Believe it or not, eating paper has a weirdly fancy history. In Japan during the Edo period, some people believed that chewing on washi (traditional paper) could cure fatigue. Spoiler: it didn’t.
Then there’s Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a famous French gastronome, who wrote about a woman who obsessively ate paper to the point of ruining her teeth. Romantic, right? He described her as “a living compost pile.” Okay, I made that last part up, but it sounds accurate.
What Happens If You Eat a Whole Notebook?
Let’s say you’re on a dare and you scarf down an entire composition book. Here’s the science: your stomach acid will break down some of it, but the rest will form a pulpy mass. This is called a bezoar, which sounds like a type of beetle but is actually a sad, wet clump of paper stuck in your gut.
In extreme cases, bezoars can cause blockages, requiring a doctor to fish it out with a scope or—if you’re really unlucky—surgery. The record for largest paper bezoar extracted from a human? Four pounds. That’s the weight of a small bowling ball made of homework. Avoid the strike.
Can Eating Paper Lead to Serious Health Issues? - Healthyhebbits
