Book about people who eat dirt

I just got done reading an excerpt from a book that sounds completely fascinating. It's all about pica—the overwhelming desire to eat dirt, starch, and other things that aren't food. Apparently, this phenomenon happens all over the world, primarily to pregnant women. In fact, says author Sera Young, in some cultures eating dirt is the go-to pregnancy "gotcha" symptom—the same way that every American knows to suspect a woman who pukes in the morning, or wants pickles with her ice cream.

That's really where a lot of the fascination comes from for me. Why is this tendency so specific to pregnant women? And why does the frequency of pica vary depending on location? Even though people do this all over the world, studies have shown some big differences between populations. For instance, Young writes, .01% of pregnant Danish women eat dirt, but 56% of pregnant Kenyan women do.

There's clearly some interesting overlaps between biology and culture happening here. Do the lower numbers of Danish pica practitioners, compared to Kenyan, reflect differences in genetics? Does this say something about the differences in diets between developed and undeveloped countries? (An interesting train of though, as Young points out that pica was widely known and accepted by American women in the rural South as late as the mid 20th-century.)

Or would more Danish women eat more dirt if it was a culturally accepted practice? Do more Danish women eat dirt, and just not want to admit it?

Young says the book delves into some of the biological and cultural "Why's". I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it and finding out more.

"Every day, twice a day, I take a chunk of earth from this wall and, well, I eat it."

Had I understood Mama Sharifa correctly?

We were sitting on a woven palm mat, in the only shade in her sunbaked yard, on a tiny Zanzibari island called Pemba. There were three of us: Mama Sharifa, Biubwa (my research assistant), and me. Our backs were against the dirt wall of her outdoor kitchen, our legs stretched out in front of us, discussing the things she eats during pregnancy.

With raised eyebrows, I looked to Biubwa to confirm that I had indeed understood her Swahili. Biubwa nodded. "Yes, she is saying she eats earth."

"But why?" I asked.

Mama Sharifa bent at the waist as much as her pregnant belly would allow to idly slap at a fly on her ankle. Then she looked away from us. "I just eat it, that's all." Her pink and orange kanga, a light cotton cloth frequently worn as a head covering, shifted over her shoulder and obscured her face, and I feared she would say no more on the matter.

But after a long pause, her arm reached out from under her kanga. She turned toward us, plucked a chunk of earth from the highest part of the wall she could reach, and displayed it in her open palm. I looked from the chunk of earth in her hand to her face and then back to her hand.

I smiled at her and repeated my question. "But why, Mama?"

She was giggling by then, out of what I've come to recognize as a combination of embarrassment and sheer inability to answer this question. She brushed at some dust on her long skirt, then stared off into the distance again. And then she locked eyes with me.

"I don't know. I really don't know. I just do it."

Columbia University Press: Craving Earth

Ironically, as I wrote this, I was eating an orange peel, pith and rind. That's not pica. But it was close enough to make me feel a little self-conscious.

(Via Kerim)

Image: Some rights reserved by RJL20

• [Anonymous]

  PIca is also at the heart of contaminated land legislation in the UK, on the basis that a 6 year old female child with pica represents the most sensitive possible consumer of contaminated soils, and therefore the very conservative limits set for soil contamination are based on how much muck this hypothetical girl could eat in a day. My job owes a lot to this girl.

• [cbwallday]

  But…do they wash with soap?

• [Anonymous]

  “the overwhelming desire to eat dirt, starch, and other things that aren’t food.” Theres a nasty joke about McDonald’s in here trying to break-free.

• [Anonymous]

  While in college, I went through a couple of periods where I was working and going to school full time and really didn’t take the time to eat more than 500 or so calories per day. I had persistant thoughts of eating soil. Dry, gritty soil. I did actually try it because the craving were relentless, but thought that there must be some connection with my not eating, so I tried to make eating more of a priority.

  Then, I had persistant nausea through my pregnancy (eating a bite of a peach for the whole day was considered a success). I had extreme cravings for crushed ice and that same clay-based dirt. I immediately connected the memory from my college experience. I told my doctor, and he said that the desire to eat non food items was fairly common. When I figured out a way to get adequate hydration without vomiting (after week 30), I was able to eat some foods more successfully, and the cavings weren’t as relentless.

• [Anonymous]

  Dirt is a good source of micro-organisms that aid health and digestion. It’s the original probiotic!

  Unfortunately, it’s also a good source of various kinds of less helpful organisms – like intestinal worms.

  If you know a place that has good healthy dirt, don’t worry about eating it… if it seems right, do it.

  Don’t just reach down and grab any old dirt, though, since it might be loaded with anthrax or roundworms.

• [jonw]

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/vegans-trial-death-baby-breast-milk
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1368036/Why-steak-pregnant-mothers-stop-babies-crying.html

  It could be a need for B12 as well.

• [Anonymous]

  What I was taught in medical school is that pica is a common symptom of iron deficiency. Iron is a mineral required for heme, which allows red blood cells to carry oxygen to tissues. People with iron-deficiency also get pica, I think. Pregnant women have a dilutional anemia: their total body amount of red blood cells go up, but not as much as their blood plasma volume. So the concentration of red blood cells in their blood is actually lower than normal despite having more total.

  I do find it a fascinating craving and am interested in learning more about the mechanism.

  - a medical student

• [maryn]

  Speaking as someone who now lives (again), in Georgia: Eating dirt, or specifically clay — and also cornstarch or laundry starch — isn’t a bygone practice, and as far as I know it isn’t limited to one race either. The Oxford American wrote about it just last year:
  http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2010/mar/09/wide-world-eating-dirt/

  The kind of clay you hear about in Georgia is kaolin clay, the very white, fine-grained stuff they make porcelain from; it’s mined in the east-central part of the state. You can buy it, in small-town stores. You can even buy it on the web: http://whitedirt.samsbiz.com/.

• [Anonymous]

  Ugh. Can still taste kaolin and morphine from childhood – all the chalk of the former, not much relief from the latter. There’s all kinds of fascinating dirt here at the moment: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/dirt

• [Anonymous]

  wikipedia explains this thoroughly if you are really interested. under geophagy

• [Anonymous]

  I have pica, but not geophagy. When my pica manifests itself, it’s a desire to eat delicious, delicious cardboard.

  Not kidding. It smells just as good as a steak.

  In my case, it’s not ’cause I’m pregnant. it’s a sign I’ve got low iron levels in my blood. I haven’t had a pica episode in a couple years, but I’ve finally learned to keep taking my stupid supplements and quit flirting with vegetarianism.

• [mellowknees]

  Interesting. The only cases of pica I’ve ever been familiar with have been MR/DD adults I’ve worked with. In those cases, it was extremely severe – clients would eat extremely inappropriate items, such as cigarette butts. We had to watch folks very closely to prevent them from eating pretty much everything in sight.

  I would never have thought to categorize what I assume to be a temporary desire to eat dirt due to pregnancy as “pica” having seen it at the extremes that I have. Interesting to see that it’s still called “pica”.

• [Pantograph]

  I think that the red sunbaked dirt of Kenya looks much tastier than the soggy blackish-grey Danish dirt. Has anyone examined the differences in taste?

• [Anonymous]

  Often people with iron deficiencies crave non-food items such as dirt, ice, etc.

• [Anonymous]

  Guy Davenport wrote about this (and a whole bunch of other stuff, as per usual) in his essay, “The Anthropology of Table Manners from Geophagy Onward,” which can be found in The Geography of the Imagination. As I recall, the piece begins with him being served some dirt and when he demurs the little Southern lady who served the dish points a shotgun at him and says, “Eat hit.” And he does.

• [Anonymous]

  I am not pregnant but I eat large amounts of small bits of string. I’ve done it as long as I remember. I wonder if I might be malnourished. :(

• [Anonymous]

  It varies by region because it`s related to malnutrition. It does happen in America too – these days pica is sometimes seen among anorexic women (and pregnant malnourished women, too). The body craves nutrients it isn`t getting and drives behavior that seems irrational, even to the person doing it. Pregnancy hormones can make the drive even stronger, for reasons I`m not qualified to explain.

  I had pica for a while when I was anorexic with a low BMI. It was an unconscious and strong urge, frustrating and shameful in a society that mocks it. Once I started recovering and gained a bit of weight, the urge and behavior stopped completely and never came back.

• [Sapa]

  It is the minerals that are in it and it’s common in other animals.

• [fifi]

  Yes to ice and anemia. I was severely anemic and I compulsively chewed on two huge cups of ice every day. Once the anemia was resolved, I no longer wanted to chew on ice. It is really strange.

• [serayoung]

  Hi everyone,
  Maggie- thanks for the post about my book http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14608-1/craving-earth/webFeatures ! Much obliged. All of the comments on your post are really fascinating, too. In fact, many of them get to the heart of why I wrote the book: to figure out why people engage in this *seemingly* strange behavior. I say seemingly because, as many of you know, non-food cravings (pica) is not so strange after all. Lots of people have strong cravings for things that aren’t typically considered food.

  Anyway, in my book, “Craving Earth”, I describe and discuss the most common explanations, including the ones discussed by your readers. As it turns out, the likely explanation isn’t an obvious one…

  • [bklynchris]

    I, too, share your pica fascination. I was also completely fascinated by this study and the African/European difference.

    I am sure you have read it, but just in case you haven’t : )

    http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/61754/title/Gut_bacteria_reflect_dietary_differences

• [cmpalmer]

  Eating dirt is a symptom of pica, but I think it’s pretty distinct from pica itself. A friend of ours has a son with pica and it’s a really nasty disorder. He basically doesn’t (or can’t) distinguish between food and non-food items, so anything small enough to swallow or soft enough to chew gets eaten – Legos, bugs, paper, fuzz, leaves, dirt, whatever.

  • [mellowknees]

    that’s what I thought as well.

• [asirens]

  I am currently doing research for a documentary on pica in pregnant women. If you are pregnant and would like to share your story, please contact me. There are no obligations and all conversations are kept confidential. Thank you. [e-mail]

• [Jewels Vern]

  A lot depends on the dirt. Google bentonite for an example in the USA. Some Asian grocery stores carry cookies made of clay from the old country. Some birds have been seen eating a specific deposit of clay to satisfy a specific nutritional need.

  And just for comparison, Zuni and Navajo tribes in Arizona traditionally use ashes from the local trees in their food because the food is otherwise deficient in minerals. They prefer cedar, and juniper is ok but not great.

• [zachstronaut]

  Maggie, RE: your orange peel eating confession… I will say to everybody that you’ve never really enjoyed a kumquat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumquat) unless you’ve eaten it whole. Don’t peel them!

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    You have to eat the kumquat whole. The rind is the sweet part.

• [sam1148]

  If people in the South ate dirt as a common item, it would have been elevated to the highest culinary delight, sold at high end resturants and on the menu today as a delicacy, of course it would be loaded with pork fat.

  BTW: Stop buying up all the pork bellies for your fancy resturants, those things expensive now.

  (the only time I’ve heard of eating clay is in folk medicine for pregnant women and diarrhea–not ‘eating it’ but ‘using it’ in place of drugs such as pepto bismol, which is similar to clay in chemical composition, or even using it as a ‘mud mask’ for cosmetics; you certainly can’t get it at the piggly wiggly)

• [Joseph Hertzlinger]

  I’m reminded of “Free Dirt” by Charles Beaumont (F&SF, May 1955).

• [Anonymous]

  A few years ago, while I was pregnant, I attended a backyard party at the home of some of my spouse’s colleagues from his construction job. Everyone there was a recent immigrant from a village near Zacatecas, Mexico. I got to talking with a group of women, and the topic of eating dirt while pregnant came up. They asked me if I was eating dirt, since I was pregnant, and were surprised when I said no. I asked them about dirt eating and pregnancy, and they told me that it was very common, but that they would never eat the dirt here in California — only the dirt from their home village would do. In fact, one said she has gone so far as to have dirt sent from home.

• [Cassandra]

  Wait, eating ice is a form of pica?
  And pica is sometimes an indicator of anemia?
  Oh, great…I eat ice all the time. I guess I just considered it a “food,” so I didn’t think of it as pica.

• [Nicky G]

  I almost certainly had pica as a child, probably from 4 or 5 years old up to, hmmm, maybe 7 or 9? Possibly even a bit older, maybe as old as 11 or so.

  I did eat dirt.

  I also ate chalk, and chalk dust.

  I think my favorite, however, was to dig up a small stone at the beach, maybe about a foot or so down int he sand, where it’s kind of moist. The stone would be covered with moist sand, and yes, I would suck on that mofo like it was candy. Thinking back on it, I have to admit I still have a desire for it.

  I also chew on ice, but only if I happen to order a drink with ice in it. I don’t go out of my way for it.

  I also sucked on the edges of clothes as a child, and a few other odd, pica-esque behaviors.

  I have a very vivid memory, in fact of a few of these episodes in particular, and can very specifically remember the sensation of eating/tasting these non-food materials. It IS very difficult to describe, but I do want to say that there is some visceral sense of “absorbing required minerals” that is relevant to the urge. One reason I say this is that I kind of get the same sensation when eating a vitamin — but not a chewable, rather, a standard vitamin that yes, sometimes I will give a few sucks to, before swallowing. There is a particular gritty, “minerally” taste to it that is “satisfying” despite being bitter and kind of chalky/sandy.

  Anyway, glad I’m not the only freak. ;-)

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve seen anemia mentioned before but not extensively so thought i would drop a comment.
  Pica is indeed associated with anemia. Considering this it makes sense that women in Denmark display less pica than women in Kenya, since individuals in the latter group are more likely to be malnutritioned. Also, being pregnant increases the likelyhood of a woman being aneamic (hence the ‘iron’ tablets in pregnancy).

• [MooseDesign]

  Being a graphic designer, I suffer from picas too whenever I work on print projects.

  Seriously though, according to my special lady, who works with kids with severe autism, there is a very high incidence of pica in folks “on the spectrum”… one of her clients regularly tries to eat the arms of couches. Granted, she herself ate a purple aquarium pebble off of the floor of the house we had just bought because she assumed it was a Nerd. But I’m not supposed to talk about that.

• [penguinchris]

  This is very interesting for me… I never thought about it until now, but as a kid I too ate dirt, paper, wood, etc., chewed on clothing, and so on. I always attribute my strong immune system to that, but didn’t think about it any deeper.

  As far as I know I was fed a good diet growing up, and my parents gave me vitamins and so on, so I’m inclined not to believe it was due to any deficiencies in that department.

  While today I don’t generally eat things I pick up off the ground, I am still attracted to mineral smells and certain other things.

  Thing is… now I’m a geologist. Could it be that my life-long taste for minerals and so on led me to becoming a geologist? ;)

  By the way, regarding eating clay… the classic field test for geologists to distinguish between clay and siltstone is to take a piece and bite into it. Clay will feel smooth, while siltstone will feel gritty (silt is smaller than sand, bigger than clay; too small to see or feel with your hands, but you can feel the grit if you chew it). Determining sedimentary rock grain size is one of the main things a geologist would be doing (assuming a region with sedimentary rocks) when mapping an area, and even today there isn’t really a better way to tell the difference between clay and siltstone in the field.

  You can sometimes tell someone’s a geologist who deals with a lot of sedimentary rocks if they’ve got unusual wear in the front teeth from chewing on siltstone! I’m sure their dentists are pleased.

• [Wallenstein]

  Re. eating kaolin.

  Kaolin and morphine used to be (maybe still is?) a very common anti-emetic / anti-diarrhoeal medicine. I remember my mum having a bottle in the bathroom cupboard (mid-80s) when we were children.

  You had to shake to mix as the kaolin would settle at the bottom of the bottle. So I’m not suprised people in America eat kaolin “raw” – just a different way of getting it into the body.

• [stardust]

  This thread is so interesting. I am pregnant, and at some point, I found myself having strong cravings for dirt. When I was a kid, I ate dirt and even stranger non-food things. But since then, not really. I mean, sometimes when hiking on a mountain trail, I’ve been known to pick up a clay like rock and munch on it and then throw it down, but I don’t crave it. I even asked my husband, just to be sure, if he remembers me craving rocks in all our 5 years together. He says he’s never seen me like this before I became pregnant. I believe there is safe dirt for me to eat, but not where I live now. It has been a struggle for me because I work in a very old hospital where bricks are crumbling off. One day, on my break, I sat with a small piece of brick in my hand, confessing to my midwife on the phone that I had a strong urge to eat it. She told me not to because “it has no nutritive value”. Another day, I brought home a chunk of dried cement which I sniffed (I liked the smell) for several days but had my husband throw it away after I didn’t stop myself from nibbling off a little bit. It’s man-made cement and may have lead or another industrial poison in it and I don’t want to hurt myself or my babies, but I don’t trust myself to not consume it when it’s around. I’ve decided to take a drive up to a very rural area this weekend and climb a steep trail to where I know there are clay like rocks which I believe are safe for me to nibble little bits througout the remainder of my pregnancy. And I hope these cravings go away after the babies are born because right now it is hard to imagine myself not wanting to eat dirt.

• [Soliloquy]

  I went through a phase of paper-eating from about 2nd grade to the end of 4th grade. I don’t remember exactly when or why it started and stopped. I just liked to eat paper. It had a good texture, nice and pulpy, and it was just something to chew/suck on. Especially notebook paper. Sucker sticks from Tootsie-pops were equally good, you can gnaw those down to a nub. I remember adults eyeing me oddly and a few would try to explain why it wasn’t a good idea to eat paper because of the chemicals, etc. I don’t think I was malnourished or lacking anything substantial in my diet, but then again I was a picky eater.

• [Anonymous]

  About three years ago a study was published suggesting evidence, at least in some people, of a sixth type of taste bud (in addition to sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and ‘umami’) which is triggered by calcium.

  If the science is sound, this might lend credence to the idea that the bodies of pregnant women with a lack of calcium in their diet would give these women cravings for dirt with a decent calcium content. The selfish genes have learned how to get what they want once again.

• [pjk]

  I thought it was called geophagy…

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagy

  I had a lit professor in college who talked about how common this used to be in the American south. Apparently, you used to be able to buy chunks of luxuriously white clay in the supermarket.

  • [Ushao]

    According to that article, it looks like both terms are appropriate to use in the case of pregnant women. There’s a link to pica in the third sentence referring to human geophagy.

• [Anonymous]

  My local African foods store has the white clay that African pregnant women eat. It’s charming, and shows a profound respect for cultures that a little store in the train station of Lausanne, Switzerland has dirt on sale.

  My son gets his sweet potatoes there, the big red ones that come from Cameroon. The African mamas in the store love him, and love the fact that my little one has had a little bit of Cameroon in him since the first moment he started eating solid food. (Come to think of it, since my wife and I sometimes cook fufu, and ate it while she was pregnant, my son’s had a little bit of Africa in him since long before solid food.)

  It doesn’t need a name (“pica”? that’s a measurement…) to be interesting. It just has to be something that someone you respect does to be interesting; and who couldn’t respect the strength and dignity of African moms?

  -jeff

• [judonerd]

  I read somewhere that children eat dirt (and stick everything within arm’s reach into their mouths) because it builds a healthy immune system.

• [burritoflats]

  My oldest sister has been a kindergarten teacher for 41 years and she tells me that about seven years ago her four and five year-old students began nibbling and chewing and eating their own clothes, along with the standard eating of glue, pencil shavings, chalk and paper. My sister chalks it up (no pun intended) to the then-recent explosion of meth use by parents in her area. I had many friends in elementary school who ate class supplies. My culinary experiments only went as far as nibbling on my own fingernails or swallowing the wax paper of Tootsie Rolls – fascinating topic!

• [cmpalmer]

  I’ve tried the type of white clay that is most commonly eaten by women in the South, particularly during pregnancy. At one time in south Alabama and rural south Georgia, you could buy it in some local grocery or convenience stores. I think the “store bought” kind was baked by locals to prevent parasite or bacterial contamination – it wasn’t mass produced or anything. That was about 20 years ago, though.

  It didn’t taste like “dirt”, it was just slightly gritty, chalky, and had a “squidgy” texture.

• [Jerril]

  I had pica as a child. It was eventually (mid teens) linked to suspected mineral deficiencies, and resolved with daily multivitamins. I’ve got irritable bowel and I’m probably not absorbing things quite well enough in normally sufficient dosages.

  I ate wood, graphite, cheap pulp paper (not writing paper), the plastic plugs off the end of cheap bic ballpoint pens, pink erasers (not white ones), candle wax, and chalk.

  I knew none of this was “food”. I knew I’d be laughed at or teased or get in trouble if people saw me eating it, so I was very sneaky about it. Self-awareness didn’t do anything to help control the powerful compulsion that would come over me to eat chalk (for example). It was just something that had to be done. It wasn’t connected with hunger, thirst, or anything like that, it was just sheer need.

  The smell of cheap paperback books from the 70s was especially bad for triggering it. I also ate quite a lot of pencils – not just chewing them idly, but crunching them up, splintering the wood, chewing on the splintered bits until they were pulped, and swallowing.

  On the plus side, the constant obsessive chewing was scraping my teeth, the flow of fresh saliva from the chewing suppresses plaque formation, and I didn’t eat anything really hard so I didn’t damage my enamel. My dentist was a little baffled by the whole situation, I don’t think he was really trained to treat someone with pica.

  • [Jerril]

    Although now that I think of it, I have a problem with receding gums and had lots of mouth ulcers.

• [Anonymous]

  It’s common in the animal kingdom. It’s also a well-known help with digestive problems: In Germany, you can buy it from this company, for example: http://www.luvos.de/

  It’s pretty disgusting, too.

• [kmoser]

  I can only assume the practice of eating dirt is more prevalent in Kenya than Denmark because pickles and ice cream just aren’t as commonly found in Kenya.

• [Anonymous]

  The answer is …the clay found in the soil is a natural source of calcium. It’s been observed/reported in rural USA, too (think Appalachia). Any place where a pregnant woman does not have sufficient nutrition, the body will consume whatever is available. The red clay is a good source of calcium — good for growing bones.

  • [Anonymous]

    Actually, it’s the white Kaolin they are looking for, not regular red clay. I’m black and my whole family is from Alabama and Georgia so I heard the stories that in poorer families, women would eat the clay for it’s nutrients.

• [Lester]

  The fact that geophagy in the South is usually a poorer white person thing, I’d suspect it was more of a cultural thing rather than a genetic thing.

  • [lovelystrangeness]

    I don’t know. It’s pretty hard to separate culture from genetics, since most insular cultures tend to breed within their own group.

    • [Anonymous]

      However, if you were to provide a pregnant Kenyan woman with all of the nutritional resources she would need at her fingertips, perhaps that might lower the probability of her engaging in geophagy. Perhaps pica is not restrictive to ones genetic makeup, as much as it is based on necessity.

    • [naturegrrl]

      why do so many people seem to think the southern appalachians are filled with inbred hicks who’ve never heard of anything outside the holler? i grew up there and i wouldn’t even know where to look to find someone as isolated as people seem to think we are. it’s no longer the 1920s, people, and the region’s biggest problem now is sprawl, not isolation.

• [Anonymous]

  I agree with the anon poster. Danish women (along with other ‘wealthy’ groups) with access to a good diet full of vitamins and minerals have a low rate of dirt eating because they get all the nutrients they need from their diet. Women in poor areas or communities that do not have access to this kind of diet must supplement with vitamins straight from the source – dirt. I bet if you look at any society it will have a history of dirt eating and I bet that as that society develops, becomes richer and thus better fed dirt eating will inevitably become less and less common.

• [a random John]

  Oh crap. According to the site eating ice counts as pica. So I’m guilty as charged. If I get a Coke with lunch I nearly always eat the ice once I’m done drinking.

  • [a random John]

    Hmmmmm… upon further reading I don’t eat nearly enough ice to qualify for pica.

  • [Anonymous]

    isn’t eating ice cubes a common iron deficiency indicator?

• [DieFem]

  Dirt was part of the common diet of Uruguayan aboriginals. The Charruas and Chanaes used to eat dirt for the minerals and fiber.

• [Carpeteria]

  Interesting. Though not ironic that you were eating an orange peel. That’s just a slight coincidence, sorta. But not ironic.

• [phisrow]

  It would not exactly surprise me if markedly different levels of dirt-eating have something to do with what the locals are and aren’t getting in their daily diets…

  While there are risks from parasites, dirt does contain a hearty dose of minerals and(depending on the dirt) some anti-emetic effects. I’m guessing that the Danes are probably eating a better-balanced died, and enjoying access to purpose built anti-emetics, at a substantially greater rate than Kenyans or rural southern Americans(who, economically, were/sometimes still are, basically a developing nation…)

  Once the frequency gets below a certain level, of course, I suspect that culture tends to take over and risk of social disapproval drives the number from “low” to “virtually invisible”.

• [sam1148]

  BS on eating dirt in the South.
  Julia Sugarbaker said it best on Designing women.

  —
  After reading a New York Times article that says that Southerners eat dirt for the vitamins, Julia calls and leaves a message for the editor.
  JULIA: Yes, you can give him a message. You do take shorthand, don’t you? Good, we take it in the South too. Anyway, just tell him that I have been a Southerner all my life, and I can vouche for the fact the we do eat a lot of things down here…….. and we’ve certainly all had our share of grits and biscuits and gravy, and I myself have probably eaten enough fried chicken to feed a third world country —- not to mention barbecue, cornbread, watermelon, fried pies, okra, and ………..yes………if I were being perfectly candid, I would have to admit we have also eaten our share of crow, and for all I know — during the darkest, leanest years of the Civil War, some of us may have had a Yankee or two for breakfast. But……….. speaking for myself and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil, I would like for Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past, and we will surely eat many things in the future, but — God as my witness – — we have never, I repeat, NEVER EATEN DIRT!!!

  • [serayoung]

    hello sam1148! for almost a decade, i’ve been scouring the world for comments on pica- literature, news, tv, movies, ethnography, medical texts, etc etc etc. to put in my book (the one discussed in this post). ms sugarbaker’s comment is a new one. THANK YOU for the juicy tidbit! i’ll include it in the next edition. do you have any more up your sleeve? yours, sera

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve always understood that that’s your body going “hey, I need some rare micronutrient that’s not showing up in your regular diet!” So I’d've thought that part of the how many people do it where (aside from sociocultural considerations) might have something to do with what micronutrients are to be had in the local soil.

• [Anonymous]

  I remember coming upon my mother licking the dirt off potatoes she was peeling when she was pregnant with my 13-years-younger sister. Eeeeew, Mom ! She said she just couldn’t help herself. It turned out she was deficient in minerals and was prescribed a supplement, after which her craving stopped. Sometimes you just gotta trust your body.

• [The Mudshark]

  Another one bites the dust
  Another bites the dust ow
  Another one bites the dust hey hey
  Another bites the dust heyyyyyayayayayayayyyyy

• [arielturnip]

  I thought that pica in pregnant women was usually caused by mineral or other deficiencies in their diet. It would explain why women from poorer countries (Kenya) and regions (Southern US) have a higher prevalence for this behavior.

• [osmo]

  I’m not Danish but Swedish and my mom when pregnant with me had this insatiable urge to eat mortar clay, or the raw unmixed mortar powder aswell as blackboard chalks. She thought it was something to do with having to little calcium in her system and her body was somehow “signaling” that by needing things she connected, from the smell of both, to calcium.

  She never said anything about actually doing it but she might have.

  Also I dont think icecream and pickles is something we here connect with pregnancy. Just eating more, get nauseous easily and well… at some point pop out a baby I guess.

• [kcmpls]

  My ex-husband had severe, undiagnosed anemia. One of the many symptoms we missed was pica. He would chew on ice all day long. He knew which gas stations and fast food places had the best ice for chewing and would stop at them frequently. Looking back it was totally crazy, but then it was just one of his many “quirks.”

• [Pip_R_Lagenta]

  I have long been under the impression that “They eat dirt” is a standard pejorative used to describe some group that is looked down on. I have never considered it to have any truth in fact. I have never heard of anyone describing their own group by saying “We eat dirt.”

• [Anonymous]

  How about simple mineral deficiency? This could be a really simple, deeply rooted genetic/behavioral response to a lack of iron or zinc, or whatever else you need all the time, but especially when you’re trying to build a new person inside yourself. I’m sure Kenyans don’t get as much meat in their diet as the average Dane. As for the US South, I recall a Radiolab ep that detailed Rockefeller’s efforts to stamp out anemia-causing hookworm there in the 1910′s or 20′s.

• [Anonymous]

  Have you ever tried Danish dirt? admit it, you haven’t, have you? Well lemmetellya, Kenyan dirt tastes like filet-mignon in comparison.

• [arikol]

  I’ve heard stories of sniffing drying cement and such when pregnant..

  My wife got an uncontrollable urge to eat paper. Specifically, toilet paper. Brands with strong smell were not popular, and neither were super soft papers.

  The even stranger thing is that when we discussed this with the midwife “hey, is it strange to eat weird stuff?” her answer was “earth or paper?”, which kind of implies that this is common.
  After our son was born she tested the same “favorite” paper and found it revolting (one day after giving birth).

  Vitamin (or trace chemical) deficiency of some sorts just has to be one of the most likely answers.