The 9 Most Terrifying Attempts to Improve Popular Foods

By Tim Parent Jan 10, 2010 1,237,918 views
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Remember the days when cheeseburgers didn't come in cans and hardboiled eggs weren't available in a handy, easy-to-slice log?

You probably do, and in fact probably thought you were still living in those days right now. But don't worry! The future of food is here. The horrible, horrible future.

So now you can enjoy foods like...

#9.
Egg Loaf

Let's start with breakfast, and with some nice elongated freak eggs. OK, what kind of animal is dropping loaf-shaped eggs? Snakes?

We don't think so. That means some Japanese company (don't act up, you KNOW they're Japanese) boiled a bunch of eggs, built elaborate machines to separate the yolks from the whites, and then built another machine to combine those yolks and whites into a goddamned egg loaf.


Then again, Japan is kind of a weird place.

That's a best case scenario. We can't guarantee there are actual eggs involved, but there are definitely machines involved. Photographic evidence is below.

This product isn't generally available stateside, since Western customers tend to dislike food served with unadulterated horror. It's our loss; just think about all those times you had a recipe that called for eight chicken's worth of boiled egg slices.

When a ton of fucking egg slices are called for, why not just invent a machine to take the shell off of eggs? That probably already exists. Then you could just go into business selling pre-shelled hard boiled eggs or something. Why's it gotta be a loaf, Japan? Tell us. TELL US DAMN YOU!!

#8.
Sprayable Pancake Batter

So you've got your instant tube of unnatural eggs, but what to eat with it? Thanks to the miracle of instant pancake mix, enjoying a big stack of flap jacks has never been easier. Just open the contents of the package, add water, stir like your very life depends on it and just like that, you have a bunch of batter ready for the cooking. But this entry is not about that.

No, sometimes you're in a rush and, as easy as instant pancake mix has made things, you still don't have time to slave over a hot stove hooking up a tasty breakfast. To address this issue, at some point, somebody invented microwavable pancakes. But we're not here to talk about that, either.


Nor will we talk about the miracle of microwaveable, pancake-wrapped sausage.

No, we're here to talk about Sprayable Pancake Batter. Otherwise known as "Organic Batter Blaster," which would be a perfect name if food products acted in porn, this product tackles the time shortage issue by eliminating the already pretty damn easy preparation process.


"I can't believe what a fool I once was."

This product actually claims to be for "people who traditionally skip breakfast because they don't have time to make pancakes." Who the fuck is pounding nothing but pancakes for breakfast or, more tragically, going hungry because they can't? Nobody has time for pancakes before work, that's why God made granola bars and pseudoephedrine.

Rounding out our breakfast...

#7.
Carbonated Yogurt

Carbonated yogurt? That's the kind of shit you'd expect astronauts to eat as a last resort when supplies are low and a Donner Party mentality is starting to creep in. When General Mills introduced this heinous product, they couldn't even bring themselves to call it yogurt. Instead, it was called Go-Gurt Fizzix, which, we presume, roughly approximates the sounds your stomach makes in the moments after consuming the stuff and just prior to hanging a food rope in your toilet.


Fizzix is also the sound that pre-empts most headsplosions.

Fizzix infused yogurt with a carbonated fizz was marketed to "on the go" kids. Listen parents, if your kids are so "on the go" that their calcium needs can only be fulfilled by a pouch of yogurt with soda bubbles in it, they're probably selling meth. Sit them down with a Yoplait and a law enforcement official, and straighten that shit out.

But, by all accounts, the kids love the stuff and, surprisingly, the carbonated yogurt contains roughly the same nutritional benefits as the old boring plastic container stuff. We believe this is the latest in the long line of cultural abominations meant to make everyone over 15 feel old.


Damn kids, with their Hannah Montana and their carbonated yogurt.

So what's for lunch?

#6.
A Whole Chicken... in a Can

Sure, you could head down to the supermarket, pick up a whole chicken, throw it in the oven for a couple of hours and enjoy a delightful meal. If you're lazy, you can probably even find that whole chicken fully cooked and ready to eat. But where do you turn when you want the obnoxious carving duties that come with a whole chicken, only coupled with the very real threat of salmonella poisoning? Whole Chicken in a Can, that's where.


That was originally the slogan, but it doesn't fit on the can.

While this frightening delicacy doesn't come with giblets, the makers do encourage you to scoop out the mucus discharge it's stored in to make a "delicious" gravy. We're afraid that gravy-slash-afterbirth is pictured below.


Congealed? Yes. Sentient and/or evil? Possibly. Delicious? No.

All right, maybe we should strike "whole chicken" from the list of foods that should be canned. Maybe we can substitute a...

#5.
Cheeseburger in a Can

The question of what to do when the intense craving for a cheeseburger overcomes you while you're trapped in your office cubicle has plagued man for centuries. But fret not, because the answer has arrived. What's that you say? "Drive to a burger joint on your lunch break"? Wrong answer, jerkstore! You took the bus to work! You know what else you took to work? A cheeseburger in a can.

But the picture up there doesn't look bad at all. You may also note that it looks way bigger than the can that it supposedly hatched from. That's because, as you probably already figured, in real life it looks more like this...

Make ours a double, please! Holy shit, we've seen shotgun wounds that look more like a cheeseburger than this thing.


"No." - Cracked.com Photo Research Department

We're not sure if that green spot is a pickle or the beginning of a virus that is destined to obliterate humanity as we know it.

With all of the horrificness that this thing brings to the table, you'd think it would at least have the decency to be cheap. You'd be wrong. This aggressive display of sub-value menu taste will set you back damn near six bucks. And you don't even get fries or a drink. But you will probably get explosive diarrhea.


"What? No. A thousand times no." - Cracked Photo Research Department

And honestly, if you've just ingested a cheeseburger in a can, getting that thing out of you as quickly as possible is definitely the desired outcome.

So what could we eat with this thing to just make our whole meal a freak show? How about...

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303 Comments

Hey, Fizzix is delicious.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 7/25/2010 2:05 PM
JuliaSaysHi

Some pretty yucky stuff.

Benjamin Koshkin

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 5/18/2010 10:01 PM
BenKoshkin

Umm, cracked writer, i don't know where you get your information, but "egg loaf" is used in most industrialized nations. Where do you think most fast-food restaurants get their eggs, especially for egg sandwich type meals? Seriously...

As other comments have said, it was even in Clerks II.

1 Replies | Hide Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/10/2010 2:41 AM
tsuchinoko

Huh? What?
I've never in my life heard of an egg loaf until this article.

Posted on 7/25/2010 2:06 PM
JuliaSaysHi

Green fries are pretty sweet when your ten, aside from that, they're in no way practical...I've tried the Batter Blaster, not bad really, but you pay for the convenience, since it's pretty pricey, but it produces suitable flapjacks. It's pretty useful when you f**king love pancakes but have a bus to catch and are in pretty lazy on top of that.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/7/2010 6:20 AM
RedHotSchnitz

My own mother has brought home half of those products from the grocery store... the spray pancakes expire pretty fast, to my surprise. I mean, I was under the assumption that perhaps they made them in case of nuclear war and all food had become contaminated unless it was in an airtight can, and you really craved pancakes. I guess not.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/6/2010 5:55 PM
buriedintime

Hello. jason here. I am new to the community. First of all, I want to thank those that have put this together. It is a great place to learn and get more information. I justwanted to make an introductory post to introduce myself. Thanks for the sharing.

2 Replies | Hide Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/5/2010 6:54 PM
jasonbourne2012

seriously?

Posted on 4/8/2010 12:09 PM
robthelob20

you don't need to do that i joined yesterday and didn't do that

Posted on 6/9/2010 3:19 PM
Jared6197

The little advert at the end of the first page right after the Cheeseburger in a Can was for none other than Baconnaise. How undeliciously relevant.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/4/2010 6:32 PM
madeofplastic

Ever heard of something called "conventions" or "open air music festivals"? Ever heard of something called a "garbage problem"? Edible plates aren't a bad thing at all.

1 Replies | Hide Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/4/2010 4:39 AM
heretik

Have you heard of "Ceramic"?

Posted on 4/5/2010 7:06 AM
YZisme

That list has got to be backwards

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/2/2010 12:08 PM
Xeny

Ok, some of those things look f**king amazing! Not that disgusting childbirth chicken though, holy balls.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 4/2/2010 11:03 AM
K-Star

Basically, anything that comes from a can.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/30/2010 4:58 PM
Twixalex

Also from the site with the canned cheeseburger, powdered wine:
"Mountaineering gourmets no longer have to forgo a glass of red wine after conquering a peak. The beverage powder comes in convenient portions packed in pouches and has an alcoholic content of 9,27%, which is similar to a light bottled wine. A matching mulled wine has also been developed for expeditions in snow and the cold – for celebrating the special moment at night camp."

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/29/2010 12:56 AM
sparntz

I got to the chicken in a can and honestly nearly threw up! Dear god - it's not chicken in a can - it's evil in a tin!

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/26/2010 1:21 AM
Lillyvon

If you're too busy to cook a decent breakfast or even just make up a bowl of cereal and some toast, you need to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN. There is nothing happening in your life that is of such importance that the world will screech to a halt if you make some pancakes from scratch once in awhile.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/18/2010 4:28 PM
CelestialLemur

the chicken in a can made me feel sick T_T

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/18/2010 8:35 AM
Almightytallest

I saw egg loafs on clerks 2

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/16/2010 10:27 PM
jpatricks1

I tried the "grapples" before. They smell a lot like grapes, which was sort of neat, but they didn't really taste like grapes. They were basically expensive, grape scented apples.

2 Replies | Hide Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/16/2010 5:07 AM
Echolalias

Eh, actually... I bought some by accident, thinking they really were apples... disgusting. Dunno why I bought that, since I hate apples and grapes.

Posted on 3/21/2010 10:55 PM
YummiMookies

1: Get apple
2: Inject apple with grape kool-aid
3: ???
4: Profit!

Posted on 3/29/2010 12:57 AM
sparntz

I saw that pancake spray at my Sobey's and was pumped. It was pretty good. Runs out fast though.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/12/2010 4:36 PM
jordan10la

For #1, obviously the author hasn't heard of Trencherds - a traditional equivalent, where in the days when plates were very expensive, hard bread was used instead, then given to the poor as their evening meal...

1 Replies | Hide Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/7/2010 5:20 PM
DHeadshot

First of all, Trencherds is not a proper noun and does not need to be capitalized. Second, it is not even a word.
Trenchers were stale peices of bread used as plates true, but you wouldn't want to eat one. That's why they gave them to beggars, they'll eat anything.
Like the author stated, the table is dirty. Why use a plate at all if you are going to just eat off the table? Plus trenchers were used over 400 years ago, so why would anyone know or care about them? Obviously you spend your free time at the renfair.

Posted on 3/29/2010 12:51 AM
sparntz

Honestly, the egg thing made me hungry. I It probably just tastes like hardboiled eggs, and faster breakfast is always nice.
Looking at the cheseburger, on the other hand, made me feel ill.
How on earth did the plate and flavored fruit (not THAT different from chocolate cover fruit, I think) beat out the cheeseburger of nastiness? No. Just, NO. The fries are just frightening, and ketchup should never be purple. There is much wrongness there.

0 Replies | Reply | Posted on 3/5/2010 9:24 PM
Hebi
Cracked stuff on