FOODIE FADS
Tuck into a bizarre buffet of marmite, bananas, spaghetti hoops and trees...
Mehmood Butt, 50, from Gujranwala district in India’s Punjab province, has been surviving on fresh leaves and wood for the last quarter century. He started his unusual diet at the age of 25 as he had no work and could not afford a basic meal. “There was too much poverty in my family,” he said. “Everything was beyond limit and it was very difficult for me to get a meal, so I thought it is better to eat wood rather than begging on a street. Eating wood and leaves has become my habit now.” Years later, when he found work transporting goods on his donkey cart for 600 rupees a day and could afford conventional food, he found himself strangely keen on maintaining his weird eating habits. He said wood from banyan, tali and suck chain trees were his favourites. He is popular with local people, who are amazed that he stays healthy on his arboreal diet. “He has never visited a doctor or any hospital,” said his neighbour Ghulam Mohammad. “He will stop his cart on the roadside anytime and will eat fresh tree branches.” Hindustan Times, 22 April 2017.
“I thought it is better to eat wood rather than beg on the street”
Shelly McClellan, 45, eats Marmite with every meal, having got addicted to the salty spread as a child. ‘Mrs McMarmite’, as she has been called, slaps the stuff on all her food, including spaghetti, tuna, sausages, cereals and soup. She keep a Marmite pot in her handbag for holidays or when eating out. The carer, who lives with her husband and teenage son in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, has a collection of rare empty Marmite jars and drawers of Marmite-themed clothes. (Are the jars “rare” because everyone else throws them away?) Her kitchen has a Marmite shrine and her sitting room a 3ft (90cm) tall display (of Marmite, presumably). Sun, 1 May 2017.
Dane Nash, 21, a student at Bristol Institute of Modern Music, starts each morning with a smoothie made from 12 bananas, then eats another 10 bananas throughout the day. He buys five 40lb (18kg) crates of bananas every month, obtaining 80 per cent of his calories intake from the fruit. “Bananas are the way to go,” he said. “They’re the best tropical fruit readily available. They’re cheap and they’re consistent in terms of calories and nutrients… I’m now healthier than ever.” Dane is 6ft 1in (185cm) and weighs 174lb (79kg). He turned vegan two years ago after suffering severe acne and now eats only fruit and uncooked vegetables, a diet that costs him around £160 a month. He is also a big spinach eater, devouring more than 2lb (0.9kg) a day. The rest of his diet also includes lettuce, berries, pears and oranges – supplemented with vitamins B12 and D. His typical dinner consists of a “huge” salad, including two heads of lettuce, two big bags of mixed leaves and a range of fruit, drizzled in an avocado dressing. A nutritionist warned that his diet lacked protein and fat. D.Mirror, D.Express, 5 Aug 2017.
Mark O’Connor, 34, from Ratoath, Co Meath, Ireland, had spaghetti hoops for dinner every night for 30 years. He was born with spina bifida and need an operation at the age of five to drain fluid from his brain. The traumatic hospital stay left him with a phobia of food and the only hot meal he would eat was the tinned pasta. However, a single visit to a hypnotist has now snapped him out of his hoop loop and he is discovering a whole new world of taste sensations. “I still have spaghetti hoops for old time’s sake, but just a tin a week,” he said. His mother spent years tempting him with home made cooking without success. She sometimes managed to get him to eat a banana or yogurt, but the rest of his diet consisted of tea, toast, and cheese and onion crisps, along with his beloved hoops. D.Express, 3 June 2017.