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The Disgusting Food Museum includes displays of mouse wine, fruit bat, balut (duck embryo), and—surprise!—Twinkies.
Photos taken by Anja Barte Telin (Fruit Bat, Balut); Mathias Svold/The New York Times (Twinkies and Mouse Wine)
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Earth’s Grossest Foods?
Does someone actually eat that? At Sweden’s new Disgusting Food Museum, you can view, smell, and taste nauseating delicacies from all over the world, including Scotland’s haggis (animal entrails and oatmeal boiled in a sheep’s stomach), rice wine brewed with dead baby mice from China, and fruit-bat soup made in Guam. As proof that taste is subjective, American favorites like Twinkies and root beer are also displayed. But if anything makes you gag, don’t worry—your ticket is also a vomit bag. Ultimately though, museum officials hope to do more than gross out visitors. “I want people to question what they find disgusting,” says lead curator Samuel West. Only then, he believes, can we start a conversation about sustainable protein sources and how our diets affect the planet. “We can’t continue the way we are now,” he says. “I was asking myself why don’t we eat insects when they are so cheap and sustainable to produce? The obstacle is disgust.”