Not Your Thanksgiving Feast

Photo By Pfc. Susan Blair | Head shot of Maj. Shawn Ransford.  

IRAQ

06.21.2006

Courtesy Story

82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs Office

"The people on Fear Factor do it all wrong," said Maj. Shawn Ransford, referring to the hit, gross-out television show. "You don't chew a Madagascar Roach. You bite the head off first to kill it, and then you eat the body. It's two bites total."

This may seem like a bizarre piece of knowledge to have, but for Ransford, Operations Officer for the 407th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division; it was much more than trivia. That's because Ransford had a dream to one day be on Fear Factor, the popular reality television show that has contestants perform various stunts as well as eat obscure and revolting things in order to win prizes and money.

Fear Factor premiered on TV in 2001. As soon as he saw the show, Ransford was possessed by the idea that he could win it.
"The stunts are easy . . . The eating is where people always get out, so I figured if I could get past that portion I"d be all right," said Ransford.

With that in mind Ransford set out on a five-year journey to be a contestant on Fear Factor. He prepared himself by eating various stomach-turning delicacies.

Ransford found that eating disgusting foods is a skill that takes practice. When it came to eating goat eyes he learned a valuable lesson.

"Everyone chews a goat eye the first time and it squirts like a piece of Freshen-Up gum, except it doesn't taste like Freshen-Up gum," Ransford said. "The goat eye is a little bit big to swallow whole but it can be done, you don't want to chew it. "

Ransford may have gotten the technique of eating goat eyes and Madagascar cockroaches down, but he also got in touch with his creative side. Instead of eating one thing he made a smoothie of an assortment of garden creatures.

"It was a Saturday afternoon and my wife heard the blender going and thought I was making daiquiris," Ransford said. "Once she saw the earth worms, the Madagascar roaches, and flies flying all around she made me throw out the blender. She was not very happy at this point."

Even though Ransford was able to choke down everything he tried to eat, in the long run he never found anything he"d want to serve at a dinner party.

"There wasn't anything that I tried that I would go back and eat as a meal but I did find things that I didn't mind," said Ransford. "A baluge wasn't too bad."

A baluge is a fifteen- or sixteen-day fertilized chicken egg. He also didn't mind crickets and grasshoppers
"If you can fry up the grasshoppers or give them a quick slap on the grill than they're not bad," he said.

Learning to tolerate the food was half the battle. Finding places to buy it at was the other half. "Not everything that they eat on the show you can get. You can't get a pig uterus (at the grocery store)," said Ransford. "The trick is to find something that is the same texture and shape of what you're trying to eat.

An octopus tentacle is around the same texture and shape as a pig uterus and that you can buy." Eating nauseating creatures and objects wasn't the only thing that Ransford did. He also ate massive amounts of food that his stomach wasn't used to holding to aid in avoiding the "vomit factor".

"Part of my training involved figuring out what my stomach would cap out with, food that my stomach wasn't used to holding," he explained. "I ate 12 bakers"-dozens of oysters. That's 156 oysters. On the last dozen was when I started to feel queasy."

Unfortunately, even after all the goat eyes, roaches, and worm smoothies he ate, Ransford never made it onto the show. But Ransford isn't bitter, he said he understands why he was never chosen.

"If you notice all the contestants on the show are young and good looking," said Ransford. "Once I realized I wasn't young anymore I stopped trying."

• Date Taken: 06.21.2006
• Date Posted: 06.21.2006 13:44
• Story ID: 6912
• Location: IQ