Balakrishnan Palayi, an Indian man from Kasaragod, claims to have eaten nothing but coconut for the last 28 years in order to treat his gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

Imagine eating only one thing for over two decades. As a foodie with access to so many delicious treats, the mere thought of restricting one’s diet to a single food for a month, let alone 28 years, sounds almost impossible, but one Indian man claims that it has kept him healthy and fit. Balakrishnan Palayi, a man from Chandera in Kasaragod, was diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a condition that caused him to lose all his strength to the point where he could hardly move around. As part of his treatment, he started eating coconut, and he felt so much better that he soon decided it was the only thing he was going to eat moving forward.

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The Sandhills of North Carolina is said to be the only place in the world where bees produce purple honey, an iridescent concoction that looks more like alien goo than the sweet nectar we know and love.

From the expensive yet bitter Corbezzolo Honey to the meat honey produced by vulture bees, we’ve featured some unusual types of honey here on Oddity Central over the years. However, none of them are as visually striking as the purple honey produced in North Carolina. It sounds like the stuff of legends, something to lure honey and beekeeping aficionados from around the world, but this extremely rare liquid is quite real. Purple honey is said to be sweeter than the amber kind and apparently has some subtle fruit notes as well.

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Several kids in Indonesia have reportedly suffered stomach burns after consuming a popular liquid nitrogen-containing street snack called ‘chiki ngebul’.

Commonly known as ‘dragon’s breath’ in Indonesia, chiki ngebul is an assortment of rainbow-colored candies coated in a cloud of liquid nitrogen mist that causes the person eating them to exhale that mist, like a dragon. However, health experts warn that if the snack is consumed before the liquid nitrogen has evaporated, it poses a very real risk of intestinal burns and perforations. So far, over 20 kids have been diagnosed with stomach burns after allegedly filming themselves eating chiki ngebul as part of a dangerous TikTok trend.

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KFC Thailand recently teamed up with several scent experts to create incense sticks that not only look edible but also smell like KFC fried chicken when lit.

Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe containing 11 herbs and spices is notoriously hard to replicate in the kitchen, let alone in insence sticks, but KFC Thailand claims to have achieved the impossible. Partnering with a number of scent and perfume experts, the Thai branch of the international fast food chain managed to come up with an incense stick formula that not only looks good enough to eat, but gives off the same aroma as KFC fried chicken when lit. The only problem is that you can’t buy these incense sticks, only win them.

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A restaurant in Osaka, Japan has built a reputation for serving traditional miso ramen with an unusual twist, like a slice of strawberry shortcake.

Franken, a Japanese restaurant specializing in miso ramen, first made international news headlines last January, when it started selling a unique variant of sweet-and-sour red miso ramen with a cone of soft-serve vanilla ice cream melting in the middle of the bowl. The combination sounds offputting, but the restaurant was so confident that people would love it that it only served its red miso ramen with the ice cream cone. Well, until this month, when Franken started selling another weird dish, a miso ramen with a slice of strawberry shortcake soaking in the hearty soup.

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Chu-hi-cha is the name of a new type of tea discovered by a Japanese researcher at Kyoto University. It involves brewing the droppings of caterpillars that have feasted on various plants.

Tsuyoshi Maruoka came up with the idea of caterpillar tea during graduate studies at Kyoto University’s Faculty of Agriculture, while researching the mysterious relationship between insects and plants. One day, a senior brought 50 gypsy moth larvae into the lab and told Maruoka that they were a souvenir. He didn’t really know what to do with them at first, but he eventually decided to at least keep them alive until he could decide, so he picked some leaves from a nearby cherry tree and fed them to the caterpillars. When cleaning the droppings left by the critters, he noticed that they had a pleasantly fragrant smell and was almost instantly inspired to brew them into tea.

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A Nagano-based company recently announced that it had created the world’s first noodle taste analyzer, a machine that can scientifically estimate the tastiness of soba noodles within seconds.

Japan’s Nagano Prefecture is well-known for its soba noodles, a popular variety made with buckwheat flour. To honor the prefecture’s soba noodle production, local tool-maker Yatsurugigiken Inc. teamed up with Shinshu University’s Faculty of Agriculture to create the world’s first noodle deliciousness analyzer. The high-tech device applies ultraviolet LED-induced fluorescence to around 2 grams of buckwheat flour and measures the levels of phospholipids, proteins, and other taste-related substances. Within seconds, flavor ratings in four different categories (taste, aroma, greenness, freshness) are displayed on an LED display.

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Japanese convenience store chain Lawson recently launched a rather intriguing new product – flavorless candy that apparently tastes like emptiness.

Whether it be sweet, sour, salty or even spicy, candy has always been associated with a type of flavor. Well, at least until now, because flavorless candy is a thing these days. Lawson, one of Japan’s largest convenience store chains is currently testing a number of products, including the aptly-named Aji no Shinai? Ame (Tasteless? Candy), which apparently tastes like nothing. As you can imagine, the marketed lack of flavor has been raising eyebrows in Japan, and for good reason, after all, can you even imagine sucking on a candy that doesn’t have any taste?

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A US woman recently went viral for dedicating herself to a very unusual hobby – cooking recipes etched into people’s gravestones as a unique way of remembering and celebrating their lives.

About a year ago, Rosie Grant was studying library science at the University of Maryland and interning in the archives of the Congressional Cemetery. At one point, she started a TikTok account and started sharing facts about her studies with the internet, and it was this foray into the world of cemeteries that led her to her first gravestone cooking recipe. It was for spritz cookies, featured only seven ingredients and included no instructions, but Rosie managed to use it to make something edible, and the experience just left her hungry for more gravestone recipes.

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For thousands of years, the eggs of a species of water insect have been consumed as a ‘food of the Gods’ which has come to be known as Mexican caviar.

Lake Texcoco, a shallow body of water on the outskirts of Mexico City, is home to an aquatic insect of the corixidae family, which is technically a water fly that most locals refer to as a mosquito. That confusion is less important, though, as it’s the insect’s eggs that people are interested in. Known as ahuautle – loosely translated as ‘seeds of joy’ – the tiny delicacies are about the size of quinoa seeds and have a pale golden color. They have been consumed since the days of the Aztec Empire, but today only a handful of fishermen are known to still be harvesting the eggs, and few young people even know about the existence of this unusual ‘caviar’.

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A Japanese company recently released a white crust milk bread that it hopes will curb the practice of removing the crust when making sandwiches.

Did you know that the vast majority of milk bread sandwiches made daily in Japan have their crusts removed? While crusted sandwiches do exist, the general perception is that the fluffy, white part of Japanese shokupan milk bread is tastier than the brown crust. This perception dates back to a time long ago when the crust was harder to chew through, but things are definitely a lot different today. The crust is nice and soft, but people still seem to prefer crusted sandwiches. That results in a lot of food waste, but one company hopes to change that with an innovative white crust shokupan bread.

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Kupi Khop is a unique type of coffee served in an upside-down glass on a glass plate and sipped through a straw. For obvious reasons, it’s also known as Indonesian upside-down coffee.

If you ever find yourself on the West Coast of Aceh, in Indonesia, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a Kupi Khop coffee. The unique serving method alone makes it worth a try, as even if you don’t enjoy coffee, you can at least share it on Instagram or on whatever other socials you prefer. Kupi Khop consists of coarsely ground robusta coffee brewed in a glass that is then turned upside down on a glass saucer. A plastic straw is then used to gradually extract the coffee from the glass without it spilling uncontrollably.

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If you think scorching hot potato chips are bold, these new pus*y-flavored potato chips recently launched in Lithuania will probably leave an interesting taste in your mouth.

According to recent research young people are three times less likely to fall in love than their parents were at the same age. Social media and our transition to virtual lives are partly to blame, but one Lithuanian potato chip company is trying to reverse the trend with a controversial line of chips aimed exclusively at 18-year-olds and older. The CHAZZ potato chip line features flavors like mussels and white wine, or Bloody Mary cocktail, but it’s the “pus*y flavor” that has been attracting the most attention…

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A Japanese restaurant in the city of Ota, Gunma Prefecture, has gone viral for selling a unique type of noodles with a complete Buddhist Sutra printed on them.

Nittanosho Kanzantei, a small eatery in Ota, has been getting a lot of attention for a product that is not even on the menu. Its so-called “sacred noodles” are only available as a souvenir, for cooking at home or giving away as a gift, but they’re so eye-catching that people can’t seem to stop talking about them. Cut into thick, rectangular sheets, these unique noodles feature large, caligraphy-like characters printed on them with edible ingredients that remain visible even after cooking. So you can actually read your food as you’re eating it!

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Photos of charred-looking bread buns being sold at a market in Manchester have been going viral online, with some calling them a delicacy and others billing them as inedible.

The “heavy fired” roll has apparently been a staple of Scottish bakeries for several decades. They are supposed to have an overcooked, black crust and be airy and slightly chewy inside, and while some people describe them as addictive, delicious, or spot-on, their charred interior puts a lot of people off. A heated debate between the two camps recently went viral on social media, after photos of some heavy-fired buns sold at a market in Manchester started doing the rounds online.

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