You're Eating What??

I was flipping through the channels the other night and a show on TLC caught my attention.  It's called Freaky Eaters.  It followed right after the show My Strange Addiction.  It's like a two hour glimpse into a world our mother's cautioned us about.  The kinds of people we were told not to stare at when we saw them in public.  Yet somehow it's ok to make a tv show about them.  On the strange addiction show people have tendencies to a menagerie of oddities.  This particular show I found myself watching had one woman who ate couch cushions, yes the foam inside the cushions, one woman who ate ajax, and one woman who ate toilet paper.  It was sickening but fascinating at the same time.  The ajax lady lost all her teeth from eating the cleaner.  She had been doing it for 30 years.  The cushion eating lady refused to stop even after seeing a therapist and being rushed to the ER.  She simply switched from couch cushions to the less obvious eating the padding in her bras.  She had eaten 2 couches and a chair since she started eating the cushion.  The toilet paper lady would open a package in the store of a brand she hadn't tried and would eat it right there!
As if this wasn't weird enough, then I got sucked into the show freaky eaters.  Its one of those things where you want to stop looking but you just can't.  It's akin to rubber necking at a traffic accident or looking at the bearded woman in your local supermarket.  You know you should look away but a morbid curiosity that is stronger than us takes over and keeps our eyes glued.  So, the definition of a freaky eater per the show is someone who obsessively consumes a certain food to the detriment of their health.  This particular episode featured a lady who put tartar sauce on everything.  EVERYTHING!!  She put it on her cereal in the morning, she put it on her sandwich at lunch, she put it on her cheetos, she drank it out of the bottle.  Yes, she was drinking out of the squeeze bottle.  She kept a bottle in her purse at all times.  She consumed a bottle a day of tartar sauce.  Now don't get me wrong.  I find no fault with tartar sauce.  I enjoy partaking in this delicious condiment myself.  In the right context of course.  Which is fried seafood.  I will dip any french fries or onion rings in it as well that accompany the seafood but that is where I draw the line.  As I think most people would.  Many people think I am weird for dipping my french fries in the tartar sauce, but you need to keep the flavor going.  To dip the fries or rings in ketchup breaks up the flavor and just makes it all messy.  Easier to keep with the one.  Damn, now I want fried seafood for dinner and I have pork chops marinating to be grilled!  Oh, well some other time.  And we all know I will get it because now I am thinking about it.
This freaky eater show got me to thinking about any other weird flavors I may enjoy.  I have to say that I may have some peculiar tendencies but nothing that would warrant a spot light on the show.  I mean is dipping steak in thousand island dressing that strange?  Some roast beef sandwiches come with it on it.  Is it that far of a stretch from steak to roast beef?  It's all beef right?  I think I am far more strange with my texture issues than any tendency towards one particular food item.  And I sure as heck would not be able to eat the same thing to that excess.  Well, maybe pizza but even that I couldn't eat all day every day.  Hmm, good thought to ponder.  Til next time........