Geophagy

The red-and-green macaw eats clay from exposed riverbanks, allowing it to utilize nutrients in harmful foods.

Geophagy is the practice of eating earthy or soil-like substances such as clay, and chalk. It exists in animals in the wild and also in humans, most often in rural or preindustrial societies among children and pregnant women.^[1] Human geophagy may be related to pica, a classified eating disorder in the DSM-IV characterized by abnormal cravings for nonfood items.^[2]

In animals

Geophagy is extremely widespread in the animal kingdom. Galen, the Greek philosopher and physician, was the first to record the use of clay by sick or injured animals in the second century AD. This type of geophagy has been documented in "many species of mammals, birds, reptiles, butterflies and isopods, especially among herbivores."^[3]

Geophagy is well documented in birds. Notably, many species of South American parrots have been observed at clay licks, whilst Sulphur-crested Cockatoos have been observed ingesting clays in Papua New Guinea (Discover, 1998) as well as in Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains of Australia (Parrots Magazine, 2000). Analysis of most soils consumed by wild birds show that they prefer soils with high clay content, often with the smectite and bentonite clay families being well represented. In vitro and in vivo tests of these soils indicate that they release biologically important quantities of minerals like calcium and sodium, as well as absorbing substantial quantities of small charged compounds such as alkaloids. Because the clays release minerals and absorb other cations as part of the same process of cation exchange, it remains challenging to determine which function is the more important motivator in any given instance of avian geophagy. Separate from soil ingestion, birds retain grit in their gizzards to aid in grinding food.

In humans

"The oldest evidence of geophagy practised by humans comes from the prehistoric site at Kalambo Falls on the border between Zambia and Tanzania (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2000)." Here, a calcium-rich white clay was found alongside the bones of Homo habilis (the immediate predecessor of Homo sapiens).^[4]

Anthropological and historical evidence

Geophagy is nearly universal around the world in tribal and traditional rural societies (although apparently it has not been documented in Japan and Korea). Also, the eating of clay (a form of geophagy) has been documented in historical sources beginning with Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. (Also see under medicinal clay.)

Geophagy was practised by Native Americans in California and Peru who would eat earth with acorns and potatoes to neutralize potentially harmful alkaloids. Clay was used in the production of acorn bread in California and Sardinia, Italy. Among the Jews in the second and third centuries, a type of earth was consumed for medical purposes, but the Talmud warns about possible physiological damage from eating it Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 113b.

Current practice

In parts of Africa, rural areas of the United States, and villages in India, clay consumption is correlated with pregnancy and some women eat clay to eliminate nausea, possibly because the clay coats the gastrointestinal tract and may absorb dangerous toxins. The clay may also provide critical calcium for fetal development (Vermeer).

In Africa, kaolin, sometimes known as kalaba (in Gabon^[5] and Cameroon^[6]), calaba, and calabachop (in Equatorial Guinea), is eaten for pleasure or to suppress hunger.^[6] Consumption is greater among women, especially during pregnancy.^[7]

In Haiti, geophagy is widespread. The clay mud is worked into what looks like pancakes or cookies, called "bon bons de terres" (earthy bon bons), that are dried in the sun and sold throughout the poorer areas. Small amounts of other ingredients, vegetable shortening, salt and sometimes sugar, are also added to the mix.

Bentonite clay is available worldwide as a digestive aid; kaolin is also widely used as a digestive aid and as the base for some medicines. Attapulgite, another type of a clay, is an active ingredient in many anti-diarrheal medicines.^[8]

In the United States

According to Dixie's Forgotten People: the South's Poor Whites, by J. Wayne Flynt, geophagy was quite common among poor whites in the South-eastern United States. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this was often ridiculed in popular literature. The literature also states that "Many men believed that eating clay increased sexual prowess, and some females claimed that eating clay helped pregnant women to have an easy delivery."^[9] Geophagy being a common practice among southerners may have been caused by the high prevalence of hookworm disease, in which the desire to consume soil is a symptom.^[10] Geophagy was common among slaves who were nicknamed "clay-eaters" because they had been known to consume clay, as well as spices, ash, chalk, grass, plaster, paint, and starch.^[11] The author cites a recent survey by Obstetrics-Gynecology Clinic at Duke Medical Center in North Carolina, according to which one quarter of patients were clay-eaters.

Cooked, baked, and processed dirt and clay are sold in health food stores and rural flea markets in the South. ^[12][13] Clays like activated attapulgite and diosmectite have been used in active ingredients in over-the-counter antidiarrheal medications. The US version of Kaopectate, for example, contained kaolinite clay until a reformulation in 2003.^[14] Researchers have noticed that geophagy is not as prevalent as it once was as rural Americans assimilate into urban culture. ^[15]

Impact on health

Health benefits

In a Science Digest article (Paraquat: a Potent Weed Killer is Killing People^[16]), it is recommended that a paraquat poisoning victim promptly swallow dirt, even at the risk of salmonella, because paraquat is deactivated upon contact with soil.

Chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, have been observed to consume soil rich in kaolinite clay shortly before or after consuming plants including Trichilia rubescens, which possesses antimalarial properties in the laboratory. Simulated mastication and digestion reveals that the clay helps to release active antimalarial components from the leaves. The same type of soil is used by local healers to treat diarrhea,^[17] presumably by the same mechanism as over-the-counter antidiarrheal preparations.

Health risks

There are obvious risks in the consumption of earth that is contaminated by animal or human feces; in particular, parasite eggs, such as roundworm, that can stay dormant for years, can present a problem. Tetanus poses a further risk.

There is a psychological hypothesis, which is centred on the cravings reported by clay eaters. Researchers' attention was directed mainly towards pregnant and postpartum women and their emotional states. Geophagy was attributed to feelings of misery, homesickness, depression, and alienation.^[11]

Notes

References

• Peter Abrahams, Human Geophagy: A Review of Its Distribution, Causes, and Implications. in H. Catherine W. Skinner, Antony R. Berger, Geology and health: closing the gap. Oxford University Press US, 2003. ISBN 0-19-516204-8
• Callahan, G.N. (2003). "Eating Dirt". Emerging Infectious Diseases 9 (8): 1016–1021. doi:10.3201/eid0908.030333. PMC 3020602. PMID 12971372. 
• Cooper, D.W. (2000). "Clay Eating Parrots". Parrots Magazine 36. 
• Dominy, N; Davoust, E; Minekus M (2004). "Adaptive function of soil consumption: an in vitro study modeling the human stomach and small intestine". Journal of Experimental Biology 207 (Pt 2): 319–324. doi:10.1242/jeb.00758. PMID 14668315. 
• Vermeer, D.E; Frate, D.A. (1975). "GEOPHAGY IN A MISSISSIPPI COUNTY". Annals of the Association of American Geographers 65 (3): 414–416. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1975.tb01049.x. 
• Hamilton, G. (1998). "Let them eat dirt". New Scientist 159 (2143): 26–31. 
• Harvey, P; Dexter, P; Darnton-Hill, I (2000). "The impact of consuming iron from non-food sources on iron status in developing countries". Public Health Nutrition 3 (4): 375–383. doi:10.1017/S1368980000000434. PMID 11135791. 
• Kwong, A.M.; Henry, J. (2003). "Why is geophagy treated like dirt?". Deviant Behavior 24 (4): 353–371. doi:10.1080/713840222. 
• Lagercrantz, S. (1958). "Geophagical Customs in Africa and among the Negroes in America". Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia 17: 24–81. 
• Laufer, Berthold (1930). Geophagy (available online). Chicago: Field Museum Press. 
• Reid R (1992). "Cultural and medical perspectives on geophagia". Medical Anthropology 13 (4): 337–351. doi:10.1080/01459740.1992.9966056. PMID 1545692. 
• Vermeer, D. (1971). "Geophagy Among the Ewe of Ghana". Ethnology 10 (1): 56–72. doi:10.2307/3772799. JSTOR 3772799. 
• Vermeer D (1966). "Geophagy among the Tiv of Nigeria". Annals of the Association of American Geographers 56 (2): 197. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1966.tb00553.x. 
• Walker, A; Walker, B (1997). "Pica". Journal of Social Health 117 (5): 280–284. doi:10.1177/146642409711700503. 
• Wiley, Andrea S. (2003). "Geophagy". In Katz, Solomon H. Encyclopedia of Food and Culture 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 120–121. 
• Wiley, A.S.; Solomon, H.K. (1998). "Geophagy in Pregnancy: A Test of a Hypothesis". Current Anthropology 39 (4): 532–545. doi:10.1086/204769. 
• Wong, M.; Simeon, D. (1993). "The silica content of faeces as an index of geophagia: its association with age in two Jamaican children's homes". Journal of Tropical Pediatrics 39 (5): 318–319. PMID 8271348. 
• Ziegler, J. (1997). "Geophagia: a vestige of paleonutrition". Tropical Medicine and International Health 2 (7): 609–611. doi:10.1046/j.1365-3156.1997.d01-359.x. PMID 9270727. 

External links

• Dirt as Food
• Eating Dirt
• Diamond on Geophagy
• CDC on eating dirt
• Health A to Z - Pica

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