Build Your Cob House and Eat It Too.

Thu Nov 6 15:27:14 CST 1997

I couldn't help myself!  After reading the attached newspaper article I had to share it with the cob list. Vernon 

Science: scientist mind helpful ingredients in dirt from three nations.

Eating soil can be good for you. This is the verdict of scientists in Canada who have analyzed soils eaten by people in China,Zimbabwe and United States.

The samples they looked at contain exactly the nutrients needed to provide the benefits that soil-eaters report

People have a long history of eating earth: Romans made medicinal tablets from soil and goats blood; Germans in the last century substituted fine clay for butter on their bread; and in some African countries, clay is still sold is a digestive to remedy. Health professionals nowadays consider the habit to be a symptom of mental illness.

Susan Aufreiter of the University of Toronto and William Mahaney of York University, also in Toronto, wondered if there was any evidence to support "geophagy" -- eating earth for medicinal reasons.

They use a new technique called instrumental neutron activation analysis to get a precise chemical breakdown for each of three soil samples.

The first sample, a fine, yellowish soil from China's Hunan province, was used as "famine food" as recently as the 1950s. The second was a soft clay from Stokes County in North Carolina, said to be good for general health. The third sample, a red soil from termite mounds, was collected in Zimbabwe, where it is eaten to soothe upset stomachs.

The Chinese soil turned out to be rich in iron, calcium, V, magnesium, many knees and K -all of which would be in short supply in times of famine.

The North Carolina The North Carolina soil was rich and iron and Iodine, important for the health of both children and women of childbearing age, and often missing from the diets of the who are poor.

"It's an insult to say eat dirt," Aufreiter says. "But poor blacks in the South did, and they were right." In the soil from Zimbabwe, the researchers found kaolinite, the principal ingredient in the commercial diarrhea treatment, Kaopectate.

The team outlines its findings in the latest issue of the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition.

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I couldn't help myself!  After reading the attached 
newspaper article I had to share it with the cob list. Vernon  
Science: scientist mind helpful ingredients in dirt from 
three nations.

Eating soil can be good for you. This is the verdict of scientists in Canada 
who have analyzed soils eaten by people in China,Zimbabwe and United States.

The samples they looked at contain exactly the nutrients needed to provide 
the benefits that soil-eaters report

People have a long history of eating earth: Romans made medicinal tablets 
from soil and goats blood; Germans in the last century substituted fine clay for 
butter on their bread; and in some African countries, clay is still sold is a 
digestive to remedy. Health professionals nowadays consider the habit to be a 
symptom of mental illness.

Susan Aufreiter of the University of Toronto and William Mahaney of York 
University, also in Toronto, wondered if there was any evidence to support 
"geophagy" -- eating earth for medicinal reasons.

They use a new technique called instrumental neutron activation analysis to 
get a precise chemical breakdown for each of three soil samples.

The first sample, a fine, yellowish soil from China's Hunan province, was 
used as "famine food" as recently as the 1950s. The second was a soft 
clay from Stokes County in North Carolina, said to be good for general health. 
The third sample, a red soil from termite mounds, was collected in Zimbabwe, 
where it is eaten to soothe upset stomachs.

The Chinese soil turned out to be rich in iron, calcium, V, magnesium, many 
knees and K -all of which would be in short supply in times of famine.
The North Carolina The North Carolina soil was rich and iron and 
Iodine, important for the health of both children and women of childbearing age, 
and often missing from the diets of the who are poor.

"It's an insult to say eat dirt," Aufreiter says. "But poor 
blacks in the South did, and they were right." In the soil from Zimbabwe, 
the researchers found kaolinite, the principal ingredient in the commercial 
diarrhea treatment, Kaopectate.

The team outlines its findings in the latest issue of the 
International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition.

 
 
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