Today I Learned

That would explain a lot, actually.

In South Epsteinia they eat dirt. And they only season it with salt and vinegar because they're white.

Are they preparing the subjects that eating dirt is "American", and they should get used to it, as the prices are going to rise even more?

I really don't think it was "common" up to the 80s. I remember reading about this in high school around 1970, when it was described as an old practice, uncommon and eccentric but still found among a few rural poor. I remember they used the term "sweet dirt" to describe dirt they considered edible.

Drinking acid out of cans is still super common tho.

I feel like there's a decent difference between dirt and clay. Like the title made me imagine the same dirt that's in a lawn with bugs and stuff; clay I imagine as being cleaner and more similar to eating wax or play-doh.

Sometimes I scroll through, see an obvious shit post in what should not be a shit post sub. I go into the comments and they are all "yeah, it's true (personal example)" and I feel convinced a group of shit posters are just brigading the sub for the luls.

This is one of those moments.

peak south USA

Explains a lot

Eat dirt all y'all!

we're getting punked, right? this is citogenesis? someone just made it up? does anyone have a primary source??

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.

thats why its called Humus, and not HUMMUS. eating dirt is a good way to get infections, especially parasites, like raccoon roundworm.

Let me tell you about scrapple.

I, as a life-long midwestener moved out to the "south east" Atlantic coast for a bit. Stopped in a diner one morning and got some breakfast, and they asked if I wanted scrapple with my breakfast. Not my first time seeing it on a menu around there, so I asked what it was, and they told me it was like an omelet, but made with apple and potato shavings. "Alright" I say, as I am open to trying new foods...

"What in the whole grain pancakes kind of fuck is this?!" I thought when my plate arrived. It was quite literally cutting board scraps, with like one scrambled egg added to bind it all together. Literally rough and dirty potato skins, and the ends of tomatoes, I literally found a fucking apple stem in mine. I figured they were playing some kind of joke on me, but I looked around, and other people had the same thing, and they were eating it the fuck up. So I gave it a try. Needless to say, undercooked potato and apple skins were not appetizing. The texture was like eating slices of bicycle innertube, and the flavor was akin to licking a well used, but unwashed cutting board.

Anyway, that was my first and last time trying scrapple. Learn from my mistake, you have been warned.

I knew some animals would "eat" dirt once in a while, but this sounds like desperate hunger to me

As someone who grew up in the South, and lived as a teenager in the '80s, this is the first time I'm hearing about this 'practice', other than a diagnosis in the DSM.

If I were that Southerner, and some professor guy comes along, I would tell him such stories too.

My doctor told me that vitamin B12 deficiency is common these days, because we get B12 from bacteria that live in dirt and with how cleanly our food is now, you just don't get the occasional dirt in your diet anymore (and the animals you might consume don't really get that either).

So, maybe¹ eating dirt might actually be healthy.

¹) Okay, no. Get B12 supplements. They're almost as cheap as dirt and don't give you illnesses.

Calm down everyone. They dug it from preferred dirt, cooked it, and seasoned it with salt and vinegar. Serving size = about a handful. Lay's sells a product with those exact same specifications.

There is a lot of authoritative speculation in the comments on this one