Horrible Food that Travels Well

It’s a common complaint from truck drivers: Too much unhealthy food at the fuel stop, not enough healthy options that are affordable. We at CDL Life do our best to find healthy eating options for truckers. We love to show them lots of in-cab cooking recipe videos that do a body good. But many times convenience wins out over health when your schedule is tight.

Having said that, there are some things you can get at the truck stop that are bad, and then there are things out there that exist that are really bad. Like, the stuff of nightmares and mad science. So, just to take a break from the serious nutrition articles and healthy recipes, we thought we would present a feature of some truly horrible travel food. They actually exist (some can probably even move), and someone, somewhere in the world buys enough of it to support a factory that makes it. Blech.

So if we haven’t been clear…DON’T EAT THIS.

Perhaps opt for the beef jerky...

Cheeseburger In a Can

Yep, you read that right. For a low fee of $6 American dollars, you can have this pre-cooked, soggy, burger-like invention, just in case you don’t have enough time to hit the drive through. It’s got pickle slices…The manufacturer says you can heat it in a double boiler, or just eat it cold. Ehhh…no thanks. Reports say that it tastes a bit like soggy Spam. Your mileage may vary (if you dare).

Huitlacoche 

While delicacies like mushroom fungus, truffles and morels entice culinary adventurers the world over with their fragile flavors, there’s also the dark side (literally) of fungi that are straight up diseases on other common vegetables. Huitlacoche fits the bill. It comes in a can throughout the Southwest, and it’s literally a corn disease that destroys usable crops, until some Mexican entrepreneur figured out he could sell it as a special food item. Someone down there bought into the hype, and now there are farms that literally destroy their crops with moisture until it’s swollen, black and gooey. The result is this “acquired taste” in a can. Think Swine Flu is bad? Test your luck with this horticultural horror. Supposedly you can spread it on burritos and …whatever. No thanks.

Silkworm Pupae

Obviously this isn’t a truck stop delicacy that’s popular in North America. It got its start in Asia and basically makes truckers there go wild over the silkwormy flavors contained within.

It is a popular snack in South Korea, where street vendors sell them by the cupful. In parts of China the “pre-formed” insect is added alive and squirming to steaming hot pots to be eaten as part of a soup. The only use this has in North America is as food for reptilian pets.

How does it taste? Like dirt. No, really. It squirts out liquid that has the bouquet of DIRT. So really, enjoy.

Hot Dog Stuffed Pizza

A bit of a confession – Hot Dog Stuffed Pizza isn’t yet available in North America. It’s being marketed by Pizza Hut in England and Thailand. But really, in a country like England, which is legendary for their bad taste in culinary creations, even this seems to stand alone. Seriously? Hot dogs on pizza? Go ahead and just pick the one ingredient that doesn’t fit with Americanized pizza and sell it like there’s no tomorrow. Did someone at corporate just challenge Pizza Hut chefs to create something even more terrible for your health than just regular pizza? Mission accomplished, limeys.

Ok, last one…

Cuttlefish Flavored Crisps

Taco or Salsa flavored chips can be passable. They have that “sorta there” flavor of hot pepper, cheese and tomato intact, since we’re all so used to it by now. But fish? Even worse, packed fish flavor? What’s going on here? Cuttlefish are an approximation of shrimp, but dried, powdered and sprinkled onto various corn snack chips? We just can’t get there. And honestly, we tried these. They taste like aquarium air pushed into salty, crackly crunches. It doesn’t work. Maybe if they came out with Cuttlefish Ranch flavor…

Maybe that’s all for now, truckers. We’re sure there are more horrible snackable dry goods out there that are sold, and we’ll continue to look for them. But please…give us a few weeks. We’re still washing the flavors out of our mouths.