People will eat the weirdest things. In the past we’ve featured strange eating habits like munching on bars of soap, gobbling handfuls of sand and eating sponges, but Ambuli Abu, from Coimbatore, India, is the only man I know of who can actually eat red-hot coal.

I’ve seen people consume some of the hottest foods on Earth, but none can even hold a candle to Ambuli Abu, an Indian man who likes his food right out of the fire. The school drop-out has been making a name for himself by eating hot coal and light bulbs. It’s not the career everyone dreams of, but for Abu, this was apparently the best way to achieve his goal of setting a world record. In a video interview, the fire eater says he is aware that his mouth and stomach must be suffering as a result of his eating hot embers, and admits that it does cause him pain, but he tries to keep his heart strong in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a record setter. He adds that just the fact that he can do thins other cannot, keeps him going.

Simply looking at Ambuli Abu as he bites on and chews a burning piece of hot coal, one can tell this is no ordinary man, but I have to wonder if it’s all worth it. I mean, I think it’s safe to say this guy isn’t able to taste real food anymore, after subjecting his taste buds to this kind of torture for years, not to mention all the health risks associated with his fire eating. And if injecting hot coal and burning embers wasn’t enough, I think that’s a CFL light bulb his chewing on at the end of the video, you know, the kind that contain a little bit of mercury… Now that will definitely cause some serious damage.