History Main / UnconventionalFoodUsage

* ''VisualNovel/DaiGyakutenSaibanNaruhodouRyuunosukeNoBouken'' Some rice is used as glue to put a sticker on a closet.

Inverse of IAteWhat, which is when inedible substances are eaten as food, often to the surprise and disgust of the consumer. Contrast ExtremeOmnivore, when people deliberately and willingly eat inedible items. See also AnthropomorphicFood, where the food is people and thus would as a result would be doing all sorts of things food doesn't do. Can be used to invoke ABloodyMess. Sub-trope of NotTheIntendedUse. Compare CordonBleughChef and BizarreTasteInFood, for when the food is still meant to be eaten but is still used in a strange way.

* In ''Film/TheRocketeer'', the rocket pack gets shot by gansters, causing a fuel leak, Peevy uses a wad of chewing gum to patch it back up. [[spoiler: When the [[BigBad Sinclair]] takes the rocket pack at the end, [[TheHero Cliff]] peels back the gum, causing him to explode.]]

* ''ComicStrip/{{Lio}}'' uses [[EveryoneHatesFruitcakes a fruitcake]] as a [[http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2014/12/16 footstool]] to hang up his Christmas stocking.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/77abb577_9b71_4e00_98c3_9215952a58bc.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:That's not what I meant by "use your noodle"... ]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': In Season 3, Buffy and Angel are trying to make things work despite [[CantHaveSexEver Angel's curse]]. One episode opens on them leaving a movie called ''Le Banquet d'Amelia'', which their dialogue indicates was basically a nonstop orgy.

Food that is used as clothing is often played for humour, because the ideal properties of food and clothing are often opposite of each other.

The association of food and sex is highly cross-cultural and often juxtaposed as similar acts of satiation and sometimes that means actually using food for sexual gratification, either to demonstrate a character's decadence or wastefulness, or to be played for humour since, obviously, that's not what you're supposed to do with food.

* FoodSlap: Throwing food or a beverage into someone's face in retaliation for percieved or genuine slights.

Food used as a ChekhovsGun shouldn't be included, unless the fact that it's food is significant.

Inverse of IAteWhat, which is when inedible substances are eaten as food, often to the surprise and disgust of the consumer. Contrast ExtremeOmnivore, when people deliberately and willingly eat inedible items. See also AnthropomorphicFood, where the food is people and thus would as a result would be doing all sorts of things food doesn't do. Can be used to invoke ABloodyMess. Sub-trope of NotTheIntendedUse. Compare CordonBleughChef and BizarreTasteInFood, for when the food is still meant to be eaten, but is still used in a strange way.

* ''ComicBook/{{Chew}}'': As virtually all super powers are food-related, many, many foods are used in strange ways. Chocolate [[KatanasAreJustBetter Katanas]], tortilla throwing stars, PowerArmor made of jello, riot control guns that fire melted chocolate, and nuclear warhead oysters are the tip of the bucket.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' fanfiction ''[[https://theloudhouse.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Metool_Bard/Fanfiction:_Will_Lynn_Tell%3F Will Lynn Tell?]]'', Lynn tries to shoot an apple off Lana's head with an arrow, but accidentally hits a branch, which knocks Lana unconscious.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland1951'', The Mad Hatter and the March Hare try to fix the White Rabbit's watch by pouring whatever food they have around inside it, including butter, jam, tea (naturally) and lemon (but not mustard -- that would be silly).

** Flint uses both liquorice and spaghetti as ropes during the "deactivating the machine" scene, and uses a pimento as a helmet.

* Played with in ''Film/TheFly1986'', in that eating is involved but for an unconventional purpose: After Seth has his EurekaMoment regarding why his telepods cannot safely teleport living things (they had just turned a baboon inside-out), he takes one of the raw steaks reporter/lover Veronica brought over to prepare for dinner, cuts it in two, and teleports one half. He then cooks both and has her taste them, and she can't bring herself to swallow the piece from the teleported one, revealing that the telepods' computer doesn't understand what makes flesh, living or dead, unique and thus cannot correctly reconstitute it. Seth gets to working on reprogramming the pods, and soon living things can be teleported safely ([[TeleporterAccident albeit only one at a time...]]).

* ''Film/ShootEmUp'' starts with a shot of Mr. Smith eating carrots, establishing his preference of the vegetable. A minute later, Smith uses ''another'' carrot to kill a mobster by jamming the carrot into his victim's throat, and somewhere in the second act of the film Smith killed yet another mook with a carrot... via EyeScream.

* ''Literature/{{Arthur}}'': In the book "Arthur's Halloween", Buster uses Jell-O, spaghetti and peeled grapes for [[GrossoutFakeout fake brains, hearts, and eyeballs]] for the Halloween party. Arthur is too squeamish to touch them, much to Francine and Muffy's amusement.

* In a ''WesternAnimation/PinkyDinkyDoo'' book, Pinky makes up a story where her and her classmates make shoes out of food, then later eat the food. This grosses out Tyler, but Pinky {{handwave}}s it by saying, "[[ArtisticLicenseBiology It's a made-up story, so you don't need to worry about dirty food]]."

** Mac uses salt combined with sugar and a small amount of chemical enhanced weed killer to create dynamite with a battery acid, or sulfuric acid, trigger. ("Thief of Budapest")

** While shopping for groceries, Mac concocts home-made tear-gas out of a some selected spices (cayenne pepper), vinegar and baking soda. ("Blow Out")

* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In one episode, Nog pulls a prank on his best friend Jake and Jake's girlfriend Varis. Nog steals the bucket of Odo (an alien who [[BizarreAlienBiology turns into a liquid every sixteen hours]]), fills it with oatmeal, and puts it back. Then, he convinces Jake and Varis to accompany him to steal the bucket and spills the oatmeal on Jake, leading him to believe it's the liquid Odo. Odo punishes the boys by making them clean his office, but Varis has already left by then, so she escapes punishment.

* ''Series/UltramanTaro'': In episode 2 ("This Time It's Ultra Mother"), Kohtaro Higashi (Taro's human host) ends up getting SwallowedWhole by the kaiju Live King, and is unable to transform due to being trapped with a child and a puppy inside Live King's stomach. The ZAT managed to bail Higashi out by having their jets spray copious amounts of pepper (the episode itself said two tonnes?) on Live King's face, causing the monster to sneeze Higashi, the child and puppy out. It works.

** In ''VideoGame/Persona4'', the produce grown in Nanako's garden can have surprising effects in the TV World. For instance, crack wheat can be used to pick the locks on treasure chests, while while daikon seedlings can be used to instantly leave a dungeon the way a Goho-M would.

* The ''WebVideo/FoodBattle'' series by WebVideo/{{Smosh}} is about a competition which revolves around performing everyday tasks with food items, including shaving, playing video games, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick unclogging a toilet]].

** In "Glued, Where's My Bob?", Tina, Gene and Louise put sticky stuff in places for someone else to unknowingly touch, including guacamole and hummus.

** The boys are occasionally knows to use food for purposes other than eating. They use jello to make a giant trampoline, a snow cone machine to create a frozen mountain and licorice to recreate the Gordian knot, though the purpose for the last one was so it would be easy to escape if the knot experiment went sideways.

** In "Brothers are Monsters", Lil uses some sticks of candy to pretend she has fangs. This scares Phil, because he's the younger twin and he'd just heard their uncle say that big sisters could be monsters.

* The Ming Dynasty invented the use of sticky rice mixed with lime in mortar, because the organic compounds of sticky rice were superior to inorganic concrete available at the time. In a tragic version of 'using food instead of eating it', enough rice was used making additions to {{the Great Wall}} of China that triggered a famine.

* The use of chewing-gum as a temporary patch for leaks in fuel tanks and fluid lines is a well-known makeshift in aviation circles, especially in the pioneering days of the earlier twentieth century, where a pilot far from engineering support was expected to know enough about mechanics and maintainence to keep his own plane in the air.

* ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'' has lots of examples due to the plot revolving a lot around food:

* ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2'':
** Gru is once seen wearing a hat made out of corn chip.
** Dr. Nefario laces some jelly with an antidote and loads it into guns to cure some transmogrified minions.

{{Sub Trope}}s include:

Food used as a ChekhovsGun should not be included unless the fact that it is food is significant.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Films-Animation]]

[[folder:Films-Live-Action]]

The ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' franchise consists of edible plant projectiles being used to defeat zombies. Examples include Peashooters (shooting peas), Cob Cannon (launches explosive corn), kernel-pult (they lob kernel but sometimes lob butter that stuns their target), and Cherry Bomb (blows up an area of your choosing).

"If I knew you were going to use it for ''that'' I wouldn't have made it delicious"

* ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'': In "Just Dessert", [[ThePrankster a practical]] joker uses vegetable soup in a rubber hot water bottle to fake throwing up on Callahan's bar. He and his buddies then pull out spoons and scoff down the soup to gross out Mike and his patrons. They get their comeuppance, however, as Doc [[LaxativePrank doses the soup with a powerful emetic while they are eating it]].

* ''Series/SesameStreet'':
** In one sketch, Ernie writes a shopping list with chocolate pudding.
** In an "Abby's Flying Fairy School" cartoon segment, the kids make sculptures and mosaics out of macaroni, then they later use letters from alphabet soup to make a stop sign.
** Oscar's mother used to wash out the mouths of him, his brother Earnest, and his sister Bunny with ice cream instead of [[SoapPunishment soap]] if they were polite.
** In one "Ernie and Bert" skit, they build a snowman and give him a carrot for a nose.

* The ''Creator/ShelSilverstein'' poem "Twenty-Eight Uses for Spaghetti" is about how spaghetti can be used as a substitute for many things, including, but not limited to lassos, guitar strings, and suspenders. It ends with the statement, "Oh- and you can ''eat'' it too."