Name: The chicken ick.
Age: Chickens have been around since, well, eggs …
Unless it’s the other way round. Whatever. The chicken ick, on the other hand, is new.
And what is it, please? You know when you suddenly feel disgusted by the chicken you’re eating, possibly mid-bite, despite previously enjoying it?
Er, not really, to be honest. OK, so you don’t suffer from the chicken ick.
Who does? Some people on TikTok, where the phrase has gone viral.
Chicky icky tikky tokky … is this some kind of joke? Not at all. As well as an online phenomenon, the chicken ick is an actual thing.
Says who? Says Dr Lorenzo Stafford.
And who is Dr Stafford? Associate professor in psychobiological psychology at the University of Portsmouth. He’s been researching how our senses (smell and taste mostly, when it comes to food) affect our behaviour.
And the ick bit? Is about how we deal with our disgust response.
What causes this disgust response, though? It can be a number of things, says Stafford, writing in The Conversation. Perhaps you notice that it tastes, smells or looks different from other times you’ve eaten it.
And because it’s not what you expected, you feel differently towards it? Exactly. It might also be that if someone else expresses disgust at a dish, this can affect your own response.
You can catch the ick from someone else? It’s known in the business as emotional contagion. Stafford says an ick can also be brought on by what you were doing before.
Such as? “If you were scrolling on social media looking at unappetising meals before starting to cook your own meal, this can influence the way you subsequently feel about your own food,” he writes.
Hang on, so you doomscroll icky food, make a chicken casserole, get the ick … Then upload the whole debacle to TikTok. Welcome to the modern world.
Is it only about chicken? It could be any food, but it’s mainly about chicken on social media, probably because chicken already has the ick in it, innit …
So do pickled eggs. Ew!
Anyway, what can you do about it? Is there a cure? Stafford suggests trying a different chicken recipe next time, to help “unlearn your disgust”. Alternatively, get someone else to cook it for you. Sam’s, Dave’s, Colonel Sanders: take your pick.
Do say: “There’s no ick in a veggie burger.”
Don’t say: “Have you tried this new recipe for boiled chicken and banana?”
Source:
www.theguardian.com
