A woman has revealed she eats up to 20 sponges a day after soaking them in apple-flavoured Fairy liquid due to a bizarre addiction.
Emma Thompson, from Wallsend, North Tyneside, started chewing bath sponges at the age of three before discovering she liked the taste of kitchen ones better.
The 23-year-old, who suffers from an OCD-type condition called pica, which makes her crave items with no nutritional value, described the household necessity as her ‘guilty pleasure’.
She said she soaks the sponges overnight in flavoured Fairy liquid before enjoying one first thing in the morning.
Miss Thompson, who has previously had tonsillitis due to her eating habits, said she spends £6 a week on sponges from Wilkinsons and Poundland.
She said: ‘I enjoy the taste of it; I enjoy it more than food. Some people go out for a steak; I would rather go out for a sponge.
‘It’s a guilty pleasure, some people smoke – I eat sponges. It’s not a dirty habit, it’s clean.
‘My friends take the mick out of me and say: “Are we going to have sponge and chips for tea?”
‘I chew it and sometimes I swallow it. I like the smell and taste of the washing up liquid on the sponge. It tastes like apples, it’s quite foamy. My mouth gets full of foam.’
Miss Thompson also admitted that she is addicted to the unusual diet.
She said: ‘As soon as someone mentions it or I am washing the dishes or see a packet of sponges in the shop I need to have one.
‘I am definitely addicted to it. I have tried to quit but I just can’t, there is no cure for it.
‘If I see them in the shop and I need one, I buy one and eat it dry until I get home to stop the craving.
‘Every time I am running a bath, I go to make a sponge and sit it on the side of the bath.
‘I’m in my element when I’m in the bath.’
Miss Thompson, who eats between two and 20 sponges a day, said she sometimes cuts them up so she can take them with her to work in a lunch box.
She runs the sponge under hot water in the sink so the scouring pad comes off before soaking the sponge in washing up liquid.
‘My boyfriend Alex thought I was weird at first but now he buys me them.
Miss Thompson said she has not been to see a doctor about her condition and said she would only consider it if it starts controlling her life.
She added: ‘It doesn’t make me ill, apart from on one occasion. I had tonsillitis, I couldn’t swallow and I had white spots on my throat.