Nutella is a lie: People explain why they hate food everyone else loves

'Tea is Satan's p*ss water'

Thieves stole a trailer containing 70 tons of chocolate in Germany (Getty)

Here’s a challenge. Try to scroll through your Facebook feed without being confronted with a food tutorial video. But not just a tutorial, but one where the food isn’t either dripping in thick, melted cheese or made using gluts of Nutella. A recipe can include a kilo of Nutella without anyone in the comments so much as batting an eyelid.

Because everyone loves cheese and Nutella, right? They are part of an elite group of foods that you’re not only expected to like but love with the devotion reserved only for your partner and your mother. The foods we are talking are totally gluttonous, have cultural capital, or both. Let’s be clear, kale doesn’t fit into this category. Chia seeds have no chance. But fried chicken counts, as does - in the UK at least - tea. Say you hate them at your own risk, and expect raised eyebrows, looks of disgust and a lengthy interrogation.

So, we asked some people who actively hate the foods we are all meant to love to explain themselves. What is their reason for risking becoming a social pariah, and forever branded as ‘that guy’ who actually can't stand Nutella or says no every time someone asks them if they want tea.

Zoah Hedges-Stocks is a journalist. She hates doughnuts.

"Doughnuts are overrated greaseballs and Krispy Kreme is an Emperor's New Clothes -style collective hallucination.

"Donuts feel and taste like greasy bread, and if they're sugared, they're like greasy bread covered in grit. Krispy Kremes and sickeningly sweet and the sensation when my teeth breaches the seminal glaze makes my skin crawl.

"As for the deluge of 'special' editions, Krispy Kreme have created a cult of sugar-obsessed morons who wouldn't know a worthwhile dessert if it hit them in the face, and now the company is drunk on power. That's why they have pushed the donut form further than it was ever meant to go, and the prices higher than Dolly Parton's buttercream frosting hair. That'll be their next limitied edition: the Dollynut, with a raspberry glaze that looks like Parton's lipstick. You heard it here first."

Jane (whose name has been changed due to fears of a backlash) works in PR. She hates Nutella.

"Wasn't Nutella invented to supplement a short supply of cocoa with hazelnuts? Hazelnuts are clearly not that good. People were desperate to make chocolate last longer. That makes sense, sure. But why people are rhapsodising about it as though it's more than a stop gap when actual chocolate is not available? HELP ME UNDERSTAND."

Zlata Rodionva is a business reporter at The Independent.She hates cheese.

"I never liked cheese. Not its smell, not its taste, not its texture and I really don't understand the excitement about it.

"My dislike of it was exacerbated by the fact that my grandfather, who shared my hate of cheese, once told me that to make Parmesan people would grate the skin on their feet. Even then, I knew this was untrue, of course, but whenever I see a plate of spaghetti ruined by parmesan on top the image keeps popping in my head.

"Hating cheese has become something like a dirty secret for me. For a reason or another everyone people will always have comments on it. They ask 'How do you survive? Can you eat pizza? Is it a weird diet?' The reason is simple for me cheese ruins the taste of any natural product from pasta to fresh salads and I would love if people would stop adding it to everything."

Caroline Mortimer is a reporter at The Independent. She hates tea

"I hate tea. It's like Satan's pisswater. I have no idea why everyone is so obsessed with it. Might be it is my American upbringing showing though. They threw that stuff in the river for a reason."