Guinness to Drop Gluttony Records

LONDON (AP) _ The Guinness Book of Records on Monday announced it is scrapping its gluttony section because eating a whole ox in less than 42 days could make you sick and because the world is more health-conscious.

″If you have witnessed one of these competitions, they are simply gross,″ said editor Donald McFarlan. ″We now regard these records as unhealthy and outmoded, in the light of growing concern about health issues worldwide.″

McFarlan decided to drop 43 gluttony records from the book’s 1990 edition, due out in autumn. They include records for consuming beer, prunes, eels, eggs, gherkins, ice cream, pancakes, spaghetti, sushi and snails.

The book, the world’s best-selling after the Bible, has carried a health warning for several years pointing out that attempts to break gluttony records ″must be regarded as extremely inadvisable.″

No one has ever died while attempting to break a gluttony record, as far as the publisher knows.

McFarlan hopes people will try to break more socially acceptable records, so new categories are planned for the 1990 edition, including the most cars converted to lead-free gasoline on a single site.

Only one gluttony entry, greatest omnivore, will remain ″for its historical and nostalgic value,″ Guinness said in a statement.

The record holder is Frenchman Michel Lotito, whose diet since 1966 has included 10 bicycles, a supermarket cart, seven television sets, six chandeliers, a coffin, and a Cessna light aircraft.

As for ox-eating, Johann Ketzler of Munich set the meat-eating record when he ate a roasted one in 42 days in 1880.

The book is sold in the United States as the Guinness Book of World Records.