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Ransom Riggs
Do not eat … unless that’s your thing, man
by Ransom Riggs - September 29, 2006 - 2:13 PM

ipod3.jpgHey you, with the finger up your nose. I see you. That’s gross. Not nearly as gross, however, as those shnoz-prospectors who eat the proverbial motherlode — and not nearly as interesting. It’s not that these lost souls are hungry, per se, so much as they’re suffering from mucophagy, the mild cousin in a family of behavioral appetite disorders known collectively as pica: a craving to eat the inedible (and we don’t mean Twinkies).

We can only assume that Apple had a pica-sufferer on staff when they decided to render the advice highlighted above (that’s a real screengrab from the iPod Shuffle website, by the way — isn’t Apple funny?); relative to other forms of pica, eating iPods ain’t all that weird:

  • Geophagic picans eat clay and/or dirt, which some doctors argue has nutritional merit. This student as Chicago’s noted Art Institue admitted to eating fresh-from-the-kiln teacups she had made.
  • Coniophagics prefer the dust from venetian blinds.
  • People who eat wood suffer from xylophagia (this designation excludes young kids, who like goats and magpies, have been known to eat just about anything). Wood toothpicks are a popular favorite among xylophagics, as are matchsticks — though people who chew on the heads of matches haven’t been classified yet.
  • They’re not just circus freaks anymore: hyalophagics are just like you and me — except they eat glass. (Ouch. I’ll take the iPod Shuffle instead. With a side of boogery matchsticks.)
  • Yet-rarer pica disorders include the obsessive consumption of toilet air-freshener blocks, coal, foam rubber, and cigarette ashes. Of course, there’s also coprophagia (”eating poo” is as scientific as we need to get here), but if you came to mentalfloss.com looking for more info on that, this ain’t that kind of website, perv.
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Comments (8)

  1. People may be geophagic and not even realize it… clays like bentonite are used as an additive in foods such as candy bars and yogurt.

    posted by Jason! on 9-29-2006 at 4:28 pm

  2. It’s because when the Shuffle came out, they compared it to a stick of chewing gum (size-wise) and so it’s a warning, not to get the two confused.

    posted by Huy on 9-30-2006 at 10:37 am

  3. I think it’s because on the original website/press photos, the Shuffle was shown next to a pack of chewing gum to illustrate how small it is. Guess that’s what you get in a countr where microwave ovens contain warnings not to use them for drying your hamster ;-)

    posted by Gum! on 9-30-2006 at 10:50 am

  4. If the plastic of the shuffle is made of slightly toxic material, this is not harmful when only using the shuffle. However, when eating, this might be. To prevent lawsuits for people who didnt know you cannot put it in your mouth (ie children) they put this weird looking line into the manual.

    posted by Ruudjah on 9-30-2006 at 11:37 am

  5. interesting, can we get a link to the site itself?

    posted by linkinpark342 on 9-30-2006 at 11:44 am

  6. I think this may be in response to an applegeeks comic in which hawk was found with three or four of the things in his mouth, and a very satisfied look on his face. :)

    posted by andrew on 9-30-2006 at 1:13 pm

  7. Mix music and bite sized equipments, people can do funny things… like in this video

    http://www.break.com/index/singer_chokes_on_mic.html

    posted by Krish on 10-1-2006 at 8:38 am

  8. That reminds me of one of the best SNL spoof commercials of all time – “Super Happy Fun Ball,” where the list of disclaimers rivaled those of today’s prescription drug ads.

    One warning being: “Do not taunt Super Happy Fun Ball.”

    posted by squidbite on 10-2-2006 at 10:40 am

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