An elderly Chinese man has been given the nickname ‘Iron Teeth’ because of his bizarre addiction to eating glass.
Liu Zundun, 71-year-old, said his strange hobby has proven to be a fantastic party trick and his friends and family ask him to ‘perform’ all the time.
Footage shows him taking a chunk out of a glass with ease, chewing on it as if it were any other edible substance and then swallowing it down with water.
Liu Zundun is seen showing his bizarre ‘talent’ as he takes a chunk out of a tumbler with ease
He can be seen chewing on the glass as if it were any other edible substance
But for all his love of tumblers and beer glasses, Mr Zundun states that he does not drink alcohol, saying he would ‘rather eat a glass than drink from it.’
‘Whenever I visit my hometown, my relatives never believe me when I say I don’t drink,’ he said.
‘I tell them I’ll eat glass instead, and they take a sip of alcohol for every bite I take.’
The 71-year-old says he would ‘rather eat a glass than drink from it’
A chunk that has been taken out of the glass
It is likely Mr Zundun suffers from a condition called Pica which is the desire to eat items of little or no nutritional value.
It can cause serious complications however in this case, Mr Zundun claims to have never felt any discomfort in his stomach during the years he has had this odd diet.
He says the only complication is that he relies on one hard tooth to bite the glass as the others have weakened in his old age.
It has now been 32 years since he started and his friends call him ‘Iron Tooth’ as a result.
The native of Daqing City’s Sartu District in north-eastern China’s Heilongjiang Province said he is even asked to perform at weddings.
This is not the first case of Pica to make headlines. Other reported cases around the world include a four-year-old Autistic boy, from England, called Marco Slawycz who couldn’t stop eating plastic.
In India, a labourer confessed he consumes a plate of gravel a day and is addicted to eating sand.
And Emma Thompson, also from England, started chewing bath sponges at the age of three before discovering she liked the taste of kitchen ones better.