Night after night Debbie Taylor lovingly prepares dinner for her family then, as they tuck into their meal she reaches into the kitchen cupboard for a packet of Monster Munch.
Bizarre as it sounds, Debbie, 30, has eaten nothing but crisps for 10 years, and for the past two, beef flavour Monster Munch have been every meal.
Friends and family have tried to persuade her to have a more varied diet, but Debbie insists she can’t eat anything else. Meals out, Christmas dinner, barbecues, even eating the food she cooks for her family are all off-limits.
Debbie takes crisps to restaurants. And when her boyfriend Gerald Whittington, 55, took Debbie and her son Luke, 10, for a holiday in Spain, he even had to pack a separate suitcase for her
Monster Munch!
Hotel chambermaid Debbie from Harlow in Essex, eats six small packets a day or two large bags. She says: “I know it must seem strange but it works for me – I love Monster Munch!
“Gerald and my family have tried everything to get me to eat other food but I’m so used to crisps now there is no way I could tuck into a pizza or fish and chips.”
Despite her cheery attitude, Debbie’s severely restricted diet is likely to be an after-effect of the eating disorders that plagued her from a young age.
After being bullied as a child for being overweight she suffered from anorexia and bulimia from the ages of 14 to 17 and her weight plummeted to 7 stone.
She finally overcame those eating disorders, but her eating habits never returned to normal. Instead she went through phases of only eating one specific food.
From the ages of 17 to 19, she only ate peanuts and over the next few years she gradually moved on to bread sprinkled with salt.
Pregnant at 20, she craved a variety of foods and ate properly for the first time in years.
But as soon as she gave birth to son, Luke, she fell back into her old eating habits.
For the next eight years she only ate Walkers crisps and for the past two years beef flavour Monster Munch has been the only meal she could stomach.
Even when she started seeing Gerald in 2003, she couldn’t change her diet and it caused awkward situations in their relationship’s first months.
Debbie says: “Gerald wanted to take me out to dinner or cook for me at home but, whatever he did, I couldn’t eat anything.
“At first he was really concerned about my health and I suppose
it must have been embarrassing when we went out to eat in restaurants and I would only have Monster Munch.”
Since then Gerald has tried everything to encourage Debbie to eat a more varied diet.
He says: “It used to scare the living daylights out of me when we first got together, I worry about the damage she’s doing to her body.
“I worry about the damage to her bones, she’s not getting any kind of vitamins, protein or calcium.
“I think what she needs is a psychological change, it’s a state of mind.”
Debbie doesn’t take any vitamin supplements and hasn’t eaten anything green since she was a child, but nonetheless she insists she feels fine.
She says: “Doctors don’t understand. I’ve never been referred to a specialist or given any help. They think I’m just fussy and should change.”
And Debbie admits she would like to eat normally some day.
She’s embarrassed when she pulls out her bright yellow packets in a restaurant and would love to eat a normal dinner with her family.
She says: “When I have tried to eat something else my body isn’t used to it and I simply can’t eat or, if I do, it makes me sick.”
For Debbie and Gerald, weekly trips to the supermarket attract confused looks from other shoppers.
The couple take separate trolleys around the shop and Debbie clears the Monster Munch from the shelves.
She says: “People do look at us funny when I put so much Monster Munch into my trolley.
"We usually add some sweets and Coke in that trolley for Luke – sometimes the cashiers ask if we’re having a party!”
Beef flavour Monster Munch was only available in a multi-pack until last year so the couple used to throw away huge quantities of the other flavours.
Now however they come in separate bags and she only spends £4 a day on her food.
At Christmas, Debbie prepares and cooks all the food, but when her family sit down to their roast dinners, she heads for the cupboard for her crisps.
“I worry that I overcompensate by cooking big meals for Luke and Gerald, I probably make far too much food, but Luke doesn’t seem to have picked up my bad habits yet.
"Thankfully, he’s got a healthy appetite. I’m a good cook and really enjoy preparing meals, I just can’t stand the thought of eating them myself and the smell makes me feel sick.”
In 2008, Gerald persuaded Debbie to go on a plane for the first time and the family flew to Barcelona.
She says: “I was terrified of flying but also very worried that I wouldn’t find any Monster Munch in Spain.
“Gerald reassured me we’d find some but we never did. Luckily, we found BBQ crisps so I managed to live on those for the week.”
So when the family went on holiday to the Spanish island of Fuerteventura last July, Debbie wasn’t prepared to take any chances – she packed a separate suitcase full of Monster Munch.
“Just imagine if our bags had been searched going through customs!” she shudders.
Debbie’s weight fluctuates and her wardrobe is full of clothes that are too big her for slight frame.
At 5ft 3ins, she looks to be around a size 10 or 12, but she hides her figure under shapeless clothes and never buys new outfits.
Gerald is always telling her she is beautiful but she refuses to believe him, avoids the mirror and won’t even consider wearing a swimsuit on holiday.
Although she’s aware that her insecurities probably stem from her childhood weight problem and the cruel taunts of the bullies at school, she still can’t pinpoint any reason for her current diet.
She insists she doesn’t know her size and, unlike her teenage years, doesn’t any longer obsess about her weight or starve herself.
“When I’m hungry I eat a packet of crisps. I don’t try to diet, Monster Munch is just what I feel like eating. But I do realise it’s just another eating disorder. It’s probably a branch of my anorexia and bulimia in my teens.
“I would like to change, I just don’t know when it’s going to happen and what it’s going to take. I worry about the future, I would like to eat normally but I don’t know how to get there.”
She recently discovered the term ‘selective eating disorder’ to describe her eating habits when she searched the internet for people similar to her.
Debbie says: “I know people must think it’s strange but it’s not hurting anyone else and my heart hasn’t stopped yet.
“So until it causes me serious problems I’ll happily go on eating my favourite crisps.
“I can’t imagine life without Monster Munch!”