For Your Loathed Ones: Worst Holiday Foodie Gifts

Let's face it, there's a lot of bad holiday food getting passed around there. You have your heirloom fruitcake. Then there's the box of summer sausage with "cheese food" and crackers. The dusty candy box of Christmas past. Regifted decorative bottles of flavored oil you'll never use. Broken candy canes. Let's not forget the weird meats of the month club. Rattlesnake, huh?

You know not to send anyone those gifts.

But maybe there's someone truly deserving on your gift list, someone you're obligated to send something, but someone you secretly hate. What do you send these lucky souls?

We'll tell you what ...

Edible Bling Spray: Food is so boring by itself. You know what it needs? Shiny gold spray.

Generic Fruit Basket: Nothing says "Dear X, have a moderately tolerable holiday season" like a basket full of hard, under-ripe, out-of-season pears. Go on, throw in a bottle of two-buck Chuck while you're at it.

Wrigley’s Fabulous Fruit Gum Gift Basket™:  For the dentist who handled your root canal and kept telling you "that's enough Novocaine!"

Canned Ham: Cured with SODIUM ERYTHOBATE -- my favorite!

DIY Nut Job: Thanks for the decorative tin filled with walnuts and pecans -- that I have to shell myself! Do I look like I have a lot of time on my hands?

World's Largest Gummy Worm: Eeeeeew! Unless you are sending this to a 7-year-old boy, in which case this is genius.

Artisan Kimchi: Look, I love this stuff. And it's on every hipster foodie list I've seen this season. Seriously. But am I sending it to my sister? My son's teacher? My 85-year-old mother-in-law? Hell no. Give the the gift of kimchi only to your most adventurous foodie friends; otherwise, you're just showing off.

Four Loko: For the college students in your life. Bundle with a can of instant coffee and you have the perfect study aid!

Fetal Bites Cookie Cutters: Bake your family a batch of controversy. Guaranteed to start a family feud -- and let's face it, no family holiday is complete without at least one screaming match, right. (Oh fine, I guess that's just my family.)

And finally, my least-favorite food gift of all: anything labeled with the word GOURMET. If you have to slap it on the bottle, it probably isn't.

What bad holiday foods will you be gifting your frenemies this year?

Images via Evil Erin/Flickr, Firebox.com, Anna and Andy/Flickr,  GourmetGiftBaskets.com, Walmart, IainBuchanan/Flickr, Vat19.com, MILKimchi.com, DrinkFour.com, hogmalion.com.