You Won't Like How I Taste

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Please don't eat me! I'm nothing but skin and bones; I won't make a good meal, and you won't like the way I taste!

Sometimes, food just doesn't agree with you. "You won't like how I taste" or some variation of that phrase is spoken throughout fiction by characters caught between a rock and a slobbering monstrosity trying to eat them. For obvious reasons, it's quite common in animated comedies featuring animal characters, too. The phrase is not usually expected to actually dissuade the predator from attacking—often, not even by the character in question, who'll likely consider it quite radical and far-fetched—but it can be good for stalling, giving our heroes more time to think of an effective means of escape.

In some rare cases, it's related to Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth and Regret Eating Me. Not the opposite of I Taste Delicious.

Examples of You Won't Like How I Taste include:

Anime and Manga

• A Fairy Tail filler includes Happy being abducted by runaways from a dark guild who hope to eat him. What makes his use of this trope odd is that he isn't saying this to stall. He's genuinely concerned that he'll taste bad because he really has to pee.

Comic Books

• In Strontium Dog, a mutant tries to dissuade Durham Red from sucking his blood by saying that he's anemic and, therefore, unappetizing.

Fairy Tales

• The Grimm fairy tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff is likely the trope originator.

Film

• In The Lion King, Zazu says this to the hyenas.

Literature

• Subverted in Mogworld, wherein Jim says the line to a monster, realizing a second later that, being a zombie, he's more than likely telling the truth.
• In Kids Praise 9: The Search For Psalty's Missing 9, Psalty and the kids encounter a tribe of bookibals who plan on eating the main character. One of the kids tries to dissuade them by pointing out Psalty's name is indicative of how he'll taste.
• In James and the Giant Peach, the centipede says this to the huge cloud man.
• In The Silver Chair, a Talking Stag tries this and fails to avoid being eaten by giants. The protagonists overhear them talking about the incident later, which results in an Alien Lunch moment of horror when they realize they are eating the Stag.

Live-Action TV

• A sketch on The Muppet Show has Kermit, as Sindbad the Sailor, telling Sweetums that frogs taste terrible "even with lots of ketchup." To back it up, he asks his crew, "Have I ever been accused of good taste?"
• Inverted in the episode I Was a Teenage Werewolf on Mystery Science Theater 3000, where they have the soon-to-be-first-victim saying "I'm probably very tasty and well-marbled. Not something I've often thought about..."

Tabletop Games

• "Tastes Bad to Monsters" is actually a beneficial status in one tabletop game.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse has the Merit "Bad Taste", which puts any werewolf or other monster who bites you at some disadvantage due to nausea. Unfortunately, it also means that dogs, wolves and other werewolves won't lick your face or hands, which is a problem socially.
• There is a spell in Dungeons & Dragons that turns your blood into an acid that injures any monsters that bite you.
  • And a lower level spell, called "Horrible Taste", which causes nausea in any monster that bites you.

Video Games

• In Super Mario 64 DS, a penguin tells Yoshi not to eat him because he tastes terrible and gives cavities. Yoshi promptly spits him out.
• This is a common response in the second Ys game when Adol turns into a monster. (Ironic, since the monsters in question are harmless kangaroo-like creatures.)

Web Comics

• Digger tries to convince Grim Eyes and other hyenas that she is unclean and therefore inedible.
• In Dreamwalk Journal, Fleur says the line to her hungry spider companion.
• The first chapter of Eerie Cuties; Layla corners a potential victim - well, does so for Nina - who pleads not to be eaten, claiming he has hepatitis and rabies. Layla doesn't buy it, but Nina really doesn't want to feed on him anyway.

Western Animation

• In Totally Spies!, Alex tries it on a giant squid, adding "Once, a mosquito bit me and it was sick for, like, two weeks afterward!"
• Ami, to a sasquatch in Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: "I'm not part of your balanced diet! I'm not kosher!"
• In Taz-Mania, Wendel says it to Taz. Taz tries to eat him anyway and discovers that Wendel was telling the truth.
• In the episode of Aladdin: The Series "Mudder's Day", the heroes are caught by the titanic Al Muddy Sultan, who plans to cook them. Aladdin tries to stall for time by telling him his stew is "inferior", and mentions a rare spice fit for a king that grows on the surface. The sultan is intrigued, but suspicious (as he should be) and tells Aladdin to get it alone. ("They didn't make me Sultan only because I was the biggest," he claims) requiring a change of plan on Aladdin's part.
• Gummi Bears: When captured by the spider-like Spinster, Grammi comments that she's preparing the stew wrong, noting her expertise as a chef. (Gruffi almost blows the plan my noting to himself how her cooking actually is) and then gives her a few suggestions that she claims will help it. Like the Aladdin case, the Spinster is intrigued, but not stupid, and walls the place off with more webbing before leaving.
• In an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder's plan involves flooding the city while the Channel 6 crew is at a restaurant, which results in April trying to go for help using the salad bar as a raft; she is quickly menaced by a hungry shark. She nervously tries to persuade it to leave her be by offering it the salad, but it seems such a notorious carnivore isn't impressed.