Joe Yates
A woman who tears through two pounds of raw meat every day has revealed the terrifying impact it has had on her body.
Since childhood, Wendy Marshall has indulged in uncooked red meat, and for the last two decades she's grown to know nothing else. That was until last summer, when a nurse issued the 28-year-old a grave warning.
The tattoo shop owner appeared on TLC's My Strange Addiction last night, and she didn't mince her words: "I love ripping the flesh straight off the bone."
Marshall, from Florida, could then be seen sliding a marbled piece of steak into her mouth before ripping out a 'raw meat burp'.
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Her obsession with uncooked meat was born from her grandma. Reflecting on it positively, she told the Post: "That was actually a way for me and her to bond. She’d come over, and we’d talk about life and just eat the raw meat together."
Sadly, Marshall's grandma died from bladder cancer five years ago.
Despite her extreme diet being potentially life-threatening, she doesn't plan on stopping - although stern words from nurse practitioner Vanessa Cabrera has gave her food for thought.
We're all aware of the dangers of eating raw meat - you can pick up harmful bacteria that is hidden inside it, such as salmonella, E. coli, listeria, campylobacter and E. coli - as well as parasites like trichinella.
By cooking our meat, we rid our food from picking up bacteria-related illnesses.
After dining with her husband's family, it spurred her on to change.
“I’m about to throw up,” said her boyfriend's cousin’s wife as the raw-meat lover tucked into her uncooked steak on the show.
"It’s a little hard to accept someone who eats raw meat at the dinner table," she added.
After a visit to see Cabrera, the experienced nurse diagnosed her with a chronic E. coli infection in her colon following a stool sample.
The majority of the bacteria's strains found in the gut are harmless, but some can cause severe illnesses.
Cabrera told Marshall: "It’s interesting because typically someone with that would have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, all of that kind of stuff.
“In seeing that you don’t have any symptoms, it leads me to believe that it’s been there for such a long time that your body is adapted to it.”
She added due to the length of time it has survived inside her gut, she has probably built up a 'resistant to almost every single type of antibiotic'.
“So if you were to get sick with any other type of illness coupled with that bacteria there, it would be very difficult for the antibiotics to work,” she added.
Following the terrifying prognosis, Marshall assured the nurse that she will be more health conscious with her food choices - although she fell short of throwing her raw red meat diet in the trash.
"I’m not going to stop eating raw meat - I plan to eat grass-fed, only from a good source,” Marshall vowed.
“No more ground at all, not even if it’s grass-fed,” she continued. “For my health, to be here for my children, and for my husband and family.”