My grandmother and mother both got pica during childbirth. Grandmother ate a spoonful of dirt and was satisfied, I’d have to call mother but I think she’d just ignore the question these days.
I’ve learned about Medicinal clay from my wife. You can buy it in regular shops everywhere in Germany. She takes it dissolved in water if she has bad inflammation.
I have yet to try it.
I mean, I could see how it actually might have some positive effects. There’s all sorts of bacteria in soil. If you take a hunk of soil and bake it, any alive bacteria will be present. But even after baking, their dead forms will remain in various states of decomposition. So maybe eating dirt could act as a sort of broad-spectrum “vaccine” to certain pathogens. You’re exposing your immune system to various pathogens rendered inert by the baking process. And maybe this decreases the number or severity of infections people get.
No idea if this would actually work. But it seems vaguely plausible at least.
It’s called “Heilerde” for anyone who’s interested
Sometimes I scroll through, see an obvious shit post in what should not be a shit post sub. I go into the comments and they are all “yeah, it’s true (personal example)” and I feel convinced a group of shit posters are just brigading the sub for the luls.
This is one of those moments.
as a white Englishman, key and peele have such a knack for writing a sketch that teaches me about a culture and makes me get and laugh at the joke about something I didn’t know was a thing until I saw the sketch.
This and the “gimme that OLD school” sketch are among them.
I can understand that.
However I grew up in the US south. My response was “Yea… that sounds about right…”
Today I learned I should be eating dirt.
I heard on Facebook eating from Donald’s diaper cures hanta virus.
I could use a dirt nap.
I could use a hug
The greatest measure of our society’s most tragic failings is that I can’t just get on a train/boat asap to give you a hug. Fuel ain’t free and community doesn’t benefit power, so by neither measure can I afford the day(s) away for affection.
And thus does the loneliness pandemic deepen.
Can we organise a hug chain from [email protected] to [email protected] ?
Hug if true.
When I was a kid (sometime in the early 90s in Philadelphia) I remember something coming on the news about women eating dirt. I always thought about it and wondered “why was that on the news…?” (since I was a kid and wasn’t paying attention), but now I know. This was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing
Ok, but you were THERE in the early 1990s!!! That was a historic time in history! Somewhere in the same city as you, at the same time as you, someone was shootin some B-ball outside of the school. When a couple of guys who were up to no good started making trouble in your neighborhood! The kid got in one little fight, but his mom got scared, and said he was going to live with his uncle in California.
And that’s the story of how your city population shrank by 1 that day.
Wtf
turns out that a lot of weird things exist. the world is truly a big place!
Murica!
If I were that Southerner, and some professor guy comes along, I would tell him such stories too.
Yeah every culture went through their phase of tricking ethnographers on this.
Monkeys on Gibraltar do it, too. To treat stomach ache when they ate unhealthy. There is an abundance of bad food for them which they steal from tourists.
Should you start eating dirt now? You shouldn’t, scientists say. Germs.
After cooking with high heat there should be no germs left. As stated in the article there are no health risks involved except if you eat such a large amount it blocks your intestines. Also even if you didn’t cook it the germs that live in soil are not the same germs that make you sick, those you get from your fellow humans.
Also even if you didn’t cook it the germs that live in soil are not the same germs that make you sick, those you get from your fellow humans.
Ya, sure, you’ve obviously never heard of gardia, tetanus, botulism, histoplasmosis, anthrax, E coli, salmonella, and the ever popular listeria. Plus you could pick up a party of parasites and worms.
Very pastoral. Very grounding. Touch grass, acquire necrotizing fasciitis.
All the ones you listed are either:
Not native to soil but may be on soil if faeces got on there Or Not dangerous in soil but will become dangerous if food gets into contact with it before fermenting Or Only dangerous getting into your blood, but not your mouth.
As long as there is no literal poop on the soil you can eat it raw. These people mentioned in the article were digging deep clay which would carry absolutely no risk of faeces contamination.
How would you know that no animal had ever crapped over the clay deposit and had rain drift in durable, long-lasting bacterial spores from the waste whiøe the rain was on its way through the clay to join the groundwater? That a burrowing critter didn’t die just upstream in the ground of where you’re digging? It’s not terribly likely that those would get you sick maybe but ‘absolutely no risk’ is a high bar to clear.
Also there can be other sorts of non-obvious contamination like if there are trace amounts of heavy metals. Kaopectate got sued by California because the clay contained in their popular anti-diarrhea pills had traces of lead, such that the adult version pills would have fifty micrograms of lead a pop or six to twelve micrograms for children. For reference California currently mandates a warning slapped on if a product exposes you to half a microgram of lead per day. It’s difficult to know the provenance and full risks of stuff dug from a hole for a regular person. Even trained people with a lot on the line sometimes screw up and get people hurt.
You are right about the risk of heavy metal contamination so wont comment on that. But if we are speaking about an animal that crapped on top of the clay pile then that should not be an issue. Soil in general but especially clay has an absolutely enormous surface area that adsorbs both bacteria and viruses. That’s why ground water is usually safe to drink but surface water is not. A large amount of faeces leaking into the soil water from above would potentially contaminate the water with nitrate which could be a slight cancer risk if consumed in large quantities but there should be no risk of getting infected if you are digging deep unexposed clay, even if an animal crapped on top of the pile. As long as there is no heavy metal contamination eating deep clay is probably safer than eating a wild picked berry.
That’s what surprised me; I assumed it was beneficial to the gut biome, but it’s baked dead. Maybe there’s nutritional benefit?
Dig in, then. :)
I remember reading this in a travel book from a danish author.
The person he asked about the custom was perplexed when he told him that he did not eat dirt.
In Germany, clay is sold in drugstores to cure digestion issues or as mineral supply for hair and nails. I think they knew what they were doing and were shamed out of continuing.
Calm down everyone. They dug it from preferred dirt, cooked it, and seasoned it with salt and vinegar. Serving size = about a handful. Lay’s sells a product with those exact same specifications.
Did… did you just compare dirt to salt and vinegar potato chips?
No, they compared dirt to Lay’s salt and vinegar chips. That’s not the same as comparing dirt to any and all said and vinegar chips.
The chips are probably worse for you tbh
Potatoes are dirt tumors.
All of Ireland clenched their fists at this comment.
FYI Ireland didn’t choose to be a potato monoculture, it was forced on them by the British. The famine that hit them was collateral damage from the British subjugation of Ireland in an attempt to maximize profit through cash cropping, displacing the agriculture that the Irish had been using to feed themselves.
Okay then…
As someone who loves potatoes I’M clenching my fists at his dirt tumors comment.
Better?
🚨 🚨 wee-woo wee-woo 🚨 🚨
Your joke has been assessed and approve as factually accurate. Don’t let it happen again.
This has been the joke police.
Ireland has only had taters for 400 years and the famine was caused by british landlords.
Two different people brought up the potato famine… not what I was trying to bring up with my simpleton joke. I went with a country that, rightfully, enjoy potatoes and are known to.
I don’t think tubers=tumors. They’re delicious.
It’s tubers, not tumors.
They said what they said.
Still less feces than McDonalds.
At first I was imagining just a handful of dirt from a grassy patch - but it seems to be implied that they’re actually eating clay - which I vaguely remember being told can help with a sore stomach.
However I’m also aware that clay can contain heavy metals, which baking can’t remove, so I’m inclined to stay away and just have a bit of bread instead.
Folk wisdom says it’s healthy. doctors say it’s healthy.
Go for it.
Just so you’re aware, that article you’ve linked isn’t about literally eating dirt. It’s about encouraging parents to let their kids play outside so they’re more exposed to the natural environment so their bodies don’t become hypersensitive to allergens and the like.
Is the term “exposure” tripping you up?
That can mean sutface, membranous, oral exposure, as talked about in the article.
No, but I think it is tripping you up.
Exposure means many different thing depending on the context, but if you actually took the time to read the article you linked, it’s clearly referring to external exposure - as in playing in dirt, getting covered in dirt, etc… Which makes sense as we evolved to be outside - our immune systems need exposure to germs to calibrate properly.
But that is very different to advocating for consumption of dirt, which this article isn’t doing. Literally the only part of the article that actually references consumption of dirt is this paragraph…
So let them play in the dirt. If their hands end up in their mouths, or some of the dirt ends up in their mouths, keep an eye on them. If they develop a rash or fever, take them to a doctor. If they don’t, they’re probably fine.
Which is clearly telling parents to not stress out about accidental consumption. This article is at best neutral about the practice, with a side of caution.
thanks for completely agreeing with my point.!
“If their hands end up in their mouths, or some of the dirt ends up in their mouths, keep an eye on them. If they develop a rash or fever, take them to a doctor. If they don’t, they’re probably fine.”
This is not new science.
There are plenty of articles and anthropological studies reiterating the same thing: oral exposure to uncontaminated soil(also known as eating dirt), is at worst not dangerous and potentially helpful to the gut microbiome and immune system.
You might want to do some reading. Tip tap out a few search queries on the google.
The article I linked was just the top result of dozens reiterating the same scientific viewpoint that exposure to soil is not dangerous and potentially healthy.
And how can you confirm that when you didn’t read far enough into the article you linked to realise it didn’t actually say what you’re trying to cite it as?
As @[email protected] said, a child incidentally ingesting dirt while playing outside is very different from intentional Geophagy. Conflating the two and acting like everyone else is stupid for pointing that out doesn’t look good on you.
In any case, if you want to discuss an article that is actually about Geophagy, and gives a fairly balanced and objective look into Geophagy and its potential health benefits and risks, I’ll give you one.
Certain types of Clays (not just everyday soil) are believed to be able to provide real medical benefits when consumed, mostly in the realm of relieving GI tract conditions ranging from stomach irritation all the way to parasitic infections.
However, that is not the same as saying that regular Geophagy is healthy. Again, certain types of clays can contain minerals in high quantities of Macro and Micro nutrients that the body cannot naturally produce.
But there is a good reason why the cultures where Geophagy is most prevalent are also cultures where there either is or was a high level of regular food scarcity. The bioavailability of these minerals is generally quite low compared to organic sources, and these mineral rich clays often contain an unsafe level of heavy metals to boot - which can cause many, many issues with chronic consumption.
TLDR: Acute consumption of uncontaminated dirt definitely won’t hurt you, and can in some cases may actually carry medical benefits - but chronic Geophagy is not the health kick anybody should be looking for - ranging from sort-of harmless to potentially very harmful over a long enough time period.
Assuming other people haven’t read an article because you’re having trouble understanding it is kinda funny.
maybe you guys can start a reading group with each other rather than trying to make things up or put words in others’ mouths; nobody else is having the comprehension problems you share.
I was trying to give you benefit of doubt that you didn’t do enough due diligence when grabbing an article to link - hence I tried to throw an olive branch in the form of an actual article on geophagy to discuss.
But seeing how impolitely persistent you are that this article says something that it plainly does not makes me think that you’re actually a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect and that you simply do not understand that the article title “Should we let kids eat dirt?” Isn’t literally what the article is about.
Which is to say that if you’re so confident that everybody disagreeing with you is wrong, please give us any quote in
where it even just implies that eating dirt healthy for children?
And as for everybody agreeing with you? You should really check the like:dislike ratio on your comments before saying that, because they tell a very different story. Literally your only comment with a positive ratio was the first one, and I’d be more than willing to bet that was from people who scrolled by it, felt your comment affirmed their belief, then left without actually reading the article.
Sticking your dirty finger in your mouth =/= intentionally eating a handful of clay from a preferred source that is baked and seasoned with salt and vinegar. Incidental ingestion is not the same thing as intentional consumption. Are you gonna tell your kid that they need to lick their dirty hands clean?
Sticking your dirty finger in your mouth =/= intentionally eating a handful of clay…
Correct.
Incidental ingestion is not the same thing as intentional consumption.
Coreect again.! great work.
Are you gonna tell your kid that they need to lick their dirty hands clean?
I highly recommend you do not tell kids to “lick their dirty hands clean”, which ignores my own and the scientific advice in the linked and other scientific articles regarding eating dirt.
And is gross and weird.
When I did Ayahuasca, my mom’s friend joked that I would eat dirt with his son during the peak of the high. I didn’t do it but he actually did it. When asked about, he told me that it taste like glory.
It’s still common to eat clay to get the minerals, help with digestion or reduce hunger in parts of Africa see the Contemporary practices section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia
