North Korea is the most closed-off and secretive country in the world, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about it. When it comes to North Korea, many of us know that the country is different from others. Its citizens must abide by peculiar laws and are not allowed access to certain websites or communication. Most North Koreans probably don’t even know they live in a restrictive state because they don’t have access to outside information. Here are 10 things that you do every day that are forbidden in the closed-off country.

Related: 10 Horrifying Accounts Of North Korea’s Prison Camps

10 Using the Internet

Can you imagine a world without the internet? Or someone telling you what websites you can and cannot access? Probably not, since the world as we know it is centralized around the web. We are constantly finding new and interesting information to better our lives by browsing it. Unfortunately, not everyone has this luxury.

It is against the law to use the global internet in North Korea. The government has strict controls over the internet and only allows a select few government officials, scientists, and students to have access to it. For everyone else, the government controls how it’s used and has its own state-ran network called Kwangmyong.

The internet is seen as a threat to the North Korean government because it is a tool that can be used to connect people from all over the world. It allows for the sharing of information and the exchange of ideas. This is something that the government of North Korea does not want its people to have access to. Citizens are even restricted in their phone access. They want to keep their citizens isolated from the rest of the world. ^[1]

9 Smiling

Everyone loves a smile. But what if there were laws on when you could do it? Sound nuts? Believe it or not, it’s against the law for North Koreans to smile on July 8, the anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s death.

If Citizens do happen to break the law for this rule, they could be sent to concentration camps or even pay with their lives. The same goes for being loud, drinking, or having a birthday party. So, whatever you do, don’t smile on July 8.

Current leader Kim Jong-un also initiated an 11-day mourning period for his late father, Kim Jong-il, on the 10th anniversary of his death. During this time, North Koreans were banned from laughing, drinking, and shopping (or other leisure activities).^[2]

8 Watching TV

Watching a football game with friends, curling up for a nice movie, or just channel surfing are all things we love to do. Can you imagine only having one program to choose from? I suppose that would eliminate the argument many couples have about what to watch. But hey, we all like choices, right?

North Koreans are not allowed to watch foreign television or even listen to outside radio. Like the internet, they have their own state-run television. Anything that is not official North Korean media is prohibited, as doing so would expose them to Western culture. In fact, it’s illegal to own a television or radio that even has the ability to tune into anything other than the official North Korean media. Can you imagine watching the same thing all the time?^[3]

7 Driving

What if you had to walk everywhere? That doesn’t sound fun.

Can you believe North Korea allows only one in a hundred people to own a vehicle? It’s true. Even then, if you’re a woman and need to get somewhere, you’re out of luck, that is, unless you have a male escort. Women are prohibited from driving entirely, even if they are working as traffic officers.

At one time, women were even banned from riding bicycles around town. However, that restriction has been lifted, and women can make use of the limited transportation. But while they can ride a bike now, many women still mainly work in the home, caring for their families. Those who work focus on trading and the local markets, while their husbands work in state-run jobs.^[4]

6 Leaving the Country

Speaking of travel, don’t plan on leaving any time either. The people of North Korea can’t just go anywhere they please; they are essentially stuck in the country. Any travel must be government approved. There have been few that have made it out, and many have lost their lives in efforts to escape. The few who do succeed in getting out usually have to pay a 3rd party to smuggle them out of the country. Even then, it’s risky. If caught, they and their entire family could be sent to prison concentration camps or even killed.^[5]

5 Wearing Jeans

Fashion is very much a part of who we are as individuals. It allows us to express ourselves in so many ways. We have the freedom to dress how we want. However, not everyone around the world has this freedom. The North Korean president has decided that skinny jeans are out, and you cannot wear skinny jeans in North Korea. Because they resemble a form of western civilization, they are banned.

If you do happen to break this fashion rule, you’re taken to court, where you must confess your crimes in writing. You will only be released when someone brings you something appropriate to wear, and your employer will be notified. The same goes for dyed hair and piercings. Patrols in the city of Chongjin even target popular youth spots to try and catch people red-handed in their crimes.^[6]

4 Talking on the Phone

Making an international phone call could get you killed in North Korea. Sadly, a North Korean factory chief in South Pyongan province was executed by firing squad at a stadium in front of 150,000 spectators in October 2007. The crime was for making international phone calls.

He apparently had 13 phones installed in the basement of his factory in order to make international calls. Six people were killed, and 34 others were injured when a stampede occurred as crowds were leaving the stadium.^[7]

3 Choosing Your Profession

Okay, so maybe we don’t all have the dream job we fantasized about as a child. But North Koreans really don’t get to choose. When first finishing high school, all citizens must join the military. Men stay for 10 years, and women stay until the age of 23. After the military, they are then assigned their life’s work.

Job assignments are not up for negotiation and mostly consist of farming and agriculture. Other jobs consist of street sweepers, factory workers, traffic workers, and teachers. AlleEmployees are supposed to work a 48-hour work week and only have Sundays off. Once in 2016, the entire country, aside from the elite workforce, had to work 70 straight days due to government order in efforts to boost the economy.^[8]

2 Getting a New Haircut

Occasionally, everyone loves a new look. It’s nice to change it up every once in a while, right? For North Koreans, not so much. They have exactly 28 haircuts to choose from.

Women have 14 style choices, and most of them are shorter since it’s customary for married women to have shorter hair. Men are not allowed hair longer than two inches (5 centimeters), and spiky or dyed hair is a no-no because it’s not considered a “socialist hairstyle.” If a person were to get a style that was not on the approved list, they would be expressing anti-socialist behavior.^[9]

1 Talking Smack about the Government

How many times do we criticize or critique the way our government does things without giving it another thought? This is not something that happens in North Korea without severe punishment.

All North Koreans who live under Kim Jong-un’s rule must swear loyalty and obedience to him, his family, and the state. Those who threaten or even insult the supreme leader or his family will be imprisoned or even executed. This goes for visitors as well. American student Otto Warmbier was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while waiting to leave North Korea as part of a guided tour group. He was arrested for stealing a billboard from his hotel room. North Korea saw this as an insult, and he was imprisoned and died after being released in a vegetative state in June 2017.

It has been said that the country is somewhat like the show The Handmaid’s Tale, which is set in a dystopian future. Although North Korea is one of the most isolated and secretive nations in the world, there are some things we do know. So next time you’re annoyed at what one might sarcastically call a first-world problem, just reread this list and be thankful you’re not living in North Korea.^[10]

If you decide to become a world traveler, you will quickly surmise that despite having the same needs and many wants, people have developed different ways of satisfying these desires. We take certain things for granted when we see or do them everyday. But when you leave your home base and connect with a different cultural lifestyle, you will encounter some things that are very different from home! Sometimes it’s weird; but mostly it’s very fun. Here are 10 things that are very different from living in the USA.

Related: Top 10 American Animals You Don’t Know

10 Pharmaceutical Advertising

If you’ve ever been anywhere in Europe and sat down to watch TV for a bit, there’s a good chance you have noticed differences, outside of possible language barriers, in the formatting. Not only do they do advertising in hour-long chunks of time instead of repeatedly interrupting the show or movie (Great call! You can make a meal and clean up and not miss any of your beloved programs.), you may have noticed some commercials missing from the line up like automobiles and pharma advertising. That’s because outside of the USA and New Zealand, it is illegal in most countries for Pharmaceutical companies to participate in direct to consumer marketing, including airing commercials.

It’s a breath of fresh air not to hear all of the potential side effects that can come with trying to delay hair loss to managing depression to any variety of ailments. The side effects almost always sound worse than the original problem. So many of them seem to involve possible death or cancers. If you really think about it, it becomes very bizarre and it’s easy to wonder why it would be legal anywhere. It’s very reminiscent of old school snake oil salesmen! It would be a more sensible world if they were only marketing to doctors and other medical practitioners.

9 Garbage Disposal

That convenient thing in your kitchen sink that chops up your unwanted vegetable ends and rotting fruit, and fingers if you’re not careful, isn’t as environmentally friendly as you may believe it to be. It has a big impact on often very dated sewage systems that can easily become clogged by the fibrous refuse. And many people put things down the disposal that shouldn’t be going down either. You probably discover this the hard way if you had pipes clogged by coffee grounds or eggshells. All of that water is recycled and reused via treatment plants. Think about all of the stuff you have washed down the sink, disposal or not, without considering it was going back into the water supply. Treatment can only remove so much, it’s not a perfect purifier!

An Australia study has shown that sending food down the disposal is potentially three times worse than just sending it to a landfill. And they are banned in many European countries. Even New York City has been having an internal battle over whether to continue permitting them or not!

8 Shady Product Price Labels

We all know by now that when we go to check out at the supermarket or grocery store that the price is going to be higher than the price we calculated along our journey. We know that tax is coming, sometimes even surprise additional charges! And most of us just don’t want to do that math, or don’t even know what the percentage is. So you hand that card or cash over with a sigh when that extra few to many dollars are added on.

There’s a better way! In the EU, there are no surprises. The price tags are required to reflect any and all charges, including tax, on the price tag on the product or the shelf. How refreshing! Sellers are also not allowed to charge extra when you use a credit or debit card. Maybe it’s time for the USA to start adopting some practices of many of our former homeland!

7 Super-sized Food Portions

How many times have you asked for the larger size at the drive-thru or counter, especially at a fast food restaurant? It has probably happened at least once. French fries are admittedly pretty amazing. It would be hard to believe that we don’t all thoroughly scour the bottom of the bag for stray fries. It’s part of the culture and the joy of fries!

But according to many Europeans, it’s a weird part of our culture that they just can’t understand. Portion sizes for all meals in other countries are typically smaller than our regularly sized meals. So supersizing anything seems pretty crazy. It makes sense that obesity is on the rise with massive meal sizes. If freedom means doing anything you want, you have to accept the consequences that come with it.

6 “How Are You?” as a ‘Hello’ Greeting

Guilty! “How are you?” is a very common replacement for “Hello.” in the US. You most likely hear it and say it several times a day. Well, at least when we’re not hiding indoors from a pandemic. You’re walking down the street and you make eye contact with a stranger, smile, and out it comes. The reply is likely identical. No answer to the question is expected or anticipated and it would probably be a surprise if you got one.

Well, elsewhere, like in Europe, you would likely receive a full monologue answer about someone’s day. They would likewise expect a similar reply from you and find it rude if they didn’t get it. So if you travel to Europe, beat using a simple “hello” as a greeting into your memory unless you want to have a lot of unexpected conversations!

5 Free Drink Refills

How many Cokes do you drink with one meal? You pay for one and can drink as many as you want. A sizable number of us are guilty of drinking at least two, if not more. They offer, why refuse? We probably already said yes to the super-sized meal, might as well go full tilt!

This is another common practice in the US that you will not experience many other places. In most other countries, especially throughout Europe, you are expected to pay for everything you imbibe. So don’t be surprised when the final bill reflects those six colas you drank. They’re also bewildered by the amount of ice we expect in our beverages.

4 Red Solo Cups

The iconic red solo cup even has a song about it in the US! Toby Keith—Red Solo Cup (Unedited Version) The fact that it has over 61 million views should tell you how popular these precious cups are. It explains everything you need to know about this easy to stock, disposable dish we very likely all have stacked somewhere in our kitchen or pantry ready to be put in action at a moment’s notice.

But the fame of the cups stays within the borders of the USA. It is unlikely you will be able to find these revered beer receptacles outside out the states. This is probably partly because it is less likely you’ll need to conceal something you shouldn’t be drinking in public elsewhere since most countries have more slack to their alcohol regulations.

3 Tipping

The rate at which we tip in the US, or even tip at all, is mind blowing to most foreigners. The idea that an employee’s salary comes directly from a customer makes no sense to most foreign travelers. And what if the service is bad or rude? Realistically, you are still expected to leave something. We are very accustomed to just shelling it out! In Europe, they include the service fee into the price of the meal. And in Japan and South Korea, tips are viewed as insults. So when they visit the US, the expectation of a tip can be an expensive surprise.

Have you ever traveled and had someone look very confused and hand your money back to you after you attempted to tip them? Experience has taught the author not to tip taxi drivers in some parts of Central America. It’s probably a good idea to do a little research on the tipping customs on your travel destination so you don’t offend someone.

2 To-Go Coffee

What would we do without our to-go coffees when we’re rushing to work or having an afternoon break? There’s no way Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts would be such a phenomenon without that precious black gold we can grab from the windows of our cars. If anything in this nation actually unifies us, it is our love of and desperation for convenience. We want it now and as exactly as we ask for it. Nothing is done better that way, or more symbolic of that cultural attitude, than our coffee on the run.

But this is opposite so many other places in the world where coffee is meant to be a leisure activity to be savored from a ceramic cup (not plastic or styrofoam) over a conversation with a friend or a sitting solo through a euphoric concerto. In Italy, the birthplace of espresso, for example, coffee is a ritual done quickly and in the place of service, not an on the run event with no meaning beyond that energy kick. Psssst, get a French press and make it at home …you’ll never buy to-go again! It’s as quick as making tea, much tastier than an automatic drip machine, and you can tweak it any way you desire.

1 Having Huge Gaps Under Stalls in Public Bathrooms

They can see you! Most of us have likely had this thought at one time or another. It’s pretty safe to assume no one actually enjoys using a public restroom. And if you’re a woman at an event, chances are you’ll be standing in a very long line before you can even get to the toilet. It’s an unfortunate necessity sometimes. But when you gotta go, you gotta go! Those significant gaps between the door and the walls and the door and the floor don’t do anything to make the situation more comfortable either. You can see the people shuffling outside on their way to another stall and clearly see your neighbor’s legs and feet in this vulnerable moment. It really doesn’t create an atmosphere of comfort.

In Europe, if you need a public restroom, you’ll be fully encased and out of view of the public! The partitions go all the way to the floor and there are no unsightly gaps between the door and the walls. But expect to pay a small fee to use this restroom. And no, this isn’t a privacy fee. It is a maintenance, which is more than fair if you really think about it. Maybe American restrooms would be a bit cleaner with a fee?! You may encounter a bidet (in Japan also) instead of toilet paper too. It is a preferred method of self sanitation in different places around the world and truly cuts down on waste. Plus you are expected to throw the used toilet paper in the waste bin in many places instead of flushing it.

Sometimes seemly innocent and innocuous images have pretty dark and sinister backgrounds. A happy-faced photo of an ordinary family can be hiding what could become some of the darkest moments in history. Below we have found ten seemingly normal images, which, when you dig a little deeper into the backstory, unravel dark and tragic stories.

Related: 10 Haunting Images Of The Chernobyl Disaster And Their Backstories

10 Omagh Bombing, 1998

A man smiles for a photo wearing a bright yellow jumper with his equally smiley son hoisted on his shoulders. They are a couple of excited Spanish tourists visiting the town of Omagh in Northern Ireland.

They stand in front of an innocuous red car on a busy street. The year is 1998, and that red car was packed with around 500 pounds )226 kilograms) of fertilizer-based explosives that would detonate moments after that photo was snapped. It was a terrorist attack orchestrated by the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA), a splinter group from the IRA that did not agree with the ceasefire that the IRA had agreed upon earlier that year.

The explosion would kill 29 people, injure 220, and spark national and international outrage. The two in the photo would miraculously survive, though the photographer would unfortunately die.^[1]

9 David A. Johnston

Legs stretched out in front of him, a notebook and pen on his lap, David A. Johnston directs a sunny smile to the cameraman, Harry Glicken, who was a student of David’s. His demeanor is relaxed and excited. As he should be. He is a volcanologist studying the rumbling Mount St. Helens.

Thirteen and a half hours later, Johnston would be killed by the eruption of Mount St Helens. His last words shared over the radio to the closest U.S. Geological Survey office were, “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!”

His remains were never found. Glicken was meant to be on duty observing the volcano that day. But he swapped shifts with Johnston at the last minute as Glicken had an interview to attend. Upon hearing the news of the eruption and Johnston’s death, Glicken was devasted and joined helicopter crews to try and find survivors for hours before they refused to allow him to continue. In a strange twist of fate, Glicken would die from a separate volcanic eruption in Japan years later.^[2]

8 Black Bear in the Woods

The photo shows a 300-pound black bear in the forest. The bear is around 100 feet (30 meters) away, behind a fallen log, and seems to be following the photographer.

The photo was snapped on a phone by Darsh Patel, a 22-year-old Rutgers University student who had decided to go hiking in West Milford’s Apshawa Preserve with four of his fellow university friends. Unfortunately, the bear ended up chasing the students, so they decided to split up. When they regrouped, one student from the group was missing: Darsh Patel.

Patel’s body was recovered four hours after police arrived at the scene. He had been mauled by the bear he had photographed only moments beforehand. His phone would also be recovered with puncture marks and this foreboding photo.^[3]

7 Tyler Hadley

The photo is blurred. As if the photographer moved the camera as he took it. The photo shows two men, one with a shaven head, holding an orange cup to the camera. The photo could be from any house party. But, the man with the aloft orange cup is Tyler Hadley, and earlier that day, he killed his parents, Blake and Mary-Jo Hadley, with a clawed hammer while high on ecstasy.

Their dead bodies, wrapped in towels and covered in family possessions that reminded Tyler of his parents, lay upstairs in the house as the party raged on.

Tyler had a history of verbally promising to kill his parents since he was ten years of age, seething whenever they would punish him or show parental authority. Finally, on the day of their murders, he promised the party of the century. Writing on his Facebook page at noon, “party at my crib tonight… maybe.” His classmates did not believe him, as his parents were known to be strict. But at 8 pm, he again posted a message: “party at my house hmu.”

At the party, he started telling people of his murderous deed. People who heard left or thought he was lying. His best friend, Michael Mandell, was shown the bodies upstairs. Afterward, they posed for this infamous photo. Michael eventually ran away from the party, and through word of mouth, Tyler’s crime was reported to the police. Tyler was arrested the morning after the party and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Hadley house was later demolished.^[4]

6 Dutch Girls of Panana

Two young women pose for a selfie in front of the wild nature of Panama. The two girls are Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, Dutch travelers who were hiking the El Pianista trail. They set off for their hike on April 1 at 11 am. Unfortunately, on the 2nd, they did not turn up for an appointment, and the parents of the girls stopped receiving the daily texts they had been getting in the past.

On April 6, the parents arrived in Panana along with a full police search. The forest would be combed for ten days. Nothing was found.

Ten weeks later, a woman handed in a blue backpack. The backpack belonged to Froon, and inside were personal belongings, including a camera and their phones. The phones had evidence of emergency numbers having been dialed only hours after the girls started their hike, but due to lack of reception, the calls did not connect. Froons’s phone died on April 4, and Kremers phone would be turned on intermintently between the 5th and the 11th, but the incorrect pin was entered, or no pin was entered each time.

On the camera, ninety flash photos were taken between one and four am in complete darkness deep within the jungle. One disturbing image shows the back of Kremers’s head with blood on her hair.

Two months after the backpack was discovered, a pelvis and a foot inside a boot were discovered, along with other remains. These were later DNA tested and confirmed to belong to Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. What happened to them remains a mystery today.^[1]

5 The Red-Haired Woman

The photo shows a man bouldering in Montecito’s Cold Spring Trail in California. Behind him is a flash of red color on the rocks. This red is the hair of Saylor Guilliams. Guilliams had gone on a later afternoon hike with her friend, Brenden Michael Vega. They were ill-equipped, and as it got darker, their cell phones were not enough to illuminate the path, and they ended up slipping.

Vega injured his arm, but Guilliams broke both ankles and her wrist. Vega went to get help but ended up falling 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters) off a ledge and succumbing to his injuries. This left Guilliams alone. She would lay there for the entire night until the men bouldering would later discover Guilliams laying on the rocks, unresponsive. They called emergency services, and she was airlifted out. She would survive the ordeal.^[6]

4 Daylenn “Moke” Pua

Daylenn Pua went and visited his grandmother in Waianae, Oahu, Hawaii. He had told her he was interested in hiking the Haiku Stairs, otherwise known as the “Stairway to Heaven.” This hike was closed to the public, and anyone caught hiking it was trespassing. His grandmother warned him against it, saying he would be locked up if he did. On February 27, 2015, he caught a bus and ventured forth to the stairway to heaven hike. Daylenn sent texts to his grandmother with photos of the hike. He was never seen again.

After his disappearance, the photos were studied; one showed a man in the far background. He seems to be following behind Daylenn. The family asked for public assistance and for anyone who recognized the man to come forth. To this day, he or his remains have never been found, and what happened to him and the identity of that strange man in the photo remains a mystery.^[7]

3 Jolee Callan

Dressed in an oversized red shirt, 18-year-old Jolee Callan stands on top of a sheer cliff face and takes a photo of the beautiful view below of Pinhoti Trail in Cheaha State Park in Delta, Alabama

She had just hiked to this scenic location with her ex-boyfriend, Loren Bunner (20). Moments after this photo was taken, Loren would shoot her in the head twice with a .22-caliber Ruger Bearcat revolver and throw her body off the cliffside.

He would later call the police and say that he killed his ex-girlfriend, turning himself in. The pair had dated for ten months before Jolee broke up with Loren as he was controlling and did not allow her to meet with her friends. Despite the breakup, they kept in regular contact. They even had a dog together.

Two months after the breakup, Loren invited Jolee on the hike where he would end up murdering her. Loren Bunner was sentenced to 52 years in prison.^[8]

2 Tina Watson

Two divers pose for a photo while scuba diving off the beautiful Queensland Coast. Behind them, a stiff prone figure lays on the ocean floor. This would later be discovered to be Tina Watson, murdered by her husband

Tina Watson was visiting Queensland with her husband, Gabe, for their honeymoon. On the day of her death, they decided to dive into the popular and challenging wreck of the SS Yongala. The two were underqualified for such a dive, and the dive company suggested a guided dive for the expedition, which they refused.

During the dive, Tina ran into trouble and sunk nearly 100 feet (30 meters) to the ocean floor. Gabe claimed to have tried to save his wife, but due to an ear problem, he said he could not dive deep enough to help her. When she was brought aboard, she was pronounced dead after 40 minutes of CPR. Due to contradictory statements issued by Gabe and the fact that before their marriage, Gabe asked Tina to increase her life insurance and make him the sole beneficiary, foul play was suspected. He was charged with manslaughter charges in Queensland but later had his charges dismissed when he was charged in his home country of the United States related to the planning of the murder.^[9]

1 The Dating Game

The photo shows two people. A man and a woman standing side by side. The photo is a still from a popular TV show called The Dating Game, which aired in the 1970s.

The woman’s name was Cheryl Bradshaw. The man beside her, Rodney James Alcala. At the time of his appearance, Rodney was in the middle of a murder spree. He committed five murders between 1977 and 1979. He would torment his victims by strangling them to unconsciousness, allowing them to regain consciousness, and then repeating the process again and again before killing them. He was described as a killing machine. His exact murder count is unknown, but he was caught and convicted for seven murders.

He appeared on The Dating Game as a “successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes, you might find him skydiving or motorcycling.” He won the date with the bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw. She, however, refused to go on a date with him, calling him creepy. He would later go on to murder three additional women after this appearance, and some speculate that the rejection was a driving factor.^[10]

For a lot of people food is something in which they can take joy and comfort. We indulge in junk food, try to eat healthy food, make too much food to celebrate special occasions and, thanks to the internet, we can learn about new and exotic foods to try from all over the world. But there are issues we need to be wary of, like over indulging, and food allergies, and safety in terms of food prep. But even the most wary and responsible among us would be unlikely to have seen any of these bizarre reactions to food coming. 

10. A Collapsed Lung Caused by Ghost Peppers

If you’ve ever tried to eat a ghost pepper before you know that you should probably never eat a ghost pepper. They average about 1 million Scoville heat units. Compare that to sriracha which, at best, is about 2,500. For most people, eating a ghost pepper will cause extreme discomfort, sweating, drooling and potentially some stomach upset. That’s a good reaction, though, relatively speaking. 

A 47-year-old man who had entered a ghost pepper eating challenge. After suffering some severe pain and vomiting he was taken to the hospital. Doctors discovered that he was suffering from an esophageal rupture, which means he ended up tearing a hole in his throat as a result of eating the pepper. He also suffered a pneumothorax, better known as a collapsed lung. 

The hole in the man’s throat was leaking food into his chest cavity including hamburger, onion and “green vomitous material.” It’s been suggested he wasn’t even eating pure peppers, but a burger with peppers on it, then he chugged a bunch of water afterwards. He spent 23 days in hospital as a result, and still had a breathing tube when he left. 

9. Carb-Heavy Foods Leading to Drunkenness

You’ve probably experienced some stomach upset at least once in your life after eating something that wasn’t necessarily bad, it just didn’t agree with you. Maybe it made you feel sick, or maybe it just made you gassy, who’s to say? The stomach is a weird and wonderful place, and no one knows this better than a 61-year-old Texas man whose claim to fame is an inexplicable beer gut.

Rather than excess weight from drinking beer, this beer gut refers to the way the man digests food. He went to the hospital suffering from dizziness and related issues and a blood test revealed his blood alcohol was 0.37% which is indicative of being pretty drunk. The weird part, of course, was that the man had not had any alcohol. 

As it happens, the man suffers from a condition called auto-brewery syndrome. Doctors initially brushed it off as the man basically being a liar. They assumed he was drinking in secret and not admitting to it. After keeping him under observation and determining his alcohol levels would rise even when he clearly wasn’t drinking, they discovered that he had an abundance of brewer’s yeast in his digestive tract. As he ate any carbs, the yeast and sugars combined to start producing alcohol inside his body.

The condition is pretty rare and not enough studies have been done to verify much about it, but it does seem linked to the use of antibiotics, which may kill off other gut bacteria. 

8. Black Licorice Heart Attacks

Black licorice is a bit of a maligned treat in the candy world and routinely shows up on lists of the worst candy ever. Still, some people have a taste for it and, as if to validate all the haters out there, that could be a very bad thing. Eating large quantities of black licorice carries some serious health risks that you might not expect from run-of-the-mill candy.

Black licorice has been linked to at least one death due to a heart attack. The man was 54-years-old and had been eating an entire bag or two of black licorice every day for weeks. He collapsed and then died 24 hours after getting to the hospital.  His blood tests showed incredibly low potassium which is caused by something called glycyrrhizin. It’s what makes black licorice sweet, but it’s clearly dangerous. 

Low potassium can dangerously alter heart rhythms and that, combined with the man’s already poor health owing to smoking and a poor diet, led to the fatal heart attack. Obviously you need to consume large quantities of licorice to suffer this fate, but it can happen.

7. A Throat Swelling Shut From Hot Food

Getting your food piping hot is usually a good thing because most meals just taste better that way. But there are levels of heat and you’ve probably burnt your tongue at least once when you realized something wasn’t cool enough to eat yet. So what do you do when food is too hot? Most of us wait, or maybe blow on it to speed the process up. Sadly, that was not what Darren Hickey did. 

The 51-year-old man worked as a wedding planner and was at a venue where a chef offered him a fish cake to try. He must have eaten too quickly as the cake was hot and, rather than spit it out, he simply swallowed it. The fish cake burned the back of his throat and for a time he seemed fine. However, as the day progressed, the burn began to swell until it caused his throat to constrict so much he could no longer breathe. He died as a result of his injuries.

6. Death Caused by Fermented Corn Noodles

Most of us in the Western world eat noodles made from wheat, and occasionally we’ll have rice noodles as well. But you can make noodles out of a lot of different ingredients and that includes corn. A Chinese dish called suantangzi is made with fermented corn noodles and that’s where the problem arose for a family in China that consumed the dish back in 2020. Nine family members ended up dying.

There is a bacterium that can grow in corn which produces something called bongkrekic acid as a by-product. The bacteria that produces it is nearly impossible to get rid of, you can’t wash it off and you can’t cook it out, either. It has no taste or odor so you can’t tell if your food is infected.

Consuming infected grain leads to vomiting and abdominal pain and the mortality rate is pretty high. The only method of prevention is to basically not eat fermented grains at all. 

5. Severe Gastrointestinal Distress from Escolar

The saying “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” is typically a reference to romantic prospects but it’s also just an accurate observation. There are lots of fish in the sea and humans tend to only consume a small number of them as a food source. Tuna, salmon, and bass are all very common. But what about escolar?

Unscrupulous fish sellers will sometimes swap escolar for tuna because it’s cheaper. By all accounts, escolar is a tasty fish, but it’s not ideal for most people to eat thanks to a natural wax in the fish’s flesh that can, in some people, cause keriorrhea. Even if you don’t know that word, the suffix must be ringing a few bells. It’s a specific kind of diarrhea that you can Google if you’re feeling adventurous and is known to be caused by escolar anywhere between 30 minutes and 36 hours after eating it.

While some people will hide the fish, pretending it’s tuna, other places sell it openly as white tuna, butterfish, rudderfish or Hawaiian walu, because it really is considered tasty and it doesn’t cause the adverse reaction in everyone, making it kind of like the seafood version of Russian Roulette. It earned escolar the nickname of Ex-Lax Fish. 

4. Dreamfish Hallucinations

Along the coasts of Africa and Europe you can find a fish called salema porgy, but it’s more often called dreamfish. People have been eating them since Ancient Rome and probably before, but it’s definitely not an everyday sort of thing owing to the fact these little fish will make you trip out. They contain hallucinogenic compounds similar to LSD. 

Despite the effects, or because of them, you can find the fish on menus throughout Europe, you just need to be cautious when eating it. Some people have noted that they’re pretty incapable of doing even basic tasks after eating the fish. At least one diner claimed to have seen the Angel of Death while other people have hallucinated Batman or the chatter of birds. As in, they could see the sounds birds were making. 

It’s not all fun and games, however, as abdominal pain, amnesia and paralysis are also potential effects, along with “brain electricity.”

3. Popcorn Lung from Microwave Popcorn 

Microwave popcorn is over 40 years old at this point and has been a staple of movie nights at home for that entire time. Who doesn’t love a bag of pre-buttered popcorn that’s ready in two minutes? But there is a little known dark side to microwave popcorn that’s known as popcorn lung. Sounds a bit silly, but it had the potential to be fatal.

Popcorn lung happens when the bronchioles of your lungs become damaged and inflamed from inhaling toxins. It gets its name because of how closely tied to popcorn the disease was. In fact, it was first identified in workers at a popcorn factory and later popped up in some people who ate large amounts of microwave popcorn at home.

Popcorn used to be processed with a chemical called diacetyl. That was what made it taste like butter without having to use real butter which would go bad in a package of popcorn. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, the chemicals in the popcorn bags themselves were also determined to contain perfluorinated compounds, which have been linked to cancer. 

2. Nardoo Poisoning

Most of us have likely not heard of nardoo, but it’s an edible fern you can find in Australia. Aboriginal people have known of it for ages and they can show you how to cook and eat it too, if you want. And, if you don’t want to suffer the potential lethal consequences of eating it, you really should follow their instructions.

Nardoo’s big claim to fame dates back to 1861 when Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills tried to be the first non-aboriginals to cross Australia from South to North. Within three months their supplies ran low, and some locals showed them how to make nardoo. With an abundant supply, they continued to eat it, up to five pounds of it a day, but there was a problem. Despite eating, they were growing weak. They lost weight, their heart rates slowed, and they began to shake frequently. They were starving, but didn’t realize it.

Nardoo contains an enzyme called thiaminase. It prevents the body from processing thiamine, which is vitamin B1 and that, in turn, prevents you from metabolizing energy from the food you eat. So you can eat and eat and eat but get no nutritional benefits. 

What Wills and Burke failed to realize was that the aboriginals had been roasting the seed pods of the nardoo before preparing it. Heat breaks down the thiaminase and makes it edible. They were eating it raw. Both men died from it as a result.

1. A Sexually Transmitted Allergy

Nut allergies are so commonplace that kids can no longer have peanut butter in most schools and peanuts were replaced by pretzels on airplanes. But the extent to which a person may suffer a nut allergy is not something most of us fully understand because, in some cases, it’s almost unbelievable. That’s the case with a couple who were written about in a medical journal back in 2007.

In this case, the man in the couple had eaten Brazil nuts two or three hours before getting together with his girlfriend, who they were both aware was allergic to the nuts. He claimed to have already bathed and brushed his teeth before seeing her so there was no chance of a reaction. However, there was still a reaction, and a very specific one in a very sensitive location that manifested after they had sex, if you catch our meaning. 

Further testing showed that the allergens from the nuts were actually transmitted through her boyfriend’s semen during intercourse causing her to have an allergic reaction. There’s evidence of a similar situation happening to another woman indicating allergies can be essentially sexually transmitted.