Sunday, July 24, 2011

Hardcore Candy and the Noble from Grenoble

There's candy out there that upon a quick glance looks just like something you wouldn't normally eat, something maybe even hazardous. Here are some examples:

  These are silver cola balls. They look just like ball bearings or perhaps metal shooting pellets. All they are though are mini jawbreakers you suck on. The silver gives way to white and they taste like..well cola.

 Here is candy chalk, which sometimes comes in multicolored versions. Usually the chalk consists of a candy shell around a soft sort of licorice nib.

Observe~ candy glass. This is just as it sounds-a type of brittle glass made from mainly sugar . They use this stuff in movie stunts a lot, you know, for when someone gets thrown through a window or busted over the head with a beer bottle. It is edible and it's not even going to come close to slicing up your insides like real glass would.




There are many other things out there on top of these shown here. The gist though is you could totally look like a badass (or someone with a really heavy case of pica) by eating this stuff and not really telling people it's just candy after all. Of course, you could be a real freak and actually eat glass and metal and all that shit. One such man was Michael Lotito, otherwise known as Monsieur Mangetout (Mr. Eat-Everything), born in Grenoble, France, on June the 15th Year of our Lord 1950.

Mr. Mangetout in his prime..
                                        

Sadly, he is not alive today, he died a few years back. His death anniversary is tomorrow in fact. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. This guy sped up his end by eating all these hazardous things. Well, he made it to age 57, which is actually long lived considering all the crazy shit he's had, including : chunks of metal and glass, bicycles, wires, shopping carts, televisions, even a small aircraft. Mangetout would wash it all down with plenty of mineral oil and water. On average, he'd consume about 2 lbs of metal a day. He did not show any noticeable adverse effects to this diet (except uh, dying)...and scientists noted he had a very thick stomach lining and very strong digestive juices. Many of the things he consumed would be considered toxic to the average person.  Funnily enough, bananas and eggs made him sick. In some pics I have seen, his teeth looked like utter crap. Well, all that acid and grinding and wearing and tearing is bound to do something. I would be curious to see if he had pretty much the same set of adult teeth for his whole life.
Anyhow, this guy was DA MAN. He has been given the title as one of the weirdest people on earth, and he has been featured breaking some Guinness Records, including 'Strangest Diet.'

Lotito in his 'Twilight Years'