A Surprising New Survey Reveals America’s Most Hated Thanksgiving Foods (2024)
There’s a reason so many classic Thanksgiving foods only appear on dinner tables once a year: A decent portion of Americans dislike the most famous dishes associated with the holiday and only eat them out of obligation (or hide them under their napkin when no one is looking). To see which items on the typical Thanksgiving menu receive the most hate, check out the list below.
For the third year in a row, The Vacationer recruited a mathematician to analyze the holiday eating habits of American adults. Of the roughly 1000 people surveyed, 31.5 percent of them admitted to disliking cranberry sauce. The survey didn’t differentiate between the homemade version and the canned stuff with the ridges on the side.
Cranberry sauce is notoriously divisive, but some of the other takeaways might come as a bigger surprise: More than 27 percent of survey respondents said they don’t like turkey, the star of the traditional Thanksgiving feast. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win guests over by serving a different protein on the big day. Ham also ranks high on the list of unpopular Thanksgiving foods, falling right behind stuffing (or dressing, if you prefer).
If you dread dinner on Turkey Day, it may be because you’re not preparing your food properly. Follow these expert tips for cooking a whole bird to make it something you actually look forward to eating.
Cranberry Sauce // 31.49%
Sweet Potatoes or Yams // 29.22%
Green Bean Casserole // 28.04%
Turkey // 27.74%
Stuffing/Dressing // 26.75%
Ham // 25.57%
Coleslaw // 25.57%
Pumpkin Pie // 24.28%
Mashed Potatoes // 18.66%
Macaroni and Cheese // 17.47%
Carrots // 16.98%
Apple Pie // 16.29%
Corn // 15.50%
A version of this story ran in 2022; it has been updated for 2023.
For the third year in a row, cranberry sauce takes the cake as the least favorite Thanksgiving food. It is disliked by more than 31 percent of respondents, according to a survey conducted by SurveyMonkey on behalf of The Vacationer, a travel and vacation content site.
"For the third year in a row, cranberry sauce takes first place as the most disliked traditional Thanksgiving food. Over 31% of respondents, 82 million American adults, do not want cranberry sauce for their Thanksgiving dinner.
For the cranberry sauce haters taken aback by these numbers, a completely different Thanksgiving survey tells another story. A poll created by the website The Vacationer reveals that cranberry sauce is actually the most disliked traditional Thanksgiving food.
It's often made with fatty processed meat, butter or margarine, and refined bread or rice. It's a high-calorie food that packs a load of fat, carbs, and nitrates, which are cancer-causing. If you add dried cranberries, there's a good chance they're sweetened and add sugar to your stuffing.
It is also worth noting what was not present at the first Thanksgiving feast. There were no cloudlike heaps of mashed potatoes, since white potatoes had not yet crossed over from South America. There was no gravy either, since the colonists didn't yet have mills to produce flour.
As far as what everyone considers their favorite Thanksgiving food, stuffing was the winner by a landslide, followed by turkey, mashed potatoes/gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes/casserole, cranberries and last but not least, pumpkin pie.
At Thanksgiving dinner, turkey is served with a variety of side dishes which can vary from traditional, such as mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, to ones that reflect regional or cultural heritage.
Why Is Thanksgiving Still Controversial? The atrocities against Native Americans did not end with the diseases or massacres mentioned above, so seeing people celebrating the "positive" myth around Thanksgiving can be frustrating and painful for many, especially Indigenous people.
Ready-to-eat foods: If you're not eating a freshly cooked Thanksgiving dinner, avoid ready-to-eat meats, canned vegetables, and soups. They are packed with sodium. One cup of creamed corn can contain 700 mg of sodium. Pumpkin pie: You're going to hate us but pumpkin pie is filled with fat, calories and sodium.
Most people over 60 chose Green Bean Casserole as their most hated side dish. Those under 40 also disliked Green Bean Casserole, but they had equal distaste for Sweet Potato Casserole. These two “retro” or “vintage” recipes were the most disliked on the list.
For many Native Americans Thanksgiving is not a heartwarming holiday marked by gathering with family and serving others, but rather “a reminder of genocide, colonialism, and oppression, it's a symbol of smallpox blankets, Christianity, land grabs and manifest destiny,” artist Tony Abeyta says.
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