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August 21, 2014
Anchovies: unloved.
Anchovies: unloved.

What’s the quickest way to persuade unwanted house guests that it is time to leave?

Simple, just dish up a meal that contains anchovies, blue cheese, mushrooms, avocado or olives.

They are all in a top ten of Britons’ most unpopular foods.

Compiled by Birds Eye, the survey found that anchovies were the least liked food with 44% of people surveyed citing them as their most disliked ingredients. Chicken liver came second with 41%.

Rover takes one for the team

The survey also asked how people avoided foods they didn’t like when they were guests at other peoples’ houses.

One in ten women said that they had slipped the offending items into their handbags while 20% of us had gone for the old surreptitiously feeding the dog trick.

Apparently, 78 per cent of women will eat food they find offensive food to avoid upsetting their host.

Men are less polite with 57% prepared to eat the food and save the blushes of their host.

Tripe boost?

The fantastic spoof Tripe Marketing Board (motto: Tripe. Yesterday’s food. Today.)greeted news of the top ten with the immortal headline It’s official: Tripe now more popular than anchovies.

The TMB noted that ‘Tripe failed to feature in the top 10 most disliked foods… an improvement since the last similar survey in June 2014, when tripe ranked 7th.’

Here’s the list in full:

1) Anchovies (44 per cent)

2) Chicken liver (41 per cent)

3) Olives (39 per cent)

4) Black pudding (39 per cent)

5) Blue cheese (38 per cent)

6) Goats cheese (27 per cent)

7) Avocado (24 per cent)

8) Brussel sprouts (24 per cent)

9) Salami (20 per cent)

10) Mushrooms (15 per cent)