World Incredibly Sexual Practices

This list contains really unnerving text, and some swearing! The only way this could EVER be work-safe, is if you work at a side-show in a circus! The items on this list are in no particular order.

[WARNING: contains adult material which is not safe for work]

Teratophilia

Teratophilia is the sexual attraction to deformed or monstrous people. One version of Teratophilia is acrotomophilia, sexual attraction to amputees. Considerable commercial and amateur erotica is published apparently targeting people with such a sexual attraction. Persons attracted to amputees in particular are said to be engaging in amputee fetishism.

Emetophilia
Also known as Erotic Vomiting

Talk about blowing chunks! Obviously, the words “erotic” and “vomiting” are not often used together. However, they do have similarities: Both trigger the release of hormones that make you feel better; both are caused by stimulus; and, for men at least, both involving having fluids get forced through a tube and out of an orifice. The primary dissimilarity is that most people do not associate throwing-up with a pleasurable experience. Dr. Robert J. Stoller, a renowned sexologist and psychiatrist, begs to differ; Here he discusses the cases of three women: The first woman doesn’t do the Technicolor-yawn herself, instead, “…I can reach a sure orgasm by imagining someone vomiting in a hard, humiliating fashion…”; The second woman actually experiences an orgasm every time she throws up; The third and final woman describes it like this: “…Vomiting for me is like…an orgasm in that I’m tensed, I feel the…intense flood of good feelings almost continually throughout the vomiting and experience relief and quiet warmth in my body when I’m finished. It is not identical to an orgasm. I do not feel it intensely in my genitals alone, but I do feel it there as well as the rest of my body and…in my mouth…”. NOTE: There is also a practice known as “Roman-showers”, which is to become aroused by being vomited upon.

Autopederasty

Autopederasty is the near-impossible act of sticking one’s own fully-erect penis in one’s own rectum. Yes. Only a small percentage of people can do it, but it’s possible! There is a porno called “Go Fuck Yourself” that is devoted to the act, even going so far as to instruct people on how to do it!

NOTE: There are two other, more familiar variants: Autofellatio is when a man gives himself oral sex; Then, there is Autocunnilingus, where a woman gives herself oral sex.

Mummification

Mummification as a BDSM bondage practice involves restraining a living person’s body in a non-damaging way by wrapping it head to toe, or neck to toe, in materials like saran wrap, clingfilm, cloth, bandages, rubber strips, duct tape, plaster bandages, bodybags, or straitjackets. The end result is a person completely immobilized and looking like an Egyptian mummy. They may then either be left bound in a state of effective sensory deprivation for a period of time, or sensually stimulated in their state of bondage, before being released from their wrappings.

Salirophilia

Salirophilia is a sexual fetish or paraphilia that involves deriving erotic pleasure from soiling or disheveling the object of one’s desire, usually an attractive person. It may involve tearing or damaging their clothing, covering them in mud or filth, or messing their hair or makeup. The fetish does not involve harming or injuring the subject, only their appearance. The fetish sometimes manifests itself in the defacing of statues or pictures of attractive people, especially celebrities. The fetishist finds this sexually exciting, rather than mere vandalism. They sometimes form collections of defaced art for future enjoyment.

Pseudonecrophilia

Unlike real necrophilia, this is actually legal (not that that’s a good thing)! It’s quite simple, actually: One partner remains quiet (something we all wish we could have) and still, while the other has sex with him/her. For added realism, the “pseudo-dead” partner can lay in cold water for a while before the act! This particular practice met some notoriety, thanks to its appearance in the show, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”.

Cannibal Fantasies

These fantasies are obviously pretty explanatory. On the Deviant Desires website (based on the book of the same name), Katharine Gates explains that some people actually bring these fantasies to life in consensual role-playing! One of her friends, “…painted the woman’s nude body with dotted lines to represent cuts of meat.” One very tasteful website, Muki’s Kitchen, features photographs of female models trussed up in pans filled with vegetables, and stuffed with apples and carrots in every possible orifice. Thus, erotic feeding, messy fun, bondage, gags and vaginal or anal penetration may be incorporated into this practice.

Ponyplay

Ponyplay is a form of bondage that involves a “pony” and a rider. The pony is often outfitted with straps, a leather saddle, blinders, reins, and a bit in the mouth. The rider, sometimes utilizing either a riding crop or a whip, either gets pulled in a cart or rides the pony directly. The principal theme of animal roleplay is usually the voluntary or involuntary reduction (or transformation) of a human being to animal status, and focus on the altered mind-space created. The most common examples are probably canids (pup, dog, wolf), felines (cat, kitten, lion) or equines (pony, horse).

Nyotaimori

Nyotaimori (female body presentation), often referred to as “body sushi,” is the practice of eating sashimi or sushi from the body of a woman, typically naked. Nantaimori refers to the same practice using a male model. This sexual fetish is a subdivision of food play. As a result of being served on a human body, the temperature of the sushi or sashimi comes closer to body temperature. Before becoming a living sushi platter, the person is trained to lie down for hours without moving. She or he must also be able to withstand the prolonged exposure to the cold food. Body hair, including pubic hair, would also be shaved, as a display of pubic hair may be seen as a sexual act. Before service, the individual would take a bath using a special fragrance-free soap and then finish off with a splash of cold water to cool the body down somewhat for the sushi.

Agalmatophilia

Agalmatophilia is a paraphilia concerned with the sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or other similar figurative object. The attraction may include the desire for actual sexual contact with the objects, a fantasy of having sexual (or non-sexual) encounters with the animate or inanimate instances of the preferred objects, the act of watching encounters between the objects themselves, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. Agalmatophilia may also encompass Pygmalionism which describes a state of love for an object of one’s own creation.

READ MORE: Most Bizarre Accidents In World History

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The Most World Amazing Food Festivals

If you can think of other exciting bizarre food festivals, fortunately this one combines both passions.

Annual Yuma Lettuce Days
Yuma, Arizona, USA

Yuma is known as ‘The Winter Lettuce Capital of the World’. Sounds silly, yes, but considering Yuma produces $1.5 billion of Arizona’s agriculture revenue and provides 90% of North America’s winter vegetables, it’s appropriate to respect the lettuce. Among the highlights of this Veggie Fair are the Lettuce sculptures, Cabbage Bowling, Homegrown Cooking Contest and the ‘World’s Largest Salad’.

Olney Pancake Race
Olney, England, UK

At 11:55 am on Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Day, aka Fat Tuesday), the local ladies assemble dressed in traditional housewife attire (including skirt, apron and scarf) and run 415 yards through the streets of Olney carrying a frying pan. The pancakes are tossed at the start of the race and the winner is must toss her pancake again at the finish. The race has been an Olney tradition since 1445 and in 1950, the competition expanded to include a friendly flapjack rivalry with the housewives and young women of Liberal, Kansas in the US. The ladies of Liberal won this past year’s race with a new record of 57.5 seconds.

Carnival at Vilanova i La Geltrú
Candy Throwing Fight, Spain

Originally a protest of the Franco regime’s Carnivale prohibition, this annual festival is by far the sweetest food fight in the world! Celebrations begin on Fat Tuesday with the Meringue Wars, where bakeries open their stores and pass out free pie ammunition to children. The adults dress in the colors of their respective Carnival Society and attend parties and masquerades before joining the children in the streets in what becomes a sweet tooth free-for-all! Over 200,000 lbs of food has been donated to the food fight, ranging from pies to candy to cereal. It’s a dentist’s nightmare! The festival officially ends with the ceremonial burial of a sardine to mark the beginning of Lent and fasting.

Ivrea Orange Festival
Ivrea, Italy

La Tomantina has already been mentioned in a previous list but by no means is that the only fruit-throwing festival! The Ivrea Orange Festival originated from the 12th century when during parades and city celebrations, girls would throw oranges from their balconies to gain the attention of the boy they fancied. The boys began to reciprocate (no mention if the secret admiration was reciprocated but the oranges certainly were!) and this evolved into a messy rivalry between the balcony girls and the street boys. It wasn’t until WWII when the intricate citrus battle rules were finally laid out. It is free for anyone to participate by joining one of the nine teams on foot or become a member of the carriage crew.

Waikiki Spam Jam
Waikiki, Hawaii, USA

As an area with a scarce meat supply during WWII, this archipelago embraced the blue-canned pink meat and has now become Spam’s most loyal market. During this street festival, hula dancers perform while judges crown a Mr. and Miss Spam and Hawaii’s top chefs create new recipes celebrating the gelatinous meat product. Pedestrians get to sample everything from Spam Burgers to Spam Musubi (kind of like sushi but with spam instead of fish). This festival also serves a philanthropic purpose that benefits the Hawaii Food Bank, the largest non-profit in Hawaii that feeds the needy.

Gilroy Garlic Festival
Gilroy, California, USA

Gilroy is the unofficial Garlic Capital of the World and proudly shows off in this festival that attracts over 100,000 visitors annually that as a whole consume an estimated two and a half tons of garlic at the event. The official Gilroy Garlic Festival website claims to have used 72 tons of garlic in the twenty-nine years this festival has existed. Cooking demonstrations and lectures discuss traditional uses and health benefits but the innovative can always express their love for this pungent food in the Great Garlic Cook-off, which has had entries like garlic ice cream, garlic soft drinks and last year’s winner “Walnut-Garlic Tart with Garlic-Infused Cream and Chili Syrup”. Anyone need a Tic Tac?

Roadkill Cook-off of the Autumn Harvest Festival
Marlington, West Virginia, USA

Nobody panic! None of the entries in this harvest festival competition have any tire marks as they aren’t actually unfortunate outcomes of “Why did the chicken cross the road?” jokes. This competition utilizes wild game such as raccoon, possum, deer…basically any of Bambi’s friends that could be potential roadkill. Does that make it better? No? oh well… notables among the past wild game entries are “Spicy Venison, Buffalo & Sausage Stew”, “Pulled BamBiTo under Saboogo”, and Biscuits & Squirrel Gravy.

World Pea shooting Championship
Witcham, Cambridgeshire, UK

This is loosely termed a festival since the food isn’t celebrated; rather, it’s like a block party that grew out of a simple target competition. In 1971, local headmaster Mr. Tyson held the first pea shooting competition as a way to fundraise for the upkeep of the village hall. The entrance fee is only £1.00 for adults and £0.50 for children, but be warned! The competitors take this extreme sport seriously and you’ll need hi-tech gear (like the laser-guided pea shooter) to stand a chance on the field with these seasoned pea shooting veterans.

Annual Testicle Festival
Clinton, Montana, USA

There are several imitators but this is the original ballfest. Usually known by its classier name, the Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival, this whole event is dedicated to serving deep-fried bull testicles. You can have your choice plain deep-fried, beer battered, marinated, as well as some newly concocted delectables. For the indecisive, $5 can provide a sampler plate of testicles. Those on a low-testicle diet can have fun as well! One of the highlights of the festival is Bullshit Bingo, with a grand prize of $100 for the lucky person who can correctly predict where a cow will do its doodie. The motto of this dignified event? “I had a ball at the Testicle Festival.”

Noche de Rábanos (Night of the Radishes)
Oaxaca, Mexico

This is a food festival where eating is discouraged! This festival originated in the 16th century when Spanish monks brought this edible root to the new colonies. To gain attention in the food markets, sellers would carve some radishes into eye-catching sculptures. This tradition continued throughout the centuries and became an official festival in 1987. Radishes as big as two feet long and weighing upwards of ten pounds are carved into intricate religious or cultural scenes. The artisans can compete in three different categories for cash prizes.

READ MORE: The Most Weird Cat Tales

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Most Amazing World Tiny Miniatures

This list is a salute to the world of the tiny, both man-made and those that nature has seen fit to create.

The World’s Smallest Snake

The Barbados Thread Snake was recently discovered in 2008. Recognized as the world’s smallest snake, the tiny reptile will only reach a maximum size of 10 cm long. (about 4 inches.), and are reported to be “as thin as spaghetti”. Due to it’s extreme tininess, females only lay one egg, which hatches out at half the size of the adult. A larger clutch of eggs would produce such small offspring that it would be near impossible for the snakelings to find sustenance.

Through the eye of a needle

The pinnacle of handmade miniatures would have to be sculptures that are smaller than the eye of a needle. The hands down master of the art currently is Willard Wigan MBE. An artist who started his career at only 5 years old when he decided to start building homes for ants, he has continued to impress the world with his micro creations, the artist is often referred to as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. Wigan works primarily through the night, as even traffic noise from outside can destroy a piece he is working on. Using micro tools on a microscopic work field, he must control not only his pulse rate, but his breathing, as he has inhaled a few of his masterpieces, due to a poorly timed inhale.

Rice

Long considered a symbol of wealth and prosperity throughout the Asian world, rice has always held a position of high esteem and respect, not to mention being a daily staple food source around the world. It’s only natural that respect for this most humble of grains would evolve into it’s own field of art. Rice writing originated in ancient Turkey and India, and one of the oldest known examples of this art is housed to this day in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. To have a grain of rice with your name written on it is still thought to be quite a lucky charm, so many companies have made a small fortune by providing such services. Most of these tiny art pieces are suspended in small glass vials filled with mineral oil, to help magnify the writing on the minuscule grain.

Checkmate!

Guinness World Record for the smallest handmade chess set was awarded in 2006, and goes to M. Manikandan of Srivilliputtur, Tamil Nadu, India. His incredible creation has a chess board only 24 mm square. As for the playing pieces themselves, the largest piece is 10 mm high and the smallest is half that at 5 mm. A further search for mini chess sets revealed a beautiful solid gold set for sale on E-bay that also measured 24 x 24 mm. The owner has used slightly over 6 grams of 22 carat gold for which he is seeking 100,000 rupees. Though that may sound like a king’s ransom, converted into US dollars, the amount comes down to a less staggering $2,175, or 1560 Euros.

That’s the pits

What to do with those pesky pits that we find in our everyday foods. For centuries those pits from peaches, plums, cherries and olives have been thrown away with the garbage. But for quite of few folks with the ache to create, and with an extremely steady hand, those very pits are the “core” of their calling. The inspiration for this list, Mott’s Miniature’s had quite a “large” collection of pit carvings that can be viewed at their website. The American artist Bob Shamey has been featured by Ripley’s Believe It or Not not just once, but twice, for his carvings. At the National Palace Museum in Taiwan there is an olive pit carving of a tiny boat, with working shutters and facial expressions on all eight passengers.

Matchsticks

One of the many “humble” art mediums, matchsticks have been used to create a cavalcade of various structures and masterpieces. Commonly referred to as folkart, matchstick miniatures have also been classed as another form of “prisonart”, although the creators of such hardly need to have served time behind bars. The amount of art developed in this medium is immense, with artists each having their own vision of what they would like to produce, whether it be stick carvings, match head sculptures, or homages to the engineering feats of mankind from every culture and civilization, created from minute lumber, one stick at a time.

Mini-bees

Called Quasihesma, these minutely small bees come from Cape York in Queensland. Known as the smallest species of bee, these little guys are only 2mm long. That’s approximately the size of the head of a pin. They come from the family Colletidae, and are often referred to collectively as plasterer bees, due to the method of smoothing the walls of their nest cells with secretions applied with their mouthparts; these secretions dry into a cellophane-like lining. Another distinction of this group of bees is that they are solitary bees. Although they have been known to build nest in groups, they do not manufacture hives.

Insect powered aircraft

There are ancients stone tablets from the city of Ur that observe the natural flying power of the common housefly. The ancient Egyptians mused about how the housefly’s powers may provide insight to the Pharaoh’s journey into the Afterlife. Even the great Nikola Tesla had a curiosity about insect power, as excerpted here.

“His sixteen-bug-power motor was, likewise, not an unqualified success. This was a light contrivance made of splinters forming a windmill, with a spindle and pulley attached to live June bugs. When the glued insects beat their wings, as they did desperately, the bug-power engine prepared to take off. This line of research was forever abandoned however when a young friend dropped by who fancied the taste of June bugs. Noticing a jarful standing near, he began cramming them into his mouth. The youthful inventor threw up.” Adopted from “Tesla: Man out of time”, by Margaret Cheney, 1981.

Dr. Richard Brewer is given credit with manufacturing the first prototype fly powered airplane in 1949, constructed of balsa wood and the cellophane from a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Reportedly Dr. Brewers prototype plane was delivered to the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum during the 1960′s. Insect powered aircraft have become quite a well followed hobby with many websites devoted to blueprints and instructions to construct miniature planes that utilize houseflies or flying beetles as their motors.

Smallest Bible

In 2007 nanotechnology was pushed to another extreme when Technion inscribed the entire Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible onto a space less than half the size of a grain of sugar. The team etched the 300,000 words of the Bible onto a tiny silicone surface less than .5 mm square by blasting the silicone with gallium ions.

The previous smallest, known, copy of the Bible measured 2.8 x 3.4 x 1 centimeters (1.1 x 1.3 x 0.4 inches), weighing 11.75 grams (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages, according to Guinness World Records spokeswoman Amarilis Espinoza. The tiny text, obtained by an Indian professor in November, 2001, is believed to have originated in Australia.

Nano-motors

Nanotechnology, nanorobotics, nanomachines. An ever expanding field of science and technology expected to revolutionize the world as we know it. The simplest, (though hardly simple), of nano machines are being constructed for biological study to better understand the mechanics of the cell, and all it’s natural capabilities. The hope is that humans may be able to replicate some of these functions, towards the better health of mankind in the future. Science envisions great strides in the fields of molecular biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, and nanocomputers through the development of these microscopic motors. Many of these machines are as small as 1/2 the width of a human hair and others are so small several hundred would fit in the space of the period at the end of this sentence.

Seashells in the sand

Not to be confused with microscopic plankton and diatoms, these are indeed fully formed seashells on a minuscule scale. A great many gem and mineral societies world-wide have divisions devoted to the study and worship of these tiny homes that can be found in sand samples from around the world. And remember that impossibly tiny as these shells are, the original inhabitants were even smaller, as they had to fit within. There is no evidence, so far, of any species of hermit crab that may have used these microshells as a borrowed home.

READ MORE: World Incredibly Sexual Practices

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World Most Unusual Ingredients Used in Cooking

This list explores ten of the most unusual ingredients used in cooking today – this is not a historic list – this is about food now. Enjoy!

Poop

A common ingredient found in poop is called skatole. The word comes from the ancient Greek root “skat” which means “dung” – this is the same root from which we get “scatology” – the study of feces. It is derived from mammals (it is produced in their digestive tract) and it smells (not surprisingly) like poop. This delightful ingredient is used in cigarettes, many perfumes and – most importantly for the purposes of this list, strawberry ice cream. Like the beaver ass above, someone discovered that strawberry flavor is greatly enhanced with the addition of a little dung. Frankly, I will stick to pepper.

Human Hair

L-cysteine is an amino acid that is commonly used in baked goods because it adds elasticity and helps soften dough. It is also commonly used in hair perm solutions. You can find it in bagels, doughnuts, bread, cookies, and frankly, a hell of a lot of yummy things. The cheapest way to produce it (and therefore the most common source at present) is by a special chemical process using human hair – most of which is sourced (and prepared) in China. Because of this, it has led to some debate over whether eating products containing l-cysteine is a type of cannibalism. In China it was also used in the production of soy source: “When asking [the soy manufacturer] how the amino acid syrup (or powder) was generated, [he] replied that the powder was generated from human hair. Because the human hair was gathered from salon [sic], barbershop [sic] and hospitals around the country, it was unhygienic and mixed with condom [sic], used hospital cottons, used menstrual cycle pad [sic], used syringe [sic], etc.”

Beaver Ass

On a previous list we mentioned civet coffee, the very expensive coffee beans that are gathered from the poop of civets, and if it weren’t for the fact that civet anal juice is now replaced by a synthetic chemical (civetone), it would be on this list. However, beaver anal juice (castoreum) is not (yet) able to be synthesized and it is still used in foodstuffs. It is most commonly found as a flavor enhancer in raspberry products – apparently it adds a nice rounded flavor. It is also found in chewing gum and cigarettes. The question is – who the hell discovered that beaver poop juice tasted good with raspberries?

Cigarettes

You read that right… Cigarette smoking has been banned from bars and pubs all around the world, so someone came up with a brilliant idea: if you can’t smoke it – eat it! The trick is to take a fine bottle of spirits (usually vodka but sometimes brandy, etc) and drop a smoke or two in it (or a cigar in the case of brandy). The nicotine – and other chemicals, seep out of the cigarette and infuse flavor and color into the drink. These concoctions are often called “nicotine tea”. I was fortunate (?) enough to try one at a bar recently and I can’t say I enjoyed the drink a great deal.

Bugs

Cochineal and carmine are two red food colorings that are derived from bugs – the cochineal bug to be exact. Cochineal is produced by drying and pulverizing the whole body of the bug, while carmine is a derivative of cochineal powder. The bugs are usually killed by immersing them in boiling water – the amount of time they spent in the water determines the level of redness – whether it be a lighter orange color or a vivid red. 155,000 insects are needed to make two pounds of food dye. Cochineal has been used for hundreds of years and it is also a very popular cloth dye.

Varnish

Okay – to be more exact we are talking about shellac which was very commonly used as a varnish back in the old days (from around 1880 – 1930) before it was replaced with lacquer. Shellac is used in baking and in mass produced candy to give the finished product a nice shine. The most likely source of shellac in most of our reader’s diets will be from Skittles – the colorful coated fruit-flavored candies. Now that we know how much we love to eat shellac, we should probably also point out that it is made from a secretion of the female lac beetle. She excretes the shellac onto branches in order to help her cocoon stick.

Coal Tar

Once upon a time, amaranth was used as a food coloring (red to be specific) but scientific testing found it to be extremely carcinogenic, so someone came up with a replacement: allura red AC (also know by the E number E129). Allura Red AC is made from coal tar (a liquid that is a by-product of turning coal into coal gas or coke). Coal tar is flammable and is frequently used in medicated shampoos designed to kill head lice. It is also used to make tylenol. While allura red AC is not carcinogenic, it can cause vomiting and other side-effects in some people. Despite this, it is FDA approved and very common in candy and soft drinks.

Borax

Borax: fire retardant, insecticide, treatment for horse thrush, ingredient in glass and detergent, and… ingredient. Luckily for the Americans reading, borax is illegal as a food additive there (though it is permitted in imported caviar – the fat cats in government allow themselves a few luxuries), but not so in many other nations. It is often used as a preservative in caviar, and in some Asian countries it is found in noodles, meatballs, and steamed rice. It has an E number of E285. It can have serious toxic effects on humans (particularly effecting the testes).

Viruses

In August, 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the use of bacteriophages in the preparation of food (specifically ready to eat meat products). A bacteriophage is a virus that infects bacteria; the point of applying these viruses to food is that they will kill any bacteria that might cause food poisoning. Every year, 2,500 Americans get sick from listeriosis – consequently, millions of Americans now regularly chow down on viruses added intentionally to stop those few thousand people getting sick. The FDA does not require that food treated with these viruses should carry a label. Frighteningly, they say: “As long as it [is] used in accordance with the regulations, we have concluded it’s safe.” Worthwhile? You be the judge.

Gold

Gold is one of the most popular metals used in jewelry. It is also very useful in electronics. In addition to its more common uses, gold is used as a food additive – usually for decorative purposes in the form of gold leaf (E number E175). It is quite popular as an additive to alcoholic drinks and there is a traditional Polish and German liqueur called Goldwasser (Goldwater) which contains thousands of tiny flakes. Gold is inert to body chemistry so it passes through the body unaltered and has no nutritional value.

READ MORE: The Most World Amazing Food Festivals

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Strangest Diets Widely-spread

This is the strangest diets around but only included diets which are widely-spread, this means that individuals with bizarre eating habits are not included.

Last Chance Diet

This is not so much a diet as a fast, so it is added as a bonus item. Under this program, developed by Dr. Robert Linn in the 1970s, people ate nothing at all. But several times a day the fast was broken by a small drink of the concoction that Linn had invented called Prolinn. It was a liquid protein that provided fewer than 400 calories a day, consisted of ground-up and crushed animal horns, hooves, hides, tendons, bones and other slaughterhouse byproducts that were treated with artificial flavors, colors and enzymes to break them down.

Tapeworm Diet

This diet is as disgusting as its name. In this diet, you eat a tapeworm in a cyst and let it grow in your body until it is fully mature. You then worm yourself and poop out the worm. Advocates of this insane diet assure people that they can lose 1 – 2 pounds per week using their method. Because it is illegal to import tapeworms into the US, some organizations run tapeworm farms in Africa and Mexico which tourists can visit to get infected “safely”. On these farms, cows are intentionally infected with tapeworm for harvesting for human consumption. This diet is alleged to work because once ingested, the worm attaches in the intestinal tract and absorbs nutrients from the food you eat.

Sleeping Beauty Diet

As its name implies, this diet involves sleep – a lot of it. The principle behind this diet is: “if you aren’t awake, you aren’t eating”. Consequently, advocates take heavy sedation and sleep for days at a time in order to lose weight. Obviously the diet works but it is such an unhealthy approach to weight loss that it is insane to try it. The diet was originally formulated in the 1970s and was reportedly popular with Elvis Presley who was beginning to have difficulty bending down to tie up his blue suede shoes.

Breatharianism

Breatharianism consists of eating: nothing. That’s right, it is called Breatharianism because you are surviving on nothing but your breath. There are some elements of esotericism in this diet and some of practitioners believe that they are sustained by energy from the sun or a “vital life force” called prana. The Breatharian Institute of America promote the diet and offer a workshop to help you get started for the low price of just $10,000, which, according to their website: “is not a misprint”. These courses are run by Wiley Brooks who previously charged up to 25 million dollars for his courses. Occasionally Wiley eats a cheeseburger and a diet coke claiming that when he’s surrounded by junk culture and junk food, consuming them adds balance. At least three people have died whilst on this “diet”. If you have tried this diet and are not dead yet, be sure to tell us about it in the comments.

Fletcherizing

“Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate.” These are the words used by Horace Fletcher at the turn of the 20th century to market his new diet: Fletcherizing. In this diet, a person must chew each mouthful 32 times whilst keeping their head tilted forward. After the chewing is complete, the dieter tilts their head back, allowing the contents of their mouth to slide down the throat. Any food that did not naturally slip down, was to be spat out. In addition, Fletcher advocated chewing liquids, and said that one must not eat when angry or sad. Fletched died a millionaire at 69 – with the majority of his money having come from promoting his diet which was wildly popular.

Shangri-La Diet

For people who love to eat, the Shangri-La diet is a godsend. Basically, you can eat what you like. The principle behind this diet is that the body has a set point (the weight that it wants to sustain) and appetite is moderated by the body to ensure that you stay at your set point. The inventor of the diet, Seth Roberts, says that you can lower your set point using his method, thereby lowering appetite and eventually weight. The method? Every day you must drink 100-400 calories of extra light olive oil or sugar water in a two hour window in which you must experience no flavors (including cigarette smoke). It is the consumption of extra flavorless calories which supposedly lowers the set point. While there are some critics of the method (which earned Roberts a spot on the New York Times bestseller list), most doctors consider that the diet, while lacking scientific evidence, is benign.

Bible Diet

The Bible Diet (or Maker’s Diet) is based on the idea that certain foods are either forbidden (“unclean”) or acceptable (“clean”) to God. The main promoter of the Bible diet is Jordan S. Rubin, who claims that the diet was responsible for his recovery from Crohn’s disease at the age of 19. In 2004 the United States Food and Drug Administration ordered Rubin’s company, Garden of Life, Inc., to stop making unsubstantiated claims about eight of its products and supplements. The diet begins and ends each day with prayers of thanksgiving, healing, and petition. The individual should perform exercises of “Life Purpose” for two to five minutes before the day gets too stressful. To achieve the utmost spiritual benefits from the partial fast days, it is suggested to pray each time hunger is experienced. The diet is broken up into three phases. Phase One restricts meats such as pork, bacon, ostrich, ham, sausages, emu and imitation meat. Fish and sea foods such as fried fish, breaded fish, eel, shark, crab, clams, oyster, mussels, lobster, shrimp, scallops, and craw fish are prohibited.

Fruitarianism

Fruitarianism is a diet of nothing but fruit, though some people whose diet is not 100% fruit, consider themselves fruitarian, if their diet is 75% or more fruit. Some fruitarians believe fruitarianism was the original diet of mankind in the form of Adam and Eve based on Genesis 1:29: “And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat”. They believe that a return to an Eden-like paradise will require simple living and a holistic approach to health and diet. A fruitarian diet can cause deficiencies in calcium, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin D, most B vitamins (especially B-12), and essential fatty acids. Additionally, the Health Promotion Program at Columbia reports that food restrictions in general may lead to hunger, cravings, food obsessions, social disruptions and social isolation. Gandhi followed a fruit-only diet from time to time, but eventually gave it up due it being unsustainable.

Paleolithic Diet

This diet harkens back to the cavemen and their eating habits. It is based on the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various human species habitually consumed during the Paleolithic—a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. Proponents of the diet say that paleolithic men were free of diseases known in modern times and, therefore, following their diet should keep us free from sickness. Centered around commonly available modern foods, the “contemporary” Paleolithic diet consists mainly of lean meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts; and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils. So now, from a diet based on evolution, to a diet based on creationism.

Cabbage Soup Diet

The Cabbage soup diet is a radical weight loss diet designed around heavy consumption of a low-calorie cabbage soup over the time of seven days. The diet is actually surprisingly popular and has spawned a whole slew of similar fads. The origins of the diet are unknown but it gained popularity as a word of “faxlore” in the 1980s, because it spread virally through people sharing it via fax machines. The diet is almost universally condemned by doctors as it lacks any substantial nutrition and the weight loss it causes is mostly water-loss not fat-loss, and is, therefore, not permanent. Along with the cabbage soup recipe, the diet is usually touted as being used in hospitals to dramatically reduce weight in patients needing heart surgery; this is not true. Most people trying this diet lose energy and experience light-headedness. The most common side effect is flatulence – a lot of it.

Macrobiotic Diet

The macrobiotic diet is actually quite ancient. It involves eating grains as a staple food supplemented with other food stuffs such as vegetables and beans, and avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods. This is probably the least bizarre diet on the list, but it does have one noticeable quirk: some leaders in the field of macrobiotics advocate smoking for good health, claiming that it is the non-macrobiotic foods that cause cancer, not smoking. Michio Kushi, who introduced macrobiotics to the US, had surgery on his colon in 2004. His son said: “In spite of years of his smoking, a fact well-known to many, recent x-rays of Michio’s lungs were surprisingly clean, like that of a twenty year old (remarked his physician)”.

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