Why do some people eat soil? From a prisoner’s lifeline to a modern tasting menu, the history of geophagy

By Zander Simpson, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, Durham University

Editor’s note: The UK’s Food Standards Authority and Health Security Agency both advise against eating clay, soil or earth. Links to their guidance are included in this article.

When I ask people if they have ever eaten soil before, they tend to give me a strange look. But geophagy – the deliberate ingestion of any kind of soil – is a practice that archaeological evidence from Kalambo Falls in Zambia suggests has been part of human history for at least 2 million years.

British archaeologist…

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