Hungry? Have a sponge.
Not a sponge cake — an actual sponge. It may not sound appetizing to most people, but it is for 21-year-old Kerry Trebilcock, The Sun reported.
Trebilcock, from Mylor, Cornwall, suffers from pica, a disease that causes people to crave things other than food. In her lifetime, she said she has eaten 4,000 sponges.
As most people do with french fries or steak, Trebilcock spices up her sponges with hot sauce or mustard. Sometimes, she said, she dips them in tea or hot chocolate.
Besides sponges, she also munches for organic soap and said her favorite flavors are lemon and lime.
“I have been very particular about the type of sponges and soaps I’d eat and how I’d prepare them,” Trebilcock said.
She doesn’t want to have a craving in the middle of the day so she sometimes carries around cut pieces of sponge in a bag with tomato and BBQ sauce in Tupperware. “I was never without a ‘snack,'” she said.
Her strange cravings began after she took a trip to Morocco in 2008. While there, she picked up an infection of hookworm.
She explained her story to The Sun. Trebilcock said she had a helping of lasagna and a tub of ice cream one night at dinner, but she still felt hungry afterward.
“To distract myself, I decided to wash the dishes. I took out a new sponge from a packet and had an overwhelming desire to eat it. I sat down with a glass of water and chewed the sponge until it was gone.”
Trebilcock said it didn’t taste like anything, but she found it enjoyable and satisfying.
The next morning, when she was showering, she had an urge to eat the soap. She swallowed a chunk and said she felt like a “freak” and didn’t tell anyone.
Eventually, after seeing a doctor and discovering she had pica, she began taking vitamins and going to counseling.
“One day I will beat this,” she said, “and [will] be able to have a shower or do the washing-up without feeling hungry.”