Nato - quite possibly the most vile snack in the entire world.

Nato (rhymes with lotto) are soybeans that were fermented for several months until they turned into a stinky, yet highly nutritious food loaded with isoflavones. They are a foul, slimy mess. The nato I’ve seen comes in snack-sized shrink-wrapped packages and when you open it, it takes a moment for the smell to assault you but when it does it smells like vomit that has been curing for a while. When you move the beans around with chopsticks or whatever you see that the slime is pasty, shiny and stringy all at the same time and totally looks like mucous. I already have an aversion to stinky foods such as garlic, onions and kimuchi so I couldn’t bring myself to try it.

My friends say that nato is served on Japanese airlines instead of bags of peanuts. I can just imagine the whole cabin filling up with that stench. nato is also served with white rice or put in miso soup.