Roaches definitely not for eating

By ANNE BESTON

If television personality Lana Coc-Kroft did put a cockroach in her mouth during filming of Celebrity Treasure Island, she risked catching some very nasty bugs indeed.

While contestants in the reality TV show, due to go to air on Sunday, are refusing to reveal what stunts they performed on the Fijian island, a woman's magazine is reporting one Fear Factor type of challenge involved chewing a live cockroach.

Contestants are understood not to have swallowed the cockroaches but Landcare Research entomologist Dr Peter McGregor said he would not even put one in his mouth.

He said they carried a range of infectious diseases such as amoebic or bacterial dysentery, hepatitis and typhoid fever and were also a source of serious food poisoning from salmonella.

He would wash his hands "thoroughly" before touching food after he handled a cockroach.

"They are a health risk and it's because of their habits, they hang around food and also all sorts of objectionable material.

"They transfer bugs from potential sources of infection on to food which then gets eaten."

Coc-Kroft collapsed during filming of the show in April. A mystery illness left her fighting for her life but she is expected to make a full recovery.

Recent pictures of the former model show her looking frail.

Doctors at Auckland Hospital suspected typhoid or dengue fever but both were ruled out.

The show was made by Julie Christie's Touchdown Television production company. Ms Christie did not return Herald calls.

The New Zealand Woman's Weekly magazine also reported that cockroaches brought over from the Fiji mainland died en route to the resort island off Viti Levu and crew scoured the local forest to find more.

As well as putting a live cockroach in their mouths, the magazine said contestants had to drink "anchovy milkshakes" and most of the cast also received coral cuts, which are prone to infection.

Contestants also reported dodging sea snakes and sharks and being plagued by mosquitoes.

One contestant is reported in the magazine as saying the cockroaches were "utterly disgusting" after they were collected from a nearby wood infested with rats.

America's Fear Factor show, in which contestants must eat a range of fare not usually found on a dinner plate, such as reindeer testicles, uses only food certified by US authorities as fit for human consumption.

Cockroaches used in the show are raised in laboratories and kept on a strict diet of safe foods. Cockroaches used in the American show were also a species that was non-toxic.