Casu Marzu This may be the one cheese that turns you off from dairy for good. Casu Marzu, also known as “maggot cheese,” is exactly what its nickname implies—cheese left outside on which flies lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch into maggots, they eat away at the cheese, infusing it with pre-digested fats, proteins, and sugars (Mmm!). While Casu Marzu is considered a delicacy in Sardinia, the island from which it hails, it doesn’t exactly pass the FDA’s regulations for food contaminants, so you won’t find it here. Ackee Seems kind of crazy, but the national fruit of Jamaica can, and does, kill. Ackee is a red, pear-shaped fruit that’s related to lychee. The fruit’s yellow flesh is edible—and tastes something like sweet peas—but the big, black seeds surrounding the flesh are toxic. Eaten improperly, ackee causes Jamaican Vomiting Sickness, which can lead to coma or death. Because it’s so dangerous, you won’t find the raw fruit in American grocery stores; but if you’re really curious, prepared varieties (sans toxic seeds) are available online. MORE: 6 Surprising Foods That Can Make You Seriously Sick Horse Meat So hungry you could eat a horse? Well, too bad, you can’t—not legally anyway. The US reinstated a ban on horse slaughter in 2014. The ban wasn’t put into place for health concerns, though; it was created for moral reasons. If you don’t balk at the thought of eating these majestic creatures (can you tell where we stand on this?), chef Andrew Zimmern suggests heading to Canada. Japanese Puffer Fish Sure, puffer fish are cute in Finding Nemo, but certain varieties—like the Japanese delicacy fugu, which go for $200 a pop—are extremely poisonous. Fugu is so deadly, in fact, that chefs who prepare the fish go through a rigorous, 3-year training before anyone is allowed to eat one they’ve prepared. Even allowing 1 mg of toxin to remain could kill you within an hour. Yikes! This high risk of death makes fugu forbidden in the US to anyone who doesn’t have a license to prepare it—and very few people do. (On another note, here’s how much mouse poop, maggots, and cigarette butts are allowed in your food.) Haggis Maybe you’ve seen the joke in wanderlust rom-coms—some unsuspecting tourist travels to the UK and grabs a cracker spread with something called haggis, only to find out moments later that he’s eaten sheep’s lung. His face pales and we all laugh. You won’t find haggis on this side of the pond, however, as the US banned all foods containing lungs in 1971. Why ban lungs when other organs are OK? According to the FDA, funky fluids like stomach acid make their way into animals’ lungs during slaughter, making them unfit for human consumption.
