A firefighter from Thailand eats live worms to stay healthy, Paisit Chanta has eaten earth worms every day for almost 30 years.

Khun Chanta's unusual dietary supplement of worms was featured in the major Thai language newspaper, "Thai Rath".

His strange gastronomic habit started many years ago when he was fishing in his native village in Nakhon Nayok province, 90 km (60 miles) north-east of Bangkok, Thailand.

Paisit Chanta says: One day, I was sitting there on the river bank waiting for a fish to go for my bait for hours and was starving from hunger.

Suddenly, I realized that fish don't die from eating my bait-worms so I shouldn't either. I started to eat out of my can of worms until my stomach was full.

Now Paisit Chanta loves worms, and has even become accustomed to chewing them instead of swallowing them whole.

Paisit Chanta, 39 years old and a father of two credits his good health to his unusual diet of fresh wriggling worms, saying that a mild flu is the worst illness he's ever had.

His colleague fire fighter, Thepnakorn Kongwien, says that Paisit often digs for fresh worms in the area of their fire station in Thailand. We are slowly getting used to his strange food needs, but we still think it's a very strange and disgusting habit, fire fighter Thepnakorn said.

Paisit Chanta says that eating fresh worms is just like eating Thai sticky rice, referring to the glutinous rice popular in Thailand.

Thai Government warns against consumption of raw earthworms:
For most people, it would probably be a redundant warning. After all, earthworms, whether raw or cooked, are hardly likely candidates for being most people's favorite food.

But yesterday a senior government health official thought fit to warn the Thai public against consuming raw earthworms, due to an article that appeared in the Thai newspaper "Thai Rath", saying that people who would follow the worm-eating advise of fire fighter Paisit Chanta could run the risk of ingesting parasitic worms.

Just in case you feel like a few raw earthworms for your breakfast, Dr. Praphasri Jongsuksantikul, an expert on parasitic worms and water-borne diseases from the government's Department of Disease Control, says that the soil in which earthworms lives often contains the larvae or eggs of parasitic worms such as hookworms and strong geloid worms.

These parasites are apparently often ingested along with raw earthworms, even if they were washed prior to consumption, and then breed in the human body, leading to a range of problems including the possibility of anaemia.