Medicine: Why People Eat Dirt

Many a homesick or sardonic Northern Negro, writing to Southern friends, says "Ship me a bag of good dirt to eat." Sometimes he means it. Even in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, Negroes and whites send requests to their upcountry friends for a bit of red clay, declaring that black Delta soil is "right bad eating." In certain parts of Mississippi, poor whites will walk miles for a spoonful of dirt from a favorite bank of clay, because it "tastes sour, like a lemon." In other sections of the South, some top their meals with a savory tablespoon of dirt, believing that it is "good for them," despite its constipating effects.

What makes people eat dirt?

Two scientists at Mississippi State College, Drs. Dorothy Dickins and Robert N. Ford, think they know why: lack of iron in the diet. Last fortnight Science News Letter reported some results of their investigation among 207 Negro school children in Oktibbeha County, Miss. At least a quarter of the children admitted eating dirt. Most of the dirt-eaters had less of the iron-rich foods, such as molasses, mustard greens, liver, in their diet than did the non-dirt-eaters. And as far as the scientists could find out, the craving for dirt (known as geophagia) has nothing to do with hookworm, as many doctors firmly believe, for hookworm is very rare in geophagous Oktibbeha County.