. So I nudged my horse forward to see if I'd lead him out, or chase him out, or maybe I'd need another cowboy if he was feeling obstinant. He wasn't.

He turned and ran, so it was the chase option, then. No big deal, we do that all the time. So I let my horse do work while I hang out on top and basically just minimize my awkward mass-offset. I was riding a trained horse, so it already knew exactly what to do.

It's called "cutting" when you herd one animal away from the others. None of this aside from the chase is germaine to the story, but it's interesting.

As we were following the bull, who was sprinting away, I watched a giant, healthy looking s**t erupt from this idiot's a**s just as he bucked and kicked both feet back in a young bull's expression of primal joy. He kicked directly through his own massive s**t, launching chunks of it directly into my face. It blasted my hat clean off.

My mouth had been open. My eyes had been open. My shirt collar was open. Everything had s**t in it. Everything I had. I found s**t in my pants pockets. My horse was covered in it.

That's one of the rare times I was unhorsed. Completely thrown. In my shock, I just lost focus and ended up on my back, retching up toward the sky. Pretty sure I swallowed some. I had to f*****g chew it just to spit it out.

Had to walk back about 1/4 mile, too. The horse just kept after the bull. They were grazing near each other when I got back to paddock.

Disturbingly sweet. I didn't expect that. Highly unpleasant.

I've never before or since heard my Dad laugh like that. I thought he was going to die from it. It's the only time I ever saw the man cry.

Image credits: Eclectophile

#40

My pet fox peed on my face/mouth while I was asleep, so I've tasted fox pee.

I could taste it for over an hour even after rinsing my mouth. 0/10 would not recommend.

Image credits: laptopaccount

#41

Cow brains. My family in Mexico considered it a special treat. The texture was like scrambled eggs and the flavor was pretty mild.

Image credits: stdio-lib

#42

I was about 1 week into a 2-month stint in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, when some of the soldiers we were with dragged half of an elk into camp. By the time I left the project, I'd eaten deer, boar, elk and poultry from the Zone.


Several years on and I still have the normal amount of appendages. Don't think many people have eaten slightly-irradiated game.

Image credits: notatadbad

#43

Armadillo. Never meant to have it, but was staying on a farm and the dog brought it. Owner wouldn't leave it to waste. Tastes like chicken.

Image credits: bad_mech

#44

Red sumac. It's good for you and makes an excellent tea. I also eat the wild lettuce greens that can grow in every person's yard, including spring onions, dandelions and young pine cone syrup.

Image credits: AnUnknownCreature

#45

Squirrel milk.

Image credits: monkeysexriot

#46

Paraffin. (Edit to add: liquid Parrafin, not wax. Lamp oil in the US? Please correct me if wrong)

Not as bad as you'd expect.. still don't recommend it.

Image credits: Suspicious-Clock-292

#47

Callamus root, a quasi psychadelic akin to nutmeg kind of, terrible experience all round do not reccomend.

Image credits: elasmonut

#48

Cuy or so called "guinea pig" delicious and a delicacy in Colombia.

Image credits: Big-Hawk8126

#49

Raw "chicken of the woods mushroom" when hiking as well as raw wild gooseberries, asparagus, morel mushroom, dandelion leaves. Snapping Turtle Tenderloins. on a double dog dare, a nightcrawler worm. lol.

Image credits: pwrslide2

#50

Fried grasshoppers.

Image credits: MobileTill9764

#51

Monkey brains (I didn't know until after I'd tried them).

Image credits: Medieval-Mind

#52

Denso tape. Health and safety be damned! I was not climbing back down that mast just for a knife.

Image credits: Either_Cow_7

#53

I've eaten turtle, it was nasty. Reminded me of brawn, or pigs face, jelly, gritty, bit like organ meats.

Image credits: SithLordRising

#54

I drank out of the top of a skull during a Buddhist celebration.

Image credits: Cannelope

#55

Bite of a cooked veal heart (only a bite because it was being passed around and shared).

Image credits: Scrabulon

#56

Barium, I had a barium meal due to stomach issues.

Image credits: praf973

#57

Petrol, not sure if it was av-gas which may have had tetraethyl lead in it (not from a road legal car).. akin to what I’d expect plastic to taste like.

Image credits: WRfleete

#58

Had raw horse in Tokyo.

Image credits: Dyingdaze89

#59

Squirrel.

Image credits: DucktapeCorkfeet

#60

Dried worms.

Image credits: Ok-Paramedic8197

#61

Rice cooked in chicken blood.

Image credits: theultimateattack

#62

Whale.

Image credits: Paranoid_Neckazoid