One of the cultural activities brought over from Africa was eating clay. A puzzle to medical practitioners, it was labeled pica and has always carried a stigma. Pica is eating non-nutritive materials like earth or, in some cases, laundry starch.
Well, despite the stigma, it turns out that eating clay has been around a long time, since Greek and Roman times. Holy clay tablets were widely distributed and traded throughout the Mediterranean and Western Europe as cures for poison and the plague. According to one source (EnviroMedica), the tablets were blessed by the Roman Catholic Church as late as 1848. Studies have shown that clay eating is highest where calcium and iron intake are low.
Although not confined to pregnant women, a high percentage of pregnant women ate – and eat – clay. The current thinking is now that since the nutritional demands during pregnancy are so high – and pregnant women in the past couldn’t take the pregnancy vitamins, they ate mineral rich clay to support the baby. The clay also helps with nausea and vomiting and, as clay goes through the digestive tract, absorbs toxins. One of the preferred clays is kaolin, a white clay that is used as a base in Kaopectate. So anyone who has taken Kaopectate has ingested clay for stomach upset.
Eating clay has been used by cultures world-wide, In Bolivia and Peru, wild potatoes (which are toxic and bitter) are cooked in clay dishes. The clay leaches away the glychoalkaloids found in the wild potatoes and makes them edible.
The United States has deposits of kaolin. One of the largest is in Georgia. No less than a personage as Josiah Wedgewood ordered from the mine for his fine china.
A final note: kaolin is available from Amazon.
Who knew?
