Which of these infuriating food habits gets you boiling over?

From slurping noises to empty cartons left in the fridge, we take a look at some of the most irritating food habits, the reasons they grate and how you can stop them from ruining your day.

On Facebook, we asked which food habits you find most annoying – and you had OPINIONS.

From teabags abandoned on worktops and crumbs smeared in butter to empty containers left in the fridge and audible eating, the list of culinary crimes we’ve compiled is lengthy to say the least.

So which food habits are the most annoying and how can we handle the blazing fury they trigger? We spoke to clinical psychologist Dr Jane Gregory to get the low down.

Which of these bad food habits are the most hated?

Here are the habits that were voted the most widely hated on our Facebook page. Have your say on which of these frankly outrageous behaviours is the most infuriating and see how your opinion compares to the general consensus.

How to avoid boiling over

The chances are, the person who’s got your temper a blaze by leaving their dirty dishes directly on top of – as opposed to, you know, inside – the dishwasher, didn’t do it to enrage and dismay. Plus, letting yourself get wound up isn’t going to leave you in great stead for the rest of the day.

So, here’s how to extinguish those flames of anger before your smoke alarm starts sounding.

Choose flight over fight

Picture it: you’ve just brewed a tea after checking you have milk. You reach inside the fridge for the carton only to realise it is, in fact, empty – just as the perpetrator strides, carefree and jovial, into the room.

If you can feel hot anger rising in the moment, the best thing you can do is remove yourself, says Gregory. And the sooner, the better. “When you’re that annoyed, you can’t rationalise the situation. You can’t be compassionate or understanding towards the other person – your brain is already in danger mode. So, the best thing to do is walk away and take a little break.

“Sometimes, when you come back into the situation after that you will feel a bit more in control as you're choosing to react to the situation rather than having it thrust upon you.”

Comfort yourself

“If you find yourself internalising your frustrations, asking yourself things like, ‘What’s wrong with me? Why am I reacting like this? Am I a horrible person?’ Then offer yourself comfort,” says Gregory. “Tell yourself it’s OK that you’re reacting this way – we’re allowed to have strong feelings.

“If you’re feeling overwhelmed, validate that feeling. Tell yourself ‘Yep, this is hard, I don't like what they're doing, but they are allowed to be here and they're not trying to cause me harm.”

Remind yourself people aren’t trying to upset you

Remember, most of the time, the intent of the person with the annoying food behavior wasn’t to offend you.

“There's some research about explosive anger,” says Gregory. “It highlights that often the reaction is disproportionate to the actual consequences of the behaviour.

“Sometimes it's because someone has broken the rules. That anger we feel when faced with the empty milk bottle in the fridge comes down to the thought that ‘there's an agreement here that helps us to all get along and to be able to coexist, and you're not reciprocating. I'm doing my part but you're not’.

“The intensity of the reaction is about the violation of those rules. And that can feel threatening. You might then ask yourself, if this rule can be broken, what other ones will be? What else aren't they going to reciprocate?

“Unfortunately, it's usually just that someone habitually, mindlessly, puts the milk bottle back or – at most – doesn’t want to be the one to have to replace the milk. While it's annoying, it wasn’t intended to upset you.

“If it keeps happening, ask yourself: ‘What's the actual consequence of this?’ Allow yourself to be annoyed by it, but state the reality of the consequence, not what you feel it means."

Discuss it – but not in the moment

“The number one rule is don't talk about it when you're angry,” says Gregory. "If you’re discussing it in anger, the other person is much less likely to change because they're being criticised for something bigger than what they're actually doing. And, unsurprisingly, this makes people really defensive.

“Taking some time to gain perspective will help you to communicate your view. This might mean owning your feelings, for example saying ‘I know this is irrational, but it drives me mad when you do that. Can we figure out a way to solve this problem?’

“This helps to explain how you feel while keeping it proportionate to what's happened, and also to involve them with coming up with a solution. This way, the other person has a chance to choose whether they want to change based on how it makes you feel."

Slurping, crunching, lip-smacking: there’s no end to the offensive food noises we must tolerate in others. Gregory has spent years looking into how and when an aversion to these sounds tips the balance into debilitating disorder. It’s called misphonia, and it’s a recognised condition, albeit one that’s still lacking in research.

“Misophonia is a decreased tolerance of specific sounds. It doesn't really matter about the volume of the sound, it's more about the repetitive nature, the pattern of the sound or the specific meaning to the person who's hearing it. The most common sounds to bother people are eating and general mouth noises, heavy breathing, coughing, sniffing, that kind of thing.”

“Most people don't like the sound of loud eating – it’s normal to find it annoying or a bit disgusting. But the difference between just not liking it and misophonia is in the nature of the reaction.

“For people with the disorder, it might bring on anger, anxiety or a distress response, and could make you feel trapped or helpless – like something bad's going to happen if you can't get away from the sounds. People without misophonia will feel annoyed or vaguely disgusted, but not experience that kind of explosive reaction.”

Misophonia was classified as a disorder in a 2022 study. There is no clearly defined treatment plan, though experts – including Gregory, who also has misophonia – are on the road to establishing one.

“A study I’ve been involved with at Kings College University highlights how common this disorder is: nearly one in five people have it. What we haven’t yet established is how frequently it interferes with people's lives – for instance, disrupting their relationships or work.”

Various treatments are being trialled, says Gregory. “For instance, some audiologists use in-ear devices which play certain frequencies to mask triggers in the environment.

“Within psychology, there has been one randomised control trial using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), which is also what we use at our clinic in Oxford. The basis behind this is that your brain has made connections between a sound and either being in danger or feeling like you’ve been violated – having your boundaries crossed in some way. CBT is about trying to break those connections. It could involve talking through what might have happened in childhood that could have helped to create those connections but also creating new connections so they’re less threatening.

“For instance, there was a study where people were shown one of two videos. The first was a person making food noises, the other had the same sounds but it looked like a puppy was making them. The people watching the puppy version had a far less intense reaction."

If you’re, say, in a meeting at work with someone who's eating, don’t suffer in silence – just try to be diplomatic. “You could say something like, ‘look I know this sounds weird, but I can’t concentrate when I hear eating, is there a way we can postpone this until you’ve finished your food?’ Own that it’s not a typical reaction but allow them to be part of the solution,” suggests Gregory.

Originally published March 2022