Top 10 Grossest Fear Factor Food Challenges

These distinctive caterpillars eventually grow into the five-spotted hawkmoth, and they are a major pest in gardens, earning their name for their love of tomatoes. These caterpillars can reach up to four inches in length and are incredibly thick, doing everything they possibly can to signal to humans, “Do not eat me.” But this is “Fear Factor”, so of course they’re going to be eaten. The idea of chowing down on live caterpillars is gross enough, but what elevates this challenge to nightmarish levels is the juicy squirt that accompanies each bite. The squishy sound and the resulting burst is enough to make someone puke. Then again, that’s entirely the point.

Some people are huge fans of raw fish, others just hate the idea. But raw fish is infinitely more desirable than maggots and cockroaches. Anthony proves to be one of the toughest contestants in the show’s history, downing cockroach and maggot rolls like they’re nothing. But things get a little rocky when it comes to the rotten squid. The squishing sound of Anthony’s chewing is like ASMR torture, and the food (if you want to call it that) proves disgusting enough that Anthony nearly gags. Even Joe Rogan does a facepalm, knowing that what he’s watching is absolutely ridiculous. And this man has seen many disgusting things on the show.

That’s right: not just cow eyeballs, cow eyeball juice. We don’t know how people come up with this stuff. This bizarre stunt saw the contestants grabbing cow eyeballs with their mouths, biting into them to release the juices, and then drinking said juice out of a cup. Rogan doesn’t help by describing the “pop” and the “stink” of the eyeballs, and the sight of mushy black liquid filling the glass is positively horrific. One contestant described the taste as “salty dirt water” but downed the glass nevertheless. It could taste like peaches and cream for all we care - it’s the concept behind this challenge that’s hard to get behind.

And when we say “raw”, we mean raw. As in, straight from the udder. This challenge is similar to the cow eyeball one in that contestants were forced to, um, “withdraw” milk from the goat, spit it into a glass, and then down the glass once it hit a certain threshold. Drinking raw goat’s milk isn’t so bad, and we’re sure plenty of people would do it for $50,000. But getting a little too personal with the goat and then drinking the regurgitated and saliva-filled milk from a glass? Now we’ve got a challenge.

Of course it’s not just pizza. It’s a special “Fear Factor” pizza made just for the contestants. The challenge started with contestants throwing pizza plates into various pots. Whatever pots the plates landed in dictated what toppings were put on their pizza. Said toppings included red worms and fish eyes. But it’s the base of the pizza that really makes the challenge. As Rogan explains, the pizza is composed of “a bile extract crust, coagulated blood paste, [and] stinky, nasty, moldy cheese.” It’s so revolting that contestants were given ten minutes to eat a single slice. This isn’t like cow eyeball juice that can be downed in seconds. No, this is prolonged torture.

“Fear Factor” celebrated Christmas the only way it knew how - by making the contestants eat horrific Christmas-themed foods. They were forced to eat deer balls and wash them down with 100-year-old eggnog. It’s a one-two punch of utter brutality. The eggnog looks dreadful, appearing more like tar with its thick, mushy consistency and blackish-green color. Drinking century-old eggnog would make for a challenge on its own, but pairing it with raw reindeer adds another dimension that makes this one of the nastiest challenges in “Fear Factor” history. Somehow, we don’t think this is replacing turkey and wine for Christmas dinner...

“Fear Factor” often skirted the line between disgusting and straight-up immoral. In this case, it may have crossed over. This challenge saw contestants picking up rotting roadkill with a shovel and launching it against a target. Where they landed on the target dictated how much roadkill they had to eat, with a bullseye giving them a complete pass. The food consisted of cold “organ meat” and the maggots that can be seen crawling on it. One contestant straight up quit before eating, and another relentlessly gagged as she shovelled down the gray and stringy meat. We assume this is safe to eat, otherwise it wouldn’t be legal. But still, this is absolutely sickening.

Well, we’re not going to sugarcoat anything - eating horse butt would prove one daunting task. In this ridiculous challenge, contestants were forced to eat horse rectum. The meat had a ghastly pale color and left a chunky residue all over the contestants’ hands, and by all accounts it tasted horrible. Then again, we didn’t expect horse butt to taste particularly good. One contestant actually ate twelve inches of the rectum before nearly puking and running out of time. We couldn’t imagine eating twelve inches of horse rectum for nothing. Talk about demoralising.

If the road kill stunt skirted the line between disgusting and immoral, then the blended rat segment is firmly in the latter camp. One of the most notorious stunts in “Fear Factor” history saw the contestants eating an entire bowl full of blended rats. Eating a whole rat would prove nasty enough, but blending it and turning it into a thick smoothie is so much worse. In fact, one Cleveland man actually sued NBC for $2.5 million, claiming that the stunt caused him to vomit and grow lightheaded. The case was thrown out of court for being frivolous, but it just goes to prove the boundaries that “Fear Factor” was pushing by its fifth season.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Camel Spider
Contestants Were Forced to Eat Entire Live Camel Spiders

Sheep Eyes
Entire Eyeballs That Popped in the Mouth

Bug Wedding Cake
The Cake Was Filled with Live Bugs & Contestants Had to Chew and Drink the Juice

“Fear Factor” Pies
Contestants Had to Find Coins Inside Disgusting Pies & Then Drink It in Smoothie Form

“Fear Factor” eventually pushed the envelope a little too far, and it got them in a lot of trouble. In the series’ most notorious episode, contestants were forced to drink so-called “donkey juice”. We won’t go into details - just know that it is incredibly graphic and unbelievably disgusting. One of the contestants told Fox News that both she and the camera men were vomiting during the skit, and Joe Rogan admitted on his podcast that the stunt went too far. Even “Fear Factor” wasn’t ready to commit, avoiding details and calling it “the unimaginable” in their official episode description. The episode was pulled from NBC before it aired, and the revived series was officially cancelled just four months later.