Not every food trend deserves to stick around. For every avocado toast or cold brew that earned its stripes, there’s a dozen cringe-worthy “must-eats” that were more style than substance. Whether they clogged your feed, your arteries, or just your sense of taste, these 17 trendy foods are finally fading into oblivion—and honestly? We’re not shedding a tear.
1. Rainbow Bagels
They looked like Play-Doh and tasted like disappointment. Once an Instagram darling, these psychedelic carbs were all color, no flavor. Goodbye, glitter-glazed gimmicks.
2. Activated Charcoal Everything
Pitch-black ice cream? Charcoal lattes? It felt edgy until we realized it made everything taste like burnt toast and messed with medications. Trend: extinguished.
3. Unicorn Frappuccinos
The drink equivalent of a Lisa Frank binder. It had zero coffee, too much sugar, and enough food dye to stain your soul. Starbucks made it… once. That was enough.
4. Cloud Eggs
Remember these? Whipped egg whites baked into weird puffy halos with a yolk in the middle. They looked cool, but no one wanted a meringue for breakfast.
5. Overloaded Freakshakes
Milkshakes with donuts, cookies, cotton candy, and entire slices of cake stacked on top. An absurd calorie bomb you couldn’t even drink without a spoon and a side of shame.
6. Gold-Flaked Everything
From burgers to cupcakes, sprinkling edible gold leaf on mediocre food didn’t make it luxurious. It made it pretentious—and hard to digest (for your wallet).
7. Cereal Milk Desserts
Yes, it’s nostalgic. But did we really need milk infused with stale Froot Loops to become a gourmet ingredient? Let’s leave soggy childhood breakfasts in the past.
8. Impossible-to-Eat Ramen Burgers
Ramen buns sound inventive until you try biting through one without it exploding. Cool in theory. Disaster in practice.
9. Avocado Chocolate Mousse
The wellness world swore it was a healthy dessert. Turns out it tasted like guacamole went rogue. Avocados deserve better.
10. Over-the-Top Sushi Burritos
Sushi the size of a burrito? Messy, overpriced, and a chopstick-wielding nightmare. Just give us a normal roll and some soy sauce, thanks.
11. Kale Everything
Kale chips. Kale smoothies. Kale brownies (yes, it happened). Somewhere along the way, the leafy green turned into a joyless chore. Spinach wins the rematch.
12. DIY Mason Jar Meals
Meal prep meets Pinterest in this cluttered concept. Spoiler: stuffing salads into jars is impractical and awkward to eat. Cute idea, clumsy reality.
13. Cauliflower “Everything” Substitutes
Cauliflower rice, cauliflower pizza crust, cauliflower wings… Let’s be real: none of them tasted better than the original. Time to break up with the blandest veggie.
14. Glitter-Infused Food
Glitter doesn’t belong in your drink, cake, or stomach. It added nothing but sparkle-induced regret. Instagrammable? Sure. Digestible? Questionable.
15. Bacon on Donuts
What started as a genius salty-sweet mashup quickly became overdone. Once every chain had a bacon donut, it stopped being edgy and just got greasy.
16. Overly Complicated Avocado Toast
We went from avocado + bread to $20 toasts with pickled shallots, microgreens, bee pollen, and edible flowers. Somewhere, the avocado sighed.
17. Nitrogen Puffs (“Dragon’s Breath”)
Puffed cereal doused in liquid nitrogen looked cool on TikTok, but burned tongues and emergency room visits aren’t part of a balanced diet. Good riddance.
