‘Orange devils’: Mr Griffiths had to hide in the back while other chefs prepared breakfast (Picture: INS)

A chef has been forced to quit his job because of an uncontrollable fear – of baked beans.

Rob Griffiths, 31, left his job as a pub chef in Milton Keynes because he felt faint every time he saw the food.

The ex-chef believes his rare fear – technically known as leguminophobia – was a result of his brothers throwing beans at him as a child.

‘I get shaky and I just have to run if they’re anywhere near me,’ he said.


‘I was a pub chef and breakfast was hard.

‘Staff had to prepare the beans while I hid in the back.

Mr Griffiths reveals he gets shaky if baked beans are near him (Picture: spaxiax)

Mr Griffiths, who now works as a window cleaner, said he can’t even go near the beans – which he calls ‘orange devils’ – when they’re in tins in the supermarket.



‘It is very distressing,’ he admitted.

Research using mice has suggested irrational fears may be passed down genetically.

An experience with a poisonous spider, for example, causes chemical changes in DNA that are then passed on to offspring in the form of a phobia.

Perhaps one of Mr Griffith’s ancestors had a particularly nasty encounter with a baked bean…