A Stock Phrase used by characters who are just about to eat until they hear or see something in particular. Usually the thing heard or seen is something requiring Brain Bleach or Too Much Information. Can happen in cases of Foreign Queasine, Put Off Their Food, Nausea Fuel, or I Ate WHAT?!.
Compare Too Unhappy to Be Hungry. Contrast Inappropriate Hunger and Autopsy Snack Time. A mild form of Literally Apoplectic.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Devil May Cry: The Animated Series: Episode 5 "In Private" ends with Dante about to eat his strawberry sundae, only to be interrupted by Isaac sharing his table and ordering a sundae as well. Dante says the stock phrase, but in a heartwarming and funny sense because Isaac was munching fast and loud.
Dante: [exhales] You're kinda making me lose my appetite, dude.
- Seitokai Yakuindomo: A rare example of the cause not being disgusting, Mutsumi Mitsuba says this when Takatoshi Tsuda, who she has a crush on, appears.
- In the dub version of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yuya loses his appetite at the sight of Reed's Cookpal monsters. (In the original version, he thinks they look delicious, which is kind of disturbing.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes
- Calvin's mom offers him a jelly doughnut out of a paper sack. Calvin refuses because the jelly always comes out the far side whenever he bites into them, like a giant bug with its guts falling out. Mom glances aside as she pushes the bag away: "And my friends wonder how I stay so thin..."
- A Running Gag is one of Calvin's parents getting him to eat a meal that initially put him off by claiming it's something super gross like monkey heads or spider pie, which reliably gets both Calvin eating it voraciously and the other parent completely losing interest.
- In one FoxTrot cartoon, Paige is in her biology class in the first three panels, doing experiments dissecting frogs and looking at fly maggots. In the last panel, she and Nichole are in the cafeteria, both looking sick, where she says, "I'm surprised no-one has ever tried to market the 'fifth period biology class diet'."
- Garfield:
- In the 1987/12/06 strip, Garfield is eating and Jon starts talking about the time he laughed so much, soda came out of his nose. "It felt like it was fizzing inside my brain!"
Garfield: You've just made history, Jon. I can't finish my meal.
- Jon makes history again in the 1994/06/21 strip, when he brings Garfield a truly ugly looking fish for lunch. It's so disgusting looking Garfield instanly loses his appetite.
- Of course, as shown on 1999/10/06, no one can make someone lose their appetite like Irma, the owner of an infamous diner, can.
- Also, happens to Liz in the 2013/07/07 strip (Note that she's a vet, so the fact that Garfield could make her sick to her stomach is saying something.)
- In the 1987/12/06 strip, Garfield is eating and Jon starts talking about the time he laughed so much, soda came out of his nose. "It felt like it was fizzing inside my brain!"
Fan Works
- Here Comes the New Boss: After hearing her schoolmates talk about how "you never hear about villains turning hero," Taylor manages to finish her lunch but barely tastes it.
Films — Animated
- Antz:
Chip: You have such a big heart. That's why you're my little cuddly-widdles.Muffy: Oh, my big, strong pheromone factory.[they Eskimo kiss]Z: Oh, brother. Suddenly, I just lost my appetite.
- Balto: Steele (a Siberian Husky) and Balto (a wolf-dog hybrid) are competing for the affections of Jenna (also a Siberian Husky).
Steele: Let's celebrate. I know where all the bones are buried.Jenna: I don't know, Steele. Suddenly I've lost my appetite.Steele: Well, maybe your taste runs more toward.. wolf.
- The Thief and the Cobbler:
Phido the Vulture: Is this when we eat? I need to eat, I don't see any food; I'm still hungry here. [sees One-Eye] I think I just lost my appetite.
Films — Live-Action
- Strange Days:
Max: [after seeing a dead body] Well, I've lost my appetite. [throws food away] For about a year.
Literature
- Chrysalis (RinoZ): Upon seeing the results of an empowered gravity well (ie lots of flattened monsters), Anthony is too disgusted to feel like eating the hapless victims. The chapter is even titled, "I May Never Eat Pancakes Again."
For some reason… I'm just not hungry.
- Comes up in Galaxy of Fear: The Hunger. Zak is offered some amazing-smelling stew, and wants to check on someone who was hurt helping him first. The poor guy looks awful, and when Zak comes back he's lost his appetite. But he notes that his body is still hungry - he hasn't eaten in a day - so he accepts a bowl anyway.
- Granny Weatherwax in A Hat Full of Sky spends the night sharing minds with an owl. The next morning, she declines the thought of breakfast.
Granny Weatherwax: I don't want to eat anything. The owl I was in was eating voles all night.
Tiffany Aching: Yes, but that wasn't you eating them, was it?
Granny Weatherwax: No. But if you thought you'd been eating voles all night, you'd be amazed how much you don't want to eat the next morning. Or ever again. - In the Warrior Cats book Tallstar's Revenge, Tallpaw is having a meal with his denmate Barkpaw. Barkpaw starts talking enthusiastically about how he just learned how to treat infected wounds, and how he used it on an elder who had a nasty swollen tick bite. Tallpaw feels increasingly sick and no longer hungry at the descriptions and tries to change the subject.
Live-Action TV
- Arrested Development:
[Lindsay Funke has just been denied entrance to a high-end restaurant]
Lindsay Funke: Let's just go, I've suddenly lost my appetite.
Lucille Bluth: Oh, who's gonna believe that? - Bar Rescue: More than a few kitchens have prepared food that the spies refused to eat, based purely on the sight or smell of it, or after being alerted to unsanitary kitchen conditions by Taffer. On a few other occasions, they weren't so lucky.
- Bones: Booth is eating a burger when he gets a call from Bones saying she's found that the victim was eaten. By a human. He throws away the rest of his burger.
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Wish":
The Master: [holds up a young girl] Hungry? I've lost my appetite for this one. She keeps looking at me. I'm trying to eat and she looks at me!
- Fall of Eagles:
- Georges Clemenceau specifically warns Wickham Steed not to ruin his appetite with any rumors that might upset him. However, when King Edward VII and Alexander Isvolsky teasingly encourage the journalist to share some confidential information with them, Clemenceau decides to spice up the matter by betting that Steed can't tell the ambassadors anything they don't already know... only for Steed to oblige by revealing that the Emperor of Austria is planning to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina
. Once Steed's left with his money, the French ambassador attempts to continue eating, only to put down his fork in disgust a moment later.
Clemenceau: Damn your Wickham Steed. Spoiled my lunch after all. - Happens again at the very end of the same episode: at a breakfast meeting, King Edward VII discusses the aftereffects of the Bosnian crisis: among other things, Austria's attempts to gain independence from Germany have backfired, the Serbs have been denied compensation for the annexation, and Russia's efforts to open the Dardanelles via a secret bargain with Austria have ended in yet another humiliating failure - meaning that relationships between the two countries are more strained than ever, setting the stage for World War I. Realizing just how badly things have gone, the King wearily pushes his plate aside.
- Georges Clemenceau specifically warns Wickham Steed not to ruin his appetite with any rumors that might upset him. However, when King Edward VII and Alexander Isvolsky teasingly encourage the journalist to share some confidential information with them, Clemenceau decides to spice up the matter by betting that Steed can't tell the ambassadors anything they don't already know... only for Steed to oblige by revealing that the Emperor of Austria is planning to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Happens twice to Chandler on Friends, when someone says something disgusting ("they actually eat the placenta"/"I'm gonna miss that big old squishy butt"), causing him to respond, "And we're done with the yogurt"/"chicken fried rice" and putting the food down.
- Averted in House when Thirteen tries to squick out Chase (who is eating a sandwich) with the contents of the Patient of the Week's recent meals, including testicles, cow brain, and — her personal favorite — "pig rectum, with a side order of sphincter". Chase just looks at her defiantly and takes another bite.
Taub: I think they call that "breakfast" in Australia.
- M*A*S*H: as BJ relays to Hawkeye instructions on birthing a calf via the PA system ("you may have to stick your arm in all the way to the shoulder") we see a shot of the mess tent where everybody pushes their trays away.
- On Misfits, Nikki does this when Nathan casually shows her the bucket he has on stand-by for bathroom emergencies.
- Supernatural: Subverted in "Time Is On My Side". Dean is eating a hamburger while Sam lays out his theory that they're hunting an Immortal Mad Doctor from the 19th-century, including describing the disgusting contemporary medical techniques the doc uses such as implanting maggots to clear infected tissue. Dean protests a couple of times, and Sam is clearly playing up the grossness to invoke this trope for his own amusement, but Dean ultimately decides he's still hungry.
Sam: Lost your appetite yet?
Dean: [considers his burger for a moment] Oh baby, I can't stay mad at you. [takes a bite]
Radio
- Our Miss Brooks:
- Early radio episodes have Mrs. Davis preparing some form of Foreign Queasine (like "Armenian Pancakes" or "whale blubber burgers") or using her skill as a Cordon Bleugh Chef at breakfast (pine cones covered in sugar) to ruin Connie's appetite.
- In the radio episode "Dress Code Protest", Stretch Snodgrass relates to Miss Brooks how, after eating sixteen hamburgers, he lost the hamburger eating contest when he toppled off his stool. The boy in first place won a banana split. This causes Miss Brooks to lose her appetite.
- In the television episode "The Birthday Bag" (a Sound-to-Screen Adaptation of "Surprise Party"), Miss Brooks loses her appetite when Mrs. Davis mixes together a one minute egg, a four minute egg and a burnt piece of toast.
- "Swap Week" has Miss Brooks skip breakfast when Mrs. Davis cooks a hearty meal of veal scaloppini and garlic bread. The jokes on Miss Brooks, as that turns out to be the lunch special at the Madison High School cafeteria.
Video Games
- Chrono Trigger: One cutscene in the medieval castle has the captain of the guard and the head chef butting heads over the former's food not being ready. The captain eventually leaves, claiming he's lost his appetite for meat braised in cowardice. It turns out the two are brothers.
- In Mass Effect 2, Grunt enthusiastically tells Shepard about one of the images he saw in his tank — one of a mutilated turian. Shepard isn't quite so excited.
Shepard: I hope you have a good reason for ruining my lunch.
- Cassie Cage says this after witnessing Mileena's Cruel and Unusual Death at the hands of D'Vorah in Mortal Kombat X.
Cassie: Well, thanks for that. I know I'll never eat again...
- Persona 3: Akihiko says this after hearing about Strega's growing influence involving The Fall.
- In Persona 4, the Main Character can tell Yosuke this just before sampling Chie's and Yukiko's curry.
Visual Novels
- The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty: In Liang Chapter 4, the group outright admits having lost their appetite for hours after seeing a corpse.
Webcomics
- Hello from Halo Head: Chloe says this word-for-word when she and Pepper are discussing how Peachykeen makes peaches appear in trees. Chloe interprets Pepper's speculation as Peachy "fucking the flowers". She is eating a bowl of fruit at the time.
Pepper: Well I dunno, maybe she can, is she like actually part plant...Chloe: Ew, I'm trying to eat a fruit bowl.
- Trevor (2020) has a non-verbal example: The security guard loses his appetite for the noodles be brought to work when he overhears the medical team talking about the upcoming autopsy, and wordlessly tosses them to the side.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: In "Bullocks to Stan", Hayley breaks up with Deputy Bullock and goes back to Jeff, causing Bullock to try to kill him in a fit of jealous rage. During the fight at a diner (to which Bullock made Stan carry him like a horse), Hayley outraged that Stan is more concerned with ordering some food than helping her boyfriend.
Stan: Hey, I'm hungry! This guy rode me like an animal for three hours! Do you have any idea what that's like?Hayley: [raises her eyebrows]Stan: ...And now I'm not hungry.
- Futurama: In the "The Prisoner of Benda", Amy claims to have lost her appetite forever after seeing Fry and Leela make out in Prof. Farnsworth's and Zoidberg's bodies.
- Kim Possible: Mr. Dr. P. is put off his dinner by Kim and Ron's recounting of how Ron vomited on a clown the last time he went to the fair. Rufus is only delighted to have the food to himself.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: In "Prahmises", Dave has this reaction when Song reveals that Dr. Emilia murdered her own brother for befriending Mutes.
Dave: For the first time in my 200 years of life, I lost my appetite. [Beat; he scarfs down a cupcake] Okay, it's... i-it's back. It... It was gone, though, it was.
- Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: In one episode the ever-hungry Shaggy says this after being spooked by a hermit.
- The Simpsons: In the third segment of "Treehouse of Horror IX", the family is eating breakfast when Maggie's first baby tooth comes in, and they're shocked when they see it looks more like a sharp fang.
Homer: I just lost my appetite.Lisa: Me, too.Homer: Wait, mine came back! [eats out of Lisa's bowl]
- Superman: The Animated Series: In "Identity Crisis", Bizarro remembers he asked Lois out before he started to degenerate, so he kidnaps her, and breaks into a restaurant; unfortunately, his manners are atrocious. When he asks Lois if she wants anything, she replies, "Oh, no thanks, I had a big lunch... [aside] Which I'm about to lose..."
- Teen Titans: In "Betrothed", Beast Boy loses his appetite after seeing how Starfire and her fellow Tameranians eat (Basically, table manners are nonexistent on her planet, and the food doesn't look very appetizing). Cyborg, however, is more open-minded.
- Tiny Toon Adventures
Buster: Hey-a, Loon girl. Any guess as what today's mystery meal is?Shirley: Oooh, like, this requires telekinetic communication, Buster. I'll have to, like, meld with the meal. Okay, it's coming. I am... I am... poultry.Plucky: Let's do lunch.Shirley: Ewwww, I just lost my appetite!
- The Wild Thornberrys: In "The Origin of Donnie", Darwin says this when Eliza has to pre-chew a piece of fruit for a baby orangutan to eat.