White Dirt

August 27, 2018 7:51 AM

Making Peace With the Age-Old Practice of Eating White Dirt, Chuck Reece for The Bitter Southerner
posted by the man of twists and turns (28 comments total)

You can get kaolin & morphine in UK pharmacies like Boots and Lloyds AFAIK, for stomach problems possibly?

Don't think anyone is eating chunks of it though.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:12 AM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am mystified that no one has simply dubbed white dirt a "supplement" and gotten filthy rich off of it.
posted by helpthebear at 8:20 AM on August 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

That kaolin, depending on where you dug it up, it pretty much a maternity vitamin: calcium, iron, manganese, etc.

I've absorbed a fair amount of it over the years working as a potter with local clays. I used to find chunks of it in my yard.

Fun fact: That kaolin was the "secret ingredient" in Wedgewood porcelain for about a century and a half. They used to mine it in Edgefield County, South Carolina and ship (literally, in this case) it back to the UK.

Second fun fact: the same clay naturally "floats" up through the sandy soils of Edgefield county, where it would be found in large chunks by slaves working in the pottery factory in Landrum, SC, and would be used to make the eyes and teeth on the first face jugs. The uses of these objects have been widely debated over the years, but a common belief is that they were part of medicine and healing rituals directly connected to West African rituals.

Quod circumit revenit.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 8:30 AM on August 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

I feel like my idea of what constitutes "dirt" does not line up with what they're describing as dirt in this article.
posted by runcibleshaw at 8:33 AM on August 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

I read this as "Eating White Dick" and somehow a lot of the article still sort of applies
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:34 AM on August 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

I’ve vaguely knew this was a practice, but not the specifics. I know some cultures will eat dirt and lard during hard times. It doesn’t surprise me in the least; as mentioned in the article, many animals consume dirt and clay for its mineral content. Why would we be different?

I have issues with low iron stores which causes some interesting cravings. I’ve never craved dirt, but have read some people do while researching my own cravings. For me, it’s pickles. Lots and lots of pickles. I would go through a jar a day. When it was at its lowest and I was just a smidge higher than what would’ve caused anemia, I ate so much weird stuff. And a lot of it as well. The cravings were intense. Who knows, perhaps if I lived in a part of the country with the right dirt, I would have craved that too.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:55 AM on August 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

The most interesting thing in this article to me is how the author, a white man, identifies himself culturally so much as a Southerner that he feels a sympathetic connection with Black pregnant women who literally eat dirt. Elevates dirt-eating from a sign of ignorance or poverty to a noble form of folk medicine, despite him never personally experiencing anything like it. That's a kind of reversal of the Southern identity I grew up with which was so strictly racially codified. Well not entirely, I was raised to respect various African American traditions around me too (like Bottle Trees or soul food cooking.) That's one of the paradoxes of racism in the American South, that the closeness of people living together creates a form of emotional connection. It's nice to see that turned to something respectful and insightful.
posted by Nelson at 9:01 AM on August 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

I am mystified that no one has simply dubbed white dirt a "supplement" and gotten filthy rich off of it.

For that, you need to go for Bentonite Clay. (Which does, coincidentally, also occur in the American South.)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:09 AM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Kaolin does get used a lot in face masks, though that's not quite consumption.
posted by praemunire at 9:39 AM on August 27, 2018

This was absolutely, utterly fascinating. The photography is stunning, as well.

That's one of the paradoxes of racism in the American South, that the closeness of people living together creates a form of emotional connection.

That's always been the case for me. I grew up in the south, but in a heavily Navy town so we had a good chunk of our population not from the south. I also grew up poor, and had a mixed-race family. I've always related more to southern black folks in my town than any of the white families, who tended to be lower middle class. My hometown is pretty evenly split between black and white folks, (45/45 or thereabout), and growing up with black aunts and uncles, it wasn't until I was a preteen that I started paying attention to politics and found out there were huge racial divides in our country.

For me, my southern heritage is inextricably linked to black heritage. My black family lived on a farm a state south from us. They were more rural and, well, more black. Everything I can think of that I hold fondly about the south is tied to my aunt Sharon in some way. Some of it passed directly from her, some of it from her sister, my (white) grandmother, who grew up on a farm in the early 40s, some from my mother that learned from both of them (and despite having memories of butchering chickens, never grew up on a farm).

I grew up both internally personalizing these memories and attitudes, and also realizing that it was Black culture.. It never felt like a conflict in my head. I grew up developing a deep personal bond to the south, while simultaneously harvesting respect and gratitude for black people who created this culture.

The way the author talks about the subject resonates with me in this way. The humbleness, reverence, and respect.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:07 AM on August 27, 2018 [12 favorites]

I thought Heinlein was making it up. Huh. Interesting.
posted by Mogur at 10:41 AM on August 27, 2018

When I was a kid I heard stories from the Great Depression of eating river bank clay to put something solid in your stomach to aleve hunger pangs. I don't know if kaolin occurs in East Texas though...
posted by jim in austin at 11:53 AM on August 27, 2018

I was positive that "white dirt" would turn out to be grits.

However, given the choice, I'd rather eat the dirt.
posted by delfin at 12:14 PM on August 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

What, grits are delicious, why would you want to avoid them?
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:28 PM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Everyone liking the story should subscribe to the Bitter Southerner. (I am not affiliated in any way, just a huge fan). Chuck is an awesome guy and you get free stories like this every week from folks all around the south, about the south. No fee just to read. You can support if you love it. I adore it!!
posted by pearlybob at 12:34 PM on August 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I am mystified that no one has simply dubbed white dirt a "supplement" and gotten filthy rich off of it.
posted by helpthebear at 11:20 AM on August 27

I expect it will show up in the Wellness section of Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP web site any minute now:

"An edible formula naturally alchemized to remove toxins and restore gut health, expanding your beauty, luster and glow from within."
posted by magstheaxe at 1:24 PM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Huh, the name comes from a Chinese village called Gaoling, in an area famous for making fine china using it. People ate it during the great famine.
posted by lucidium at 1:52 PM on August 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sounds more appetizing than eating sand.
posted by SonInLawOfSam at 2:35 PM on August 27, 2018

And I wonder if this has some action against lead or other metals' toxicity. If you've got lead in your water, it might be good to eat this chelating dirt in moderate amounts--as long as you've got plenty of good iron in your diet. Sure eating vitamins is a lot easier, but vitamins are expensive.
posted by eustatic at 2:42 PM on August 27, 2018

But.... what does it taste like? And how does it feel to bite & chew it? Is it salty? Is it gritty? Or crumbly? Do you only ever eat it plain on its own or can you combine it with regular food? I am now very curious about the actual process of eating this stuff.
posted by mhum at 2:43 PM on August 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

*sigh* The things I know...

Straight out of the ground it is quite crumbly, not grainy and crunchy, but biscuit crumbly. Soak in a vinegar overnight and knead and it becomes creamy smooth, like cream cheese.

If you dug it out of sand (you most likely did) you want to give it a good rinse to get most of the crunchy grains off, but you shouldn't be surprised to find a few interspersed throughout. Chew carefully if you've got dental work.

The taste is slightly sharp and chalky (a bit like Stilton cheese, or corn starch ice cream), with a bit of metal bite from whatever suspended metals are in it. Think sucking on a penny, not chewing on tin foil. No salt, but that can depend on the environment you got it from. No sweet to speak of. If it's savory, there's a dead worm in it somewhere.

I suggest serving with with a good acidic dish, like vinegar slaw? Maybe a nice light rose or resiling? I dunno, there are limits to what I'll do for you, kind strangers of the internet.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 3:02 PM on August 27, 2018 [16 favorites]

Down in NE TX where I grew up, they ate what was referred to as "clay dirt." Red clay.
posted by bradth27 at 3:34 PM on August 27, 2018

Originally , the active ingredients of Kaopectate were Kaolin and Pectin.

It's been used as medicine for a long, long time.
posted by Megafly at 4:27 PM on August 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

El Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico has holy dirt for eating and applying to the body. Spaniards built a church over what the natives were using more than 400 years ago.
The hole never gets deeper - it's a miracle.
Great folk art for the altar screen.
posted by Mesaverdian at 5:36 PM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

But.... what does it taste like? And how does it feel to bite & chew it? Is it salty? Is it gritty? Or crumbly? Do you only ever eat it plain on its own or can you combine it with regular food? I am now very curious about the actual process of eating this stuff.

Yeah I kinda want to taste it, too. I saw an Instagram the other day of a woman who just posts videos of herself eating chalk - and, you know, there is a satisfying crunch to it. But I've seen too many reports of lead contamination in chalk to want to try that.
posted by atoxyl at 6:09 PM on August 27, 2018

Also called pica, sometimes seen in pregnant women.
Pica (disorder) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder)

Pica is a psychological disorder characterized by an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive, such as ice (pagophagia); hair (trichophagia); paper (xylophagia); drywall or paint; metal (metallophagia); stones (lithophagia) or soil (geophagia); glass (hyalophagia); feces (coprophagia); and chalk
posted by Cranberry at 12:32 AM on August 28, 2018

I grew up in middle Georgia, not far from Phenix City, Alabama. Coming up, eating white dirt was a common practice among less acculturated whites and blacks in the community- the kind of thing you did fairly regularly, but probably kept on the down-low (unless you were truly with your people) because it signified that you were poor or "country." At this one all-you-can-eat-buffet type restaurant I used to work at, the entire kitchen staff - all of us - dipped snuff, drank yellow root tea, and ate white dirt all shift long. Breakfast of champions! The irony is that all of us in the kitchen were making so-called "southern food" for tourists (fuck Fried Green Tomatoes), but I'll be damned if I ever saw white dirt, poke sallet or yellow root tea out on the buffet.
posted by Bob Regular at 6:59 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

I was surprised not to see any mention of anemia or of iron deficiency (except as a possible result of the dirt eating). When I had iron-deficiency anemia, I had an intense case of pica. In my case, it manifested in a desire to chew ice. I'd get a fountain soda from the 7-11 every day and eat all the ice. It was to the point where I developed a chronic cough from all that ice. Between the anemic exhaustion and the chronic cough, a coworker was convinced I had cancer (she was a survivor) and all but begged me to go to the doctor. (a month of prescription-strength iron pills and the exhaustion and pica went away, along with the cough)

I didn't crave dirt, but if I'd had access to dirt that was known to be good for eating ... who knows?
posted by lunasol at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018