Special March Guest: Off the Chain

The Dinah's Club special monthly guest series continues with a reflective piece from an eater who found she couldn't handle the tooth.

SOME girls love to shop, others prefer to gossip, but I seek a culinary fix to flavour my world. If eating were a hobby I would have it on my CV; it makes me happy, I do it every chance I get, I’m always hungry for more and I’m actually good at it.

People marvel at the amount of food I consume, they say ''hey check out this freak she has three stomachs or something'' or ''are you cow because you just graze on food all day''. Some are suspicious because for someone who eats so much, and has such a small pie hole, I’m not a very big girl.

So when I recently got my wisdom teeth removed and my diet was suddenly restricted to that of a three-month-old all my joy was pulled out with my teeth.

There’s more to getting your wisdom teeth taken out than the excruciating throbbing of your raw gums, the nausea and looking like an obese drooling chipmunk. It’s the boring menu you’re really stuck with that hurts.

They tricked me like a five year-old by saying I could eat all the ice-cream I wanted but after my second bowl of ice cream for breakfast I realised cold liquids weren’t going to satisfy this swollen fat head.

That’s when my relationship with food turned sour like the milk in my fridge I refused to touch without a spoonful of coffee in it - but hot foods and liquids were also out. It doesn’t leave you with much and I don’t care how many different flavours of ice cream there is – it is just not filling enough!

My mum was trying her best cooking all kinds of soup and trying to puree rice until it looked like dogs vomit but my stomach wasn’t being fooled. Eat jelly they said! Try a smoothie they cried! But really, I’m not interested in having custard for dinner again! And liquid foods are all sweet except for soup, which all tastes the same after you add salt.

This temporary fast I call ‘the suffering’ was over soon enough but my teeth taught me one wise lesson: never underestimate the joy of chowing down a hot juicy steak whenever you want.

And that, my friends, is why they call them ‘wisdom’ teeth.