98 Fun Facts About Forbidden Foods

Which of these fish fails the kosher test for want of scales?

Kashrut demands both fins and easily removable scales; catfish have no scales at all.

Which two major religions forbid eating pork outright?

Judaism and Islam both forbid pork: Leviticus 11 bars the pig because it does not chew the cud, and the Quran (2:173) names swine flesh among the prohibited foods.

Why do many Jains avoid root vegetables such as potatoes, onions and garlic?

Root vegetables are classed as anant-kay, 'infinite-bodied' plants, so eating a single potato is held to destroy an infinite number of souls.

What common food combination is strictly prohibited in Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut)?

Observant Jews keep separate sets of dishes for the two, and the Shulchan Aruch recommends waiting six hours after meat before eating dairy.

What kind of bread does the Jewish festival of Passover ban from the table?

Chametz, leavened grain, is off-limits in memory of the Israelites fleeing Egypt too fast for their dough to rise.

Which roe-prized fish is non-kosher for most Orthodox authorities because its scales can't be removed cleanly?

Sturgeon carry bony scutes rather than scales that lift off without tearing the skin, so most Orthodox authorities rule the fish, and its caviar, non-kosher.

What are foods with neither meat nor dairy, edible with either under Jewish dietary law, called?

In kashrut, 'pareve' refers to neutral foods that contain neither meat nor dairy ingredients, such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, and fish, and can therefore be eaten with either meat or dairy meals.

In Islam, what is the term for foods that are permissible to eat?

Halal means 'permissible' in Arabic; the Quran contrasts it with haram, the forbidden or unlawful, and both terms cover far more than food.

What process does kosher butchery use to remove the blood from meat?

Salting, or melicha: after a half-hour soak the meat is covered in coarse salt for about an hour to draw out the blood, then rinsed.

A 2008 rabbinical ruling found which long-necked animal, and its milk, eligible to be considered kosher?

The giraffe: in 2008 Israeli veterinarians and rabbis examined a Safari Ramat Gan giraffe and found its milk curdles, the rabbinic test that confirmed the animal's kosher status.

In Jewish dietary law, what two features must a land mammal have to count as kosher, as cows and sheep do?

It must chew cud and have split hooves: Leviticus 11 requires both signs, which is why the pig, with split hooves but no cud, fails.

Alongside meat, fish, eggs and alcohol, which sweet food is strictly prohibited in the Jain diet?

Honey is forbidden because gathering it is seen as violence against bees and their larvae; mushrooms and other fungi are likewise off the Jain menu.

Which of these animals' milk is forbidden under Jewish kosher law, because the animal itself fails one of the two signs?

The camel chews its cud but has no cloven hooves, so the Torah names it alongside the hyrax, the hare and the pig as animals with only one of the two required signs.

What was the main point of contention in the historical debate over whether swordfish is kosher?

Whether it keeps its scales as an adult: young swordfish carry scales, but adults shed them, which is why most Orthodox authorities rule the fish non-kosher.

Kinder Surprise eggs are barred from the US under a law from which year banning objects embedded in confectionery?

The 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act bans confectionery with a non-nutritive object embedded in it, which keeps the toy-in-the-middle Kinder Surprise out of the US.

In 2011, US border agents threatened a Canadian with what fine for one Kinder Surprise egg?

The FDA's import alert warns that consumers 'may unknowingly choke' on the toy.

Casu martzu, a Sardinian cheese banned across the EU, contains what?

Larvae of the cheese fly are introduced on purpose to ferment the pecorino from within.

French law defines foie gras as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by what process?

Gavage, force-feeding by tube, is written into the French rural code's definition of foie gras; it swells the liver to as much as ten times its normal size.

The toxin in unripe ackee fruit, which is behind Jamaican vomiting sickness, is called what?

Hypoglycin A, concentrated in the unripe aril, blocks fatty-acid metabolism and causes the severe hypoglycaemia of Jamaican vomiting sickness; only ripe, naturally opened fruit is safe.

The ackee's scientific name honours which naval captain who took the fruit from Jamaica to Kew in 1793?

The same Bligh whose crew mutinied on HMS Bounty four years earlier.

French gourmands traditionally eat the ortolan bunting with what over their heads?

A napkin: diners drape a large napkin over their heads, a ritual said either to hide the shame from God or to trap the bird's aroma.

Before cooking, ortolans are traditionally drowned in which spirit?

Armagnac: the fattened birds are traditionally drowned in the Gascon brandy and roasted whole; France outlawed ortolan hunting in 1999, though poaching continued for years.

Which French president's last New Year's Eve meal in 1995 famously included ortolan?

François Mitterrand ate ortolan at his last New Year's Eve feast on 31 December 1995 and died of cancer eight days later, on 8 January 1996.

The FDA banned sassafras oil from mass-produced foods in 1960, killing off its use in which drink?

Root beer had been flavoured with sassafras root since the 19th century; its main constituent, safrole, proved carcinogenic in rats, so makers switched to safrole-free extracts or artificial flavour.

In 2012, China's government pledged to ban shark fin soup from what?

Official banquets: in July 2012 China's State Council said shark fin would be dropped from government receptions within three years, part of an austerity drive aimed at officials.

The sale of chewing gum has been illegal in which country since 1992?

Singapore banned the sale of chewing gum in January 1992 after vandals jammed MRT train door sensors with it; medicinal gum was allowed again from 2004.

The EU banned jelly mini-cups after choking deaths linked to which gelling agent?

Konjac, a glucomannan gel that does not dissolve in the mouth, was blamed for children's choking deaths; the EU banned it from jelly mini-cups in 2003, after US FDA warnings in 2001.

Which luxury food did the US ban importing in 2005 because its source is critically endangered?

Beluga caviar: in 2005 the US Fish and Wildlife Service banned imports of beluga sturgeon meat and roe from the Caspian Sea, and CITES halted Caspian caviar exports in 2006.

Iceland's fermented delicacy hákarl is made from which species, whose fresh flesh is poisonous?

The Greenland shark: its fresh flesh is laced with urea and trimethylamine oxide, so the meat is buried to ferment for six to twelve weeks, then hung to dry for months.

Which celebrity chef called fermented shark 'the single worst, most disgusting' thing he'd eaten?

Anthony Bourdain, after tasting hákarl in Iceland for No Reservations, called it 'the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing' he had ever eaten.

A 1940s Swedish royal ordinance barred selling the year's surströmming before which date?

The third Thursday in August: producers lobbied for the 1940s rule to keep under-fermented fish out of shops, and the date survives as the annual 'surströmming premiere'.

Surströmming is made from which fish?

Baltic herring, strömming in Swedish, is lightly salted and left to ferment for months; a newly opened can is reckoned to have one of the most putrid smells of any food.

Which country bans poppy seeds 'for drug control reasons' despite their traditional use in Arab bread?

Saudi Arabia lists poppy seeds among banned imports for drug-control reasons, since the seeds can carry traces of opiate alkaloids; Singapore and the UAE also prohibit them.

Why do hotels and public transport in Singapore, Bangkok and elsewhere in Southeast Asia ban the spiky durian fruit?

Its smell lingers for days, so hotels and buses in Singapore and Bangkok show durian the door. The species name, zibethinus, nods to the civet, whose musk the fruit was thought to resemble.

Which compound was blamed when absinthe was banned across Europe and the US by 1915?

Thujone, from the wormwood in absinthe, was blamed for 'absinthism'; it has never been shown more dangerous than ordinary spirits, and the EU re-legalised absinthe in 1988.

Absinthe was created in the late 18th century by physician Pierre Ordinaire in which country?

Switzerland: Ordinaire, a French doctor living in Couvet in the Val-de-Travers, is credited with the recipe around 1792; the drink later became la fée verte of Parisian artists.

In 1987 the FDA banned the sale of raw milk for human consumption under what condition?

Across state borders: the 1987 rule bars raw milk from interstate commerce, leaving each state to decide whether it may be sold within its own borders.

Where has selling raw cow's milk for direct consumption been an offence since 1983?

Scotland banned the sale of raw cow's milk in 1983 after a run of milk-borne outbreaks, and widened the ban to raw milk from all other farm animals in 2006.

Serving which part of the fugu pufferfish, thought to be its tastiest, was banned in Japan in 1984?

The liver, or kimo, holds the highest concentration of tetrodotoxin; after a string of poisonings Japan's health ministry outlawed serving it in 1984.

Fugu's tetrodotoxin paralyses its victims by blocking nerve channels for which ion?

Sodium: tetrodotoxin plugs voltage-gated sodium channels in nerve and muscle, so the victim is paralysed while fully conscious; there is no antidote, only ventilation until the toxin clears.

Which country has banned raw drinking milk sales in every state and territory since the 1940s?

Canada, by contrast, allows raw-milk cheese if it is aged over 60 days.

Which haggis ingredient has kept UK imports of the dish out of the US since 1971?

Lung makes up 10-15% of the traditional recipe, and the US bans all lungs because stomach acid and phlegm can enter them during slaughter.

Which country was the first to mandate limits on industrially produced trans fats, in 2004?

Denmark's law, in force from 2004, capped industrially produced trans fats at 2% of the fat in any food, the first such national limit in the world.

From what date were partially hydrogenated oils banned from foods sold in the United States?

June 18, 2018 was the FDA's compliance date, three years after its 2015 ruling that partially hydrogenated oils were not generally recognized as safe; a few approved uses got extensions into 2021.

Which pope began a campaign in 732 AD to stop the ritual eating of horse meat in pagan practice?

Gregory III's 732 letter to the missionary Boniface forbade horse meat to German converts, condemning the pagan sacrificial custom as unclean; Pope Zachary repeated the ban in 751.

Which 1971 US law stopped wild mustangs being rounded up and sold for pet food?

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, signed by Richard Nixon in December 1971, made capturing or killing the animals on public lands a federal crime; pet-food roundups had driven the campaign.

Which ingredient kept Red Bull off the French market until the food agency relented in 2008?

Taurine was the sticking point: France's food agency refused to approve Red Bull for twelve years, and a taurine-free version was briefly sold there before the original was authorised in 2008.

Edible bird's nests, the basis of bird's nest soup, are made from what?

Solidified swiftlet saliva: the birds build the nests from strands of their own hardened saliva, and they rank among the most expensive animal products eaten, fetching thousands of dollars a pound.

Which US state prohibits both the production and the sale of foie gras?

California's ban, passed in 2004, took effect in 2012 after a seven-year grace period; Chicago tried its own restaurant ban in 2006 and repealed it two years later.

In which year did New York City pass a foie gras ban later struck down by the state?

2019: the City Council passed the ban that October, to start in 2022, but the state Agriculture and Markets Department blocked it that year as an unreasonable restriction on upstate farms.

In which year did the US government briefly ban the sale of sliced bread?

1943: War Food Administrator Claude Wickard's order ran from 18 January to 8 March 1943, and the hoped-for savings on wax paper and steel never materialised.

Which country banned margarine outright from 1886 to 1948, pausing only for a wartime dairy shortage?

Canada's bootleg margarine, made from whale, seal and fish oil, was smuggled in from Newfoundland at half the price of butter. The Supreme Court lifted the ban in the 1948 Margarine Reference.

A 1592 London decree allowed spiced buns only on Good Friday, at Christmas and when?

At burials: the Clerk of Markets' 1592 order under Elizabeth I let bakers sell spiced bread only at burials, on Good Friday and at Christmas, which helped tie hot cross buns to Good Friday.

Congress passed the Volstead Act enforcing US Prohibition over which president's veto?

Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act on 27 October 1919 and Congress overrode him within two days; national Prohibition took effect on 17 January 1920.

In which year did the Twenty-first Amendment end national Prohibition in the US?

1933: the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on 5 December 1933, the only amendment passed to repeal another; several states kept their own prohibition laws for years afterwards.

Which country became the first in the world to ban cultivated (lab-grown) meat?

Italy's parliament passed the ban in November 2023, with the Meloni government calling it protection of food heritage; scientists criticised the move as out of step with global trends.

Which firm's lab-grown chicken was the first cultivated meat ever sold, in 2020?

Eat Just's cultured chicken, approved by the Singapore Food Agency, was served at the restaurant 1880 in December 2020, the first regulatory approval and sale of cultivated meat anywhere.

Which US state was first to make manufacturing and selling cultivated meat a criminal offence?

Florida: Governor Ron DeSantis signed the ban on 1 May 2024, making the manufacture or sale of cultivated meat a second-degree misdemeanour; Upside Foods sued in August 2024 to overturn it.

In 2013 the FDA detained a ton of French Mimolette cheese because of what on its rind?

Mites: cheese mites are deliberately put on Mimolette's rind to develop its flavour, but the FDA, wary of allergic reactions, limits them to six per square inch.

In 1511, a theological court in which city forbade coffee for its stimulating effect?

Mecca: governor Khair Beg's 1511 court condemned coffee as an intoxicant, but the Mamluk sultan in Cairo soon overturned the ban and Meccan coffeehouses flourished.

Which German-speaking king campaigned against coffee in 1777, worried about the cost of importing it?

Frederick the Great of Prussia: his 1777 manifesto scolded subjects for drinking coffee rather than beer, and in 1781 he made roasting a royal monopoly policed by 'coffee sniffers'.

Which compound in tonka beans makes the FDA class foods containing them as adulterated?

Coumarin, the vanilla-scented compound in tonka beans, was banned as a food additive by the FDA in 1954 over liver toxicity seen in rats at very high doses.

Which artificial sweetener lost US food approval in 1969 after rat bladder-cancer studies?

Cyclamate was pulled from the GRAS list in October 1969 after rats fed it developed bladder tumours, and the FDA banned it from all foods in 1970; the EU permits it.

Which sweetener carried a mandatory US cancer warning label from 1977 until 2000?

Saccharin: the FDA moved to ban it in 1977, and Congress instead required a cancer warning label; the label went in 2000 after the rat bladder tumours were traced to rodent-specific urine chemistry.

Which food dye did the FDA ban from all foods and ingested drugs in January 2025?

Red No. 3, known chemically as erythrosine, had been barred from cosmetics since 1990 under the Delaney Clause, the same anti-carcinogen rule the FDA invoked for the 2025 food ban.

Which citrus-soda emulsifier did the FDA ban, effective August 2024?

Brominated vegetable oil, used to keep citrus flavouring suspended in sodas, had long been banned in Europe and Japan; the FDA's final rule gave makers a year to reformulate.

Which whitening additive, coded E171, did the EU ban from food in 2022?

Titanium dioxide: the EU withdrew E171's authorisation from 7 February 2022 after EFSA could not rule out genotoxicity, with a six-month grace period; UK regulators disagreed and kept it legal.

Which dough conditioner, nicknamed the 'yoga mat chemical' for its use in foamed plastics, did Subway drop in 2014?

Azodicarbonamide earned the yoga mat nickname from its everyday job puffing up foamed plastics; it is not permitted as a food additive in the EU or Australia.

In which year did Europe ban imports of beef raised with artificial growth hormones?

1989: the EU's ban on hormone-treated beef, including imports, took effect on 1 January 1989; the hormones stayed approved in the US, starting a trade dispute that ran for decades.

Fresh mangosteens were illegal to import into the US until 2007 because of which pest?

Asian fruit fly: USDA barred fresh mangosteens as a fruit-fly host until 2007, when irradiated fruit from Thailand was allowed in; the first arrivals sold at steep prices in New York specialty stores.

A 2011 'Marmite ban' scare in one Nordic country really concerned rules on what?

Added vitamins: Denmark requires approval for foods fortified with vitamins or minerals, and Marmite's importer had never obtained it; the food authority later said the spread had never been banned.

South Korea's 2024 dog meat ban was set to take effect in which year?

The National Assembly passed it unanimously on 9 January 2024 with a three-year grace period. The government plans to help rehome nearly half a million dogs bred for food.

In 675 AD, Japan's Emperor Tenmu banned eating cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys and what else?

Chickens: Tenmu's decree barred the meat of those five animals during the farming months of April to September, a Buddhist-flavoured measure; fish and game were left alone.

In which year did Emperor Meiji lift Japan's centuries-old ban on eating red meat?

1872: as part of the Meiji westernising drive, the emperor publicly ate beef that January and the court lifted the centuries-old ban on meat the same year.

Where is the sale of all pufferfish (family Tetraodontidae) forbidden outright?

The European Union: EU hygiene rules bar placing any fish of the family Tetraodontidae on the market; Japan licenses fugu chefs instead, and China lifted its own ban on farmed puffer in 2016.

Which Kabuki actor and Living National Treasure died in 1975 after four helpings of fugu?

He ate the most poisonous organ, whose sale local ordinances already prohibited, claiming he could resist the toxin. He died hours after returning to his hotel.

Which island classes poppy seeds as a narcotic and bans their import?

Taiwan lists poppy seeds as a controlled narcotic and bars bringing them in; most other bans, such as the UAE's, rest on the seeds' trace morphine content.

Which Pacific ceremonial drink was banned or restricted by many countries in 2002?

Kava: after reports of liver damage linked to kava extracts in Germany and Switzerland, those countries and others, including the UK, pulled it from sale in 2002, hurting Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu's exports.

Which firm's Maywood, New Jersey plant reportedly strips the cocaine from coca leaves used in Coca-Cola?

Stepan Company's plant in Maywood, New Jersey is licensed by the DEA to import coca leaf; it extracts the cocaine for pharmaceutical use and sells Coca-Cola the de-cocainised leaf extract.

Which two countries were long cited as the only ones where Coca-Cola was not officially sold?

Cuba and North Korea: the US embargo has kept official Coke out of Cuba since the 1960s, where the state makes tuKola and Tropicola instead, and sanctions keep it out of North Korea.

Where is capybara meat a Lenten favourite thanks to a claimed Catholic dispensation?

Venezuela: legend holds the Church classed the capybara, a semi-aquatic rodent, alongside fish in the 18th century, so salted chigüire became a Lenten tradition on the llanos.

Which part of the beaver could medieval Catholics eat on meatless Lenten Fridays?

Its tail: the scaly, fish-like tail was judged fish rather than flesh, a view Gerald of Wales recorded in the 12th century, so it could be eaten on fast days.

Followers of which ancient Greek thinker were famous for refusing to eat beans?

Pythagoras: his followers shunned beans, a taboo ancient writers linked to the soul and the underworld; 'Pythagorean diet' later became the name for one shunning meat and fish.

France banned potato cultivation in 1748 partly because the tuber was said to cause what?

Leprosy: the 1748 ban rested on the belief that potatoes caused it; Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, who had eaten them as a prisoner of war, got the Paris Faculty of Medicine to declare them edible in 1772.

New York City's failed 'soda ban' would have capped sugary drink cups at what size?

16 ounces: the 2012 rule would have barred restaurants, cinemas and street carts from selling sugary drinks in cups larger than that; the state's highest court struck it down in June 2014.

Which people accepted Christianity in 1000 AD only on condition they could keep eating horse meat?

Icelanders: the Althing adopted Christianity in the year 1000 under a compromise that let people keep eating horse meat and worshipping the old gods in private.

Which country was the first in the EU to report horse meat in 'beef' products in 2013?

Ireland: the Food Safety Authority of Ireland announced on 15 January 2013 that burgers sold by Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and others contained horse DNA; some Findus lasagne later tested up to 100% horse.

Which country suspended kangaroo meat imports in 2009 after using it in luncheon meats?

Russia, then the biggest buyer of Australian kangaroo meat, which went into its cheap sausages, suspended imports in August 2009 after inspectors reported E. coli contamination.

Which US law prohibits possessing or trading ambergris, the whale-derived perfume fixer?

Endangered Species Act: sperm whales, hunted to endangerment, are protected under the 1973 act, which bars possessing or trading their products; India bans ambergris under its 1972 Wild Life (Protection) Act.

The LDS Word of Wisdom bans tea and coffee under which two-word scriptural phrase?

'Hot drinks', in Doctrine and Covenants 89:9: church leaders from Hyrum Smith onward read the phrase as tea and coffee, and the church teaches that temperature is beside the point.

The Sikh code of conduct forbids 'kutha' meat, meaning meat that was what?

Guru Gobind Singh rejected sacrificing animals in God's name as mere ritualism, so the code rules out both Muslim and Jewish ritual slaughter.

Which of these is among the ‘five pungent spices’ Chinese Buddhist monks avoid?

Asafoetida (xingqu) rounds out the garlic and three alliums banned by the Brahma Net Sutra; many modern monasteries extend the rule to all onions and even coriander.

Britain's Gin Act of 1736 demanded what annual licence fee from anyone selling gin?

£50 a year, on top of a 20-shilling-a-gallon retail duty, was set by the 1736 act; few licences were ever taken out, and illegal distilling and poisonings rose instead.

In which year did the EU’s top court rule plant-based products can’t be sold as ‘milk’?

2017: in the TofuTown case, referred from a court in Trier, the Court of Justice ruled in June 2017 that milk, cream, butter, cheese and yoghurt are reserved for animal products.

US rules allow raw-milk cheese to be sold only once it has aged for at least how long?

60 days at no less than 35°F is the FDA minimum for raw-milk cheese, a rule dating to 1949; young raw-milk camemberts never qualify for US shelves.

Which North Atlantic archipelago banned all alcohol sales from 1907 until 1992?

The Faroe Islands voted for prohibition in 1907 and lifted it only in 1992, after which drink was sold through the government monopoly Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins; Iceland followed with its own prohibition in 1915.

A 2006 rumour that the US had banned Vegemite centred on which B vitamin it contains?

Folate: US rules approve added folic acid in only a few foods, such as breakfast cereals, which fed the rumour; the FDA said it had no plans to ban or withdraw Vegemite.

Which English king tried to suppress coffeehouses as haunts of the ‘idle and disaffected’?

Charles II's proclamation of 29 December 1675 accused coffeehouses of spreading 'false, malicious and scandalous reports'; the outcry was such that he withdrew it within a fortnight.