I was baffled no one wrote here WHY anyone would do this. Here’s the answer from the article:
Researchers say those who eat dirt do not do so to satisfy hunger or to meet a biochemical urge to acquire certain metals or minerals that might be missing from the diet. Rather, they do so because the practice has been learned culturally. Links Are Traced to West Africa
Dr. Frate said dirt eating is one of the few customs surviving among some Southern blacks that can be directly traced to ancestral origins in West Africa. Dirt-eating is common among some tribes in Nigeria today.
According to his research, Dr. Frate said it was not uncommon for slave owners to put masks over the mouths of slaves to keep them from eating dirt. The owners thought the practice was a cause of death and illness among slaves, when they were more likely dying from malnutrition.
I can’t speak for these specific people, but I know that eating clay can absorb toxins, like the kinds of poisons plants make to stop you eating them. There’s also potentially mineral supplementation and introduction of beneficial bacteria.
But it’s not very safe to eat dirt in modern times because we’ve poisoned a lot of the soil with various substances. You can buy edible dirt which is known to be safe.
I compost and a common practice is to throw a handful of your native soil into your pile when you start it, to inoculate it with local soil bacteria. Bacteria do most of the work in an active compost pile.
I wonder if people were getting some kind of gut flora benefit from this.
Pretty much all customs are culturally transmitted - that’s kind of the definition. But they’re not necessarily totally arbitrary either - there is often some other information that can be added beyond “they have learned to do it.”
I was baffled no one wrote here WHY anyone would do this. Here’s the answer from the article:
Thanks for citing this, but it still doesn’t explain why this custom has developed.
I can’t speak for these specific people, but I know that eating clay can absorb toxins, like the kinds of poisons plants make to stop you eating them. There’s also potentially mineral supplementation and introduction of beneficial bacteria.
But it’s not very safe to eat dirt in modern times because we’ve poisoned a lot of the soil with various substances. You can buy edible dirt which is known to be safe.
The most likely explanation is that kaolinite clay is known to reduce nausea and diarrhea.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.893831/full
I compost and a common practice is to throw a handful of your native soil into your pile when you start it, to inoculate it with local soil bacteria. Bacteria do most of the work in an active compost pile.
I wonder if people were getting some kind of gut flora benefit from this.
Depending on the composition of the soil it might also have antiparasitic properties.
Or they could be beneficial parasites, like that episode of the space show.
What rational reason is there for people to eat cereal for breakfast?
Cereal was designed to prevent masturbation.
That’s why I rub out a fat one first and THEN eat the cereal.
Then why are they called Apple Jacks?!
I’d say it does a pretty good job. I hardly ever jack off while eating Cheerios in the morning.
Cream of Wheat, not cream of meat.
There’s always a reason, but it doesn’t need to be entirely rational. Kellogg was a nut, but that’s a different topic, no?
Yeah pour it in the trousers!
That’s true for a lot of customs.
Pretty much all customs are culturally transmitted - that’s kind of the definition. But they’re not necessarily totally arbitrary either - there is often some other information that can be added beyond “they have learned to do it.”
Oh I agree.
The cause of the cultural behavior usually has a purpose though.
In clinic, this is called pica.
Dirt is full of streptomyces species and spores. It’s why dirt smells like dirt. Those species produce most of our antibiotics.