Mayonnaise is disgusting, and science agrees

For much of the past year, I have fought a one-sided battle with a popular fast casual restaurant chain that we’ll call “Ready.” Unlike most restaurants, Ready doesn’t make sandwiches, assemble salads, or otherwise perform acts of cookery upon customer request. Instead they sell nominally healthy, whole-ingredient-based pre-made soups, salads, and sandwiches. Because I’m lazy and impatient, I’m Ready’s perfect customer and not just because Ready has a location in Popular Sciences’building. They also have another four locations (including one that sells beer) along my commute. So you’d think that Ready sandwiches would be a regular part of my nutritional rotation. But they aren’t, because Ready’s sandwiches are disgusting.

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“Feces is the universal disgust, like the first disgust,” says Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania who has researched disgust since the 1980s. In addition to being an expert on disgust Rozin is also the researcher who coined the phrase “benign masochism” to explain why some humans enjoy the burn of chili peppers.

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