A new study in Madagascar, where geophagy is ubiquitous, has shown for the first time that the practice is widespread among men. At least they ate what we thought was unsuitable for food, with no less zeal than pregnant women and teenagers
“I believe (cannot prove) that previous studies have simply ignored men,” says lead author Christopher Golden of the US National Geographic Society. Its co-author Laura Beatriz Lopez of the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) is of the same opinion.
- Researchers on the advice of Sera Young from Cornell University (USA) interviewed 760 people from 16 villages in Madagascar's Makira Nature Reserve. Both men and women admitted to consuming thirteen non-nutritive substances, including sand, soil, chicken dung, raw rice, raw cassava root, coal, salt and ash. In general, 53% of respondents were not alien to geophagy. Among men, the figure was 63%. Exclusively during pregnancy, less than 1% of women ate all sorts of oddities.
Many said that they do it for medical purposes: it seems to help with indigestion. In general, there is a belief that geophagy improves health. Scientists more or less agree with this: indeed, in this way it is possible to compensate for the deficiency of trace elements in the diet and cleanse the gastrointestinal tract of parasites. From this point of view, this food is indeed more suitable for pregnant women and children whose dietary needs are not the same as those of everyone else.
However, Mr. Golden points out that there is no evidence that the human body can absorb trace elements from the soil. He got the feeling that geophagy can hardly be beneficial to health. Perhaps this is simply the result of a spontaneously developed food culture: for example, many Malagasy people do not consider raw starch (raw rice, etc.) to be something inedible.
Interestingly, geophagy is not unique to rural populations in developing countries. For example, everywhere people eat chalk.
The authors do not yet know how to classify geophagy. It doesn't seem like an eating disorder, and the harmfulness of this practice has yet to be proven.