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Eating Non-Food Items (Pica; Eating Stunts; Etc.)

Yup, it's called vernix and is normal.

My mother craved sour foods when she was expecting me. Look how I turned out! :lol:
 
escargot1 said:
Yup, it's called vernix and is normal.

My mother craved sour foods when she was expecting me. Look how I turned out! :lol:
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She ate snails in lemon butter sauce?
 
They do say as how the Dublin hostas're coming up big this year.
 
escargot1 said:
They do say as how the Dublin hostas're coming up big this year.
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Sounds like a possible hosta situation.
 
escargot1 said:
My mother craved sour foods when she was expecting me. Look how I turned out! :lol:
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Somehow reading all this gave me a craving for pickles. Fortunately I'm sitting in teh kitchen next to the fridge. I think I'll take another one :)
 
Here's something that I remember quite clearly, but no-one else I've ever asked remembers or believes.

In the early-mid 80s, there was a French guy who made occasional guest appearances on kids TV shows, his party piece was that he could eat anything - he would be interviewed whilst munching on a lightbulb, for instance.

In the first episode of a series of Record Breakers, Roy Castle announced that the French man would, throughout the remainder of the series, eat a plane, and he strolled over to a corner of the studio where our hungry hero stood next to a small light aircraft. Every week for the rest of the series, Roy would walk over to the corner to see how the Gallic glutton was getting on, and we'd see him chewing a propeller or chomping away at a piece of wing.

I'm really surprised that I've never encountered anyone else who remembers this - does anyone here recall seeing this?
 
Kryptonite said:
Here's something that I remember quite clearly, but no-one else I've ever asked remembers or believes.

In the early-mid 80s, there was a French guy who made occasional guest appearances on kids TV shows, his party piece was that he could eat anything - he would be interviewed whilst munching on a lightbulb, for instance.

In the first episode of a series of Record Breakers, Roy Castle announced that the French man would, throughout the remainder of the series, eat a plane, and he strolled over to a corner of the studio where our hungry hero stood next to a small light aircraft. Every week for the rest of the series, Roy would walk over to the corner to see how the Gallic glutton was getting on, and we'd see him chewing a propeller or chomping away at a piece of wing.

I'm really surprised that I've never encountered anyone else who remembers this - does anyone here recall seeing this?
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I remember it.
I saw it.
Monsieur Mangetout.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I remember it.
I saw it.
Monsieur Mangetout.
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Yep, as soon as I read that name, it sounded right! I've just read an article online about him (weirdly, I'm sure I googled this a few years ago and couldn't find anything). Interesting to hear that he suffered serious stab wounds in an attack in 1981, but recovered enough to eat an entire robot only three weeks later.

What a guy!
 
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Chewing a light bulb, God I'd forgotton about that
'RIP Monsieur Mangetout, the first person to have a coffin inside them, rather than the other way around'.
 
I always found the wilder stunts - a pine tree, bicycles, the plane etc - logistically hard to believe. As in, I accept that he swallowed metal and glass and bark and bolts (there's lots of proof, xrays and so on) but it's the volume. Think how long a cooked 16lb turkey lasts at Xmas - two or three days? A Cessna weighs 1,100lb. Even over 2 years, I call BS.
 
stuneville said:
I always found the wilder stunts - a pine tree, bicycles, the plane etc - logistically hard to believe. As in, I accept that he swallowed metal and glass and bark and bolts (there's lots of proof, xrays and so on) but it's the volume. Think how long a cooked 16lb turkey lasts at Xmas - two or three days? A Cessna weighs 1,100lb. Even over 2 years, I call BS.
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Roy Castle a liar ? You flippin' well take that back ! Admittedly I only saw Mangetout chew on a Cessna windscreen rubber trim but he looked hungry.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Roy Castle a liar ? You flippin' well take that back ! Admittedly I only saw Mangetout chew on a Cessna windscreen rubber trim but he looked hungry.
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I remember seeing him eat glass as well. Guy was mad.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Roy Castle a liar ? You flippin' well take that back ! Admittedly I only saw Mangetout chew on a Cessna windscreen rubber trim but he looked hungry.
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Roy Castle gave my mum a kiss once at one of his charity tap dancing things .. not a snog or anything, we've got the photo somewhere.
 
stuneville said:
I always found the wilder stunts - a pine tree, bicycles, the plane etc - logistically hard to believe. As in, I accept that he swallowed metal and glass and bark and bolts (there's lots of proof, xrays and so on) but it's the volume. Think how long a cooked 16lb turkey lasts at Xmas - two or three days? A Cessna weighs 1,100lb. Even over 2 years, I call BS.
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Sources say he consumed 2lbs or so a day of stuff so a 1,100 lb Cessna over two years would be well within his appetite. What doesn't make sense to me though is the pay-off: he did this for a living - if he did consume all of the Cessna over two years that's a lot of bicycles, televisions, and lightbulbs forgone.
 
oxo66 said:
Sources say he consumed 2lbs or so a day of stuff so a 1,100 lb Cessna over two years would be well within his appetite. What doesn't make sense to me though is the pay-off: he did this for a living - if he did consume all of the Cessna over two years that's a lot of bicycles, televisions, and lightbulbs forgone.
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The other thing is - consider what kind of pain he'd have to endure when all that stuff got crapped out? Think piles+++!
 
Mythopoeika said:
The other thing is - consider what kind of pain he'd have to endure when all that stuff got crapped out? Think piles+++!
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He did crunch it all up with his two sets of teeth, I seem to remember. Unless he had a rival in France?
 
GNC said:
He did crunch it all up with his two sets of teeth, I seem to remember. Unless he had a rival in France?
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From what I've read, it appears he swallowed metal and presumably plastic, rubber etc after it had been cut up into little pieces. Videos show him chomping glass, but not anything else. And the pictures of him biting into the Cessna propeller and so on look like publicity shots.

I don't remember seeing him on Record Breakers. Surprised it got past the censor for a kids' programme (even back in the 70s!)
 
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I also remember seeing M. Mangetout on Record Breakers, but I never knew his real name until now:
EnolaGaia said:
Michel Lotito ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito
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Lotito? Lot-eat-oh? This is one for the nominative determinism thread...

ETA: There's a killer detail in his Wiki entry: apparently the Guinness Book of Records awarded him a brass plaque. Guess what he did with it. :rollingw:
 
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uair01 said:
Somehow reading all this gave me a craving for pickles. Fortunately I'm sitting in teh kitchen next to the fridge. I think I'll take another one :)
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I hear you. I recently heard the politician Eric Pickle mentioned on t'wireless, thought 'Mmmm, don't mind if I do!' and prepared a huge plate of crackers, cheese, salad and PICKLES. Lots of pickles.
 
This young UK mother is dealing with a possibly autistic child with pica.
‘My toddler won’t stop eating walls and TV remotes – I need help’

Mum Jordanna Tait, 25, is begging for help with her daughter’s rare condition that sees her eating the walls of her bedroom, TV remotes, and wooden furniture.

Two-year-old Dolly has pica, an eating disorder that causes intense cravings for non-food objects.

This means that Jordanna has been forced to quit her job as a sales account manager in order to stay home and constantly monitor the toddler to ensure she doesn’t try to eat anything around the house that could be dangerous. ...

‘As a mother it’s so scary, I have to watch her all the time. ...

“We’ve had to get rid of everything. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

‘A paediatrician has said verbally that she is on the autism spectrum, we’re just waiting for a formal diagnosis.

‘I do get help for her autism, she has portage workers from the council and they’re fantastic. But there’s no help for the pica. ...
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FULL STORY (With Photo Of Nibbled Walls and Other Items): https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/30/my-t...ng-walls-and-tv-remotes-i-need-help-17664279/
 
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