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Make no mistake – this is an unpleasant obsession.
Florida tattoo shop owner Wendy Marshall loves raw meat so much she scarfs down 2 pounds of it a day. Ground chuck, charcuterie, whole cakes, porthouse, the bloodier the better—Marshall devours it all.
“I like to pull the meat right off the bone,” Marshall, 28, said before popping a piece of marbled steak into his mouth in a clip from Wednesday’s premiere of “My Strange Addiction,” provided exclusively to The Post. A powerful “raw meat burp” quickly followed.
Wendy Marshall eats raw beef at the nail salon, horrifying manicurists and patrons alike, on Wednesday’s season premiere of TLC’s “My Strange Addiction.” Courtesy of TLC
Eating raw meat is not as rare as you might think. It’s an old tradition in Ethiopia and among Arctic indigenous people – even TV star Heidi Montag has been known to do it.
Many cultures enjoy raw meat dishes, such as the French tenderloin tartare (finely ground and seasoned raw beef) and the classic Italian appetizer carpaccio (thin slices of raw beef drizzled with olive oil, lemon juice and grated Parmesan cheese).
Still, Marshall’s organ diet is extreme — and potentially dangerous. Experts warn that raw meat can harbor harmful bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and E. coli, as well as parasites such as trichinella.
And Marshall’s carnivorous habits don’t seem particularly hygienic.
At the start of Wednesday’s episode, she’s shown at a nail salon gobbling down ground beef straight from a packet out of her purse. Her nail technician was so upset that she refused to give Marshall a manicure.
“I understand that it’s not socially acceptable to eat raw meat,” Marshall testified. “People kind of gag or give me crazy looks, but I don’t care.”
Marshall’s food obsession also offends her partner’s family (shown here). Courtesy of TLC
The Liver King can probably take pity on himself.
Marshall said her nervous tendency dates back to when she was chewing the fat with her little girl as a child.
“That was actually a way for me and her to bond,” she explained in the exclusive Post clip. “She would come over and we’d talk about life and eat raw meat together.”
Marshall said her grandmother died about five years ago of bladder cancer.
Marshall’s romantic partner, Robert, did not take up the mantle. His family has beef with her addiction, going so far as to pick a bone with Marshall at a cookout at her house.
“I’m about to puke,” warned Robert’s cousin’s wife as Marshall bit into a raw steak from the TLC series.
“It’s a bit hard to accept someone who eats raw meat at the table,” she added.
Robert’s family’s concerns lead Marshall to meet with nurse Vanessa Cabrera about what’s at stake if he doesn’t kick his habit.
“Flesh ripping and, like, sinews falling apart and, like, blood, it’s all so great,” Marshall said on “My Strange Addiction.” TLC
Cabrera identified a chronic E. coli infection in Marshall’s colon from her stool sample.
Most strains of E. coli in the gut are harmless and part of a healthy bacterial landscape, but certain strains can cause severe disease.
“It’s interesting because usually someone with this would have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, all of that,” Cabrera told Marshall.
“Seeing that you don’t have any symptoms makes me think there’s only so much time that your body is adjusting to it.”
Cabrera noted that immune-compromising bacteria have become “probably resistant to almost every type of antibiotic.”
“So if you were to get any other kind of disease associated with those bacteria there, it would be very difficult for antibiotics to work,” she added.
Marshall said it’s “very scary” that antibiotics might not work in a life-or-death situation.
She vowed to make “healthier decisions” going forward and set some beef rules.
“I’m not going to stop eating raw meat — I plan on eating grass-fed, only from a good source,” Marshall promised in the episode.
“While I’m eating raw meat, it’s like nothing matters at the time,” Marshall said. TLC
“No soil at all, not even grass-fed,” she continued. “For my health, to be here for my children, for my husband and my family.”
Marshall told The Post that he hasn’t eaten raw ground beef since filming the show over the summer, “but I can’t say I won’t try it again in the future.”
She said she hasn’t experienced any side effects due to her propensity for protein.
“Other than the medical diagnosis on paper, I have no symptoms of anything and because my family and I have eaten raw meat for so long, I don’t think anything will happen to me or my family in the future,” she said.
“If anything, it’s amazing that there were no symptoms of E. coli, unlike people who don’t eat raw meat, would be deathly ill. We’re immune.”
“My Strange Addiction,” which returned to TV after a decade-long hiatus, airs Wednesdays at 9pm ET/PT on TLC. You can watch new episodes live with DIRECTV’s free trial or stream next day on HBO Max.