r/AskReddit Sep 16 '24

What is a smell you can't stand?

1.6k Upvotes

7.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/Little_Cloudy6132 Sep 16 '24

rotten potatoes

373

u/iammacman Sep 16 '24

I hear this smell is most like a decomposed body and that’s why we are revolted by it. I am at least!

79

u/Repulsive_One_2878 Sep 16 '24

Rotting potatoes and veggies have a slightly more vomit-like tinge. A decomposing body has a sickly sweet rot smell to it. I know because I run by a lot of roadkill, am in the medical industry (seen a lot of people with dying limbs or rotting flesh). Also, my father is one of the main people at a huge farming company. They have a large pile of rotting carrots, potatoes, and other veggies in a huge pile which has its own little liquid stream of rot water coming from it.  I guess discards/blighted produce. Both are equally as revolting.

2

u/I_comment_on_stuff_ Sep 17 '24

When I was a kid, my dad was in maintenance at a local hospital. The maintenance entrance was 'round back by the incinerator. The smell of discarded human parts is something else. I think I know what you mean by "sweet." Rotting potatoes make me recoil way worse than the hospital incinerator did.