scary

when flavour takes a back seat

i was on the tram this morning, staring at some really bad dandruff on the cord jacket of a guy stood in front of me, when i tuned into a conversation taking place between 2 ladies sat to my left. call it rude if you like - i see it as research.

they were chatting loudly about a mutual friend who couldn’t stop eating ice while she was pregnant and it got me thinking about other bizarre substances consumed by human beings, bun in the oven or otherwise. i’d heard of pregnant women craving the taste of coal - surely there can’t be stranger non-food snacks?

yep, there can.

as i started some disturbing research i found out quite quickly that the proper term for the ‘consumption of’ or ‘desire to consume’ substances which would not normally be classed as foods is actually ‘pica’, a name which comes from the latin word for ‘magpie’ - a bird which supposedly eats anything and everything - and there are fucking loads of different types. here are a few (my personal favourite has to be gooberphagia)…

acuphagia: ingestion of sharp objects.

amylophagia: eating laundry starch.

bibliophagia: consumption of books by eating the pages.

cautopyreiophagia: eating burnt matches, ingesting burnt match heads.

coniophagia: consumption of dust.

coprophagia: eating excrement or feces.

emetophagia: ingesting vomit.

geomelophagia: abnormal ingestion of raw potatoes.

geophagy: eating clay, consuming soil, ingesting dirt.

gooberphagia: a pathological consumption of peanuts.

hematophagy: ingestion of blood.

hyalophagia: consumption of glass; such as, glass from windows and bottles.

lithophagia: ingestion of stones.

mucophagy: consumption of mucus.

pagophagia: pathological consumption or excessive eating of ice.

plumbophagia: eating lead.

self-cannibalism: a rare condition where body parts may be consumed.

trichophagia: eating hair or wool.

urophagia: drinking urine.

xylophagia: consumption of wood.

extreme cases

- the poor fella above ate so many coins ($650 worth), necklaces and needles during the decade preceeding 2002 that sitting in his stomach was a pile of loot weighing 12lbs, similar to the weight of a bowling ball, which had pushed his belly down between his hips. he died from complications following surgery (full cnn article here).

- ‘in 1985, physicians removed 212 objects from a man whose stomach contents included: 53 toothbrushes, 2 razors, 2 telescopic aerials, and 150 handles of disposable razors.’

- ‘a 48-year-old female developed cautopyreiophagia (ingestion of ashes of 15 burnt match books daily). her hemoglobin was 6.5 grams and her serum iron was 14. this patient had gastrointestinal bleeding due to a lesion in the cecum and adenocarcinoma of the left lobe of the liver. iron therapy, surgery, and transfusion abolished the pica.’

- ‘a british teenager who had a habit of chewing her hair died after a hairball, 12 inches long and 10 inches wide, developed in her stomach. the teenager died after several days of illness. it is thought that the hairball had irritated the lining of her stomach and hours after the operation she suffered massive bleeding.’

© 2007 deputydog. logo designed by