Impolite Society: Exploring the Weird, Taboo & Macabre

Why Do Southern Women Eat Dirt?

• Impolite Society • Season 2 • Episode 23

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In this episode, Laura and Rachel delve into a bizarre but very real practice: eating dirt.

Women in the American South have been snacking on white dirt for generations and today we're taking a look at the historical, cultural, and scientific aspects of what might be going on behind this regional craving. We're exploring geophagy, pica, and why in the world humans do the weird things we do.

Get dirty with us- we know you want to.


00:00 Introduction
00:36 The Southern Dirt-Eating Phenomenon
03:06 Kaolin and Kaolinite
09:18 Understanding Pica and Geophagy
15:08 Theories Behind Dirt-Eating
20:37 Pregnancy and Geophagia
23:10 The American South's White Dirt
24:09 White Dirt on Amazon
27:55 Cultural and Historical Perspectives
30:53 Food, Comfort, and Tradition
35:08 Concluding Thoughts


Sources: 

https://bittersoutherner.com/eat-white-dirt 
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/04/02/297881388/the-old-and-mysterious-practice-of-eating-dirt-revealed 
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pgxwvk/the-american-south-is-still-eating-white-dirt 
https://www.amazon.com/Grandmas-White-Dirt-Georgia-Kaolin/dp/B01M8MSIG0
https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/science-medicine/clay-eating/
https://www.adamforrester.com/eat-white-dirt
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0031938476901712 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020602/ 
https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40337-023-00777-0#:~:text=Our%20results%20showed%20that%20females,%25) 


Got your own thoughts? Text them to Impolite Society!

Text Rachel and Laura or email us at rude@impolitesocietypodcast.com. Visit our website for info about the show and your hosts.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

natural for children to explore the environment around them with their mouths. Crayons, tree bark, chalk, and dirt all make their way down the hatch at some point in most people's childhood. But some of us never grow out of it because adults eating dirt is a lot more common than you might think. Today we're talking dirty. White dirt. We're exploring the southern states of the good old U. S. of A. where eating dirt is as much of a cultural practice as it is a snack and what might drive these women to chow down on some good old fashioned eaten dirt. That's what you're in for today on Impolite Society. Welcome to Impolite Society. I am Laura,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I'm Rachel.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

and today we are talking dirty, my friend, and my husband actually told me about this topic.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Laura, don't tell us about your husband and yours dirty talk! Heh heh

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

ear one night, you know, it's like, Ooh, I'm going to make that a podcast. Oh, give me a hot.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

heh.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

we were sitting in the living room or some shit. And he was like, did you know that some women in the South eat dirt? Like a lot of dirt and they sell it on Amazon. And my husband does this, right? He just drops random things on me at times. And I'm like, what part of the conversation did this come from? None. He just pulled it out of the ether. Uh, but immediately, I didn't believe him. Right? Because I think skepticism is healthy in any relationship. And it totally sounds like nonsense. Something that somebody made up. It got passed along on the internet. Something like your medieval spanking epidemic on TikTok,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I swear it's out there somewhere. It probably happened.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

But I immediately, and I'm like, that sounds like bullshit. I'm going to Google that. And I looked it up right then and there, and it definitely really happens. And as a podcaster who covers weird shit, this immediately made its way on to the topic list. And so when I say that women in the American South eat dirt, what I mean is. They eat dirt. It's a fact. Like you could, well, we'll get into what it is.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

a seasoning,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

no. And you can look it up on TikTok. Like you can look up, you know, white dirt. You can read some articles. There's a documentary all about the practice. This is not something that the internet just made up and passed along as fact, even though it definitely sounds like that. there are quite a few Southern women, especially a lot in Georgia that do this.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

You know, I thought the South was known for its good food. Like, I didn't think eating dirt was necessary down there.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Biscuits, gravy,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Mmmmm,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

yeah, I I would definitely go for those over dirt, but.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yeah, name a food they have in the South, it's good.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Truth.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Well, what about grits? I don't know what grits is, but now I'm thinking it's dirt.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

That might be it, actually, that's not a bad, well, the dirt that they're eating isn't gritty. I'll, I'll, I'll get into it, but I like that theory. Um, yeah. Yeah. so don't be fooled into thinking that these women, they're going to Home Depot garden centers, grabbing fistfuls of Miracle Gro for their midday snack. No, this is not any old regular style dirt. It is very specific. These women are eating white dirt, which is also known as kaolin. And it's not really actually dirt, it's clay.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Hmm, this is very interesting to learn, because I personally thought that the whitest clay was Aiken. Mmmmm. Clay Aiken.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Kaylin Aiken Clay.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yes.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

So white dirt is actually Kaylin and it's also known as Kaylinite and it is a soft but chalky kind of clay. if you've ever seen like sandstone, right? Like you take it and break it, like it, smashes into a million pieces, but it can, it can hold a shape, right? And this kind of clay has a lot of uses and people have been using it for pretty much as long as we've had a name for it, but actually probably longer. So it's, it's commonly found all over the globe. But the best deposits are actually located in the southeastern United States.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Convenient.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

But specifically Georgia has some of the largest kaolin deposits in the world and the U. S. ships out more kaolin than anywhere else in the world. And today. well as in the days of yore, this mineral is used for toothpaste, cosmetics, paper, ceramics, so much so, and ceramic is actually known as China clay, because it was traditionally what was used to give that very pretty, perfect white glaze to fine China.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Okay. So what I'm hearing is that truly, 90's dads were right. Something wrong? Rub some dirt on it. Teeth too Teeth too stinky? Rub some dirt on it. Need something to write on? Rub some dirt on it. Want a perfect smokey eye? All together!

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

So, it has also been used not only to rub dirt on teeth, paper, smoky eye, whatever. it's also been used in medicines. So, Rachel, have you ever heard of Ketopectate?

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

No.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

okay. Okay. And so it's like Pepto Bismol and it's still sold today. Kaopectate, you can find it at your local CVS. And what it does, it treats an upset stomach, diarrhea, what's that song from Pepto?

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Oh, Yeah. upset stomach, heartburn, something, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. Ooh, Pepto Bismol, and they all went, ooh!

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, yeah, exactly that. So that's what Kaopectate is. It's just another brand name for Pepto, basically. And when Kaopectate was first released in the 1930s, do you want to guess what its active ingredient was? Kao

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Rub some dirt on it! Final boss level diarrhea rub some dirt on it. No, but seriously now I'm starting to connect dots because what is southern food known for right? Besides being delicious as we talked about butter mmm, grease Mmm. some spice and Cream all of those good things that make it delicious But I will also say all of those good things do not sit well with my tummy at times. So maybe You I'd be eating some clay, too, if I lived down south.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

That's actually, again, not a bad theory. I like it So in Kaopectate, uh, and in Pepto, it, it's been replaced. That active ingredient is no longer kalin. Uh, it's now bismuth sub ate or something like that.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

that sounds better for you than dirt,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, that's a biz from Bismol. Is bismuth, like that's, that's what it comes from

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Bizzmeth! Sounds like a English butler. Hi, I'm Bizzmeth! Ha ha

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

do you have an ucky tummy, sir? Would you like some bismuth? Anyway. But for a good long while, people were definitely eating clay for their ucky tum tums and the upset stomach, diarrhea, indigestion, whatever, whatever that comes from eating a bunch of Southern food. And this wasn't only in these nicely packaged bottles at the drugstore. In the 1930s when Kaopectate came out, but also way before that by Native Americans, African, Chinese, many, many, many other cultures for a really long time.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

You mean they were eating clay when they weren't drinking other people's poo in the form of yellow soup to cure their squirts,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

A hundo percent. Yeah. They had a lot of, uh, DIY remedies back then and, uh, eating clay and eating other people's poop were definitely among them.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yep, go back to the gut fauna. What is it?

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

The fecal transplant

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

fecal transplant! That was only like two ago, and I already forgot it. Too much taboo comes in, comes out.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

So, today, you can not find Kaolin at your local CVS under any name, either Kaopectate or anything else. But there are countries all over the world that still use it for this purpose, for an upset stomach. And even if you take your pet to the vet. Sometimes, if they have diarrhea, some of the, medicines that they prescribe may have kaolinite in it as an active ingredient. So it's still used today for medicinal purposes, whether that's for a vet or just for, you know, in other countries.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

You know, and that's not the worst thing I've seen my dog eat, so fair. Give her some clay.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

But, I think, still, despite all of this background, you still ask yourself, why would you want to eat this stuff? In America, I mean, we do have nicely packaged bottles of Pepto Bismol, nicely packaged bottles of Kaopectate, uh, at every drugstore. And in order to explore this, we have to talk about a little disease called Pica. So, around 400 B. C., Hippocrates was the first person that we knew of to put this practice of eating weird shit into writing. of course, how he described it, typical for the time, was super scientific and accurate. And that goes. If a pregnant woman wants to eat Earth. Or charcoal, and eats it. The infant will show signs of those things on its head.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I don't know what that means,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

I don't really either. Ha ha ha! Just sounds inaccurate, whatever it is.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

But the interesting thing here is it sets the precedent, so even before anybody had written about it for the first time, like, it, it came up that women were wanting to eat earth or charcoal. Back to the Greek, ancient Greek times.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

And well before. So from this, we know eating dirt and other weird shit, it's an old practice, as old as human themselves. Somewhere in history, down the line, we started calling this craving for non food items, pica. And today, pica is classified as a mental disorder by the DSM, the Diagnosis Statistic Manual, which is like the mothership for

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

The Bible of psychopathy. No, not, I don't know why I said psychopathy.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

mean, mental disorder, period. But pica it's not simple. This is a disease that has layers, not a, not one size fits all. It's a lasagna of a disorder. Many, many layers.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Oh, but a pizza with pica would not win a lasagna, right? They were thinking more like the layers of paint on the wall.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

both. There's a lot of good things in the world that have layers. Lasagnas, paints, pica.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Ha ha

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

onion. so pica includes cravings and eating of things like starch, charcoal, ice, which I found really interesting because a lot of people eat ice, but there are some people who go a little bit too far on eating ice,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I bet they're so hydrated, though. So hydrated.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

people eating hair or pretty much any kind of random shit that you can think of. It. Has a spot within the umbrella disorder of Pika.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Eating hair just makes me auto wretch. Like, I can't

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

How do you even get it down? That's really the question. Like,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

that I find, like, after I wash my hair in the shower and just picking that up. Crying tears.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

thing in the human eating dirt, it has its own unique brand of pica and that is called geophagy, which is known as earth eating. Well, the, the translation is earth eating.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Ooh, I kinda like that. Earth eating. Earth eater. It makes me think of some, like, nice troll you might find in Scandinavian folklore. The earth eater. He's over there, om nom nom nom.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

It definitely sounds like a character in the Lord of the Rings. So I can definitely, like, I, I. Feel the affinity as well. It definitely a lot better than a hair eater in any case. So, Oh, fair.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

ha.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

The boys that get down, hair eaters. Uh, so while, uh, Hippocrates theory, About babies growing things on their heads was wrong. He did nail one aspect of pica, which is women. So, some stats put 70 percent of pica sufferers as female. It's also estimated that around 25 to 30 percent of pregnant women, again, depending on your source, it's kind of somewhere

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

We don't study women. Psh,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, 25 to 30 percent of pregnant women will get cravings for non food items during their pregnancy, but specifically dirt seems to have like the highest prevalence.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

That is fascinating because it feels like it's coming full circle because I wonder, I hear these things, how would you even know what you're craving? How would you even know what that craving is? And it's because we've all eaten dirt as a child, right? In our childhood we've eaten dirt. So, it's like a beautiful circle moment. You ate dirt as a kid, you gotta eat dirt to make a kid. We're made of mud. I feel like that's a creation story somewhere too, right? I can't remember.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, I think he made Adam out of mud, does that sound right? Maybe, something like that.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Explains a lot about men, right? Made of dirt.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

But

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

JK, we love our men. The men in our lives. Earthy. But that

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

eating dirt, like you can smell it. You know what I mean? Like there's a, there's a rain, a summer rain, and you can smell it in the air. Right. It's like earthy and damp and But I don't know, it means dirty. It smells like dirt and you know, I, I can definitely identify the smell. And if you're smelling something, you are tasting something, right? Like the way that human biology works or biology, anatomy works within mouth, nose. So you would know,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

women get a whiff and they're like, yes, more of that. I need that in my mouth right now,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

I think so. And And like many things on this show, we don't know why people do this, and we don't know why they've been doing it for pretty much forever, uh, but there are a couple of compelling theories that I want to share. Number one, people are just crazy. It's related to OCD and other mental disorders.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I just think it's so fascinating that this is the thing that we can call a mental disorder. The thing that harms nobody else does nothing wrong. Outside of just somebody eating dirt. It's a mental disorder. People want to fuck animals. No,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah. I think,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Hmm.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

hmm, commentary. Anyway, so number two theory is, uh, this craving is caused by mineral deficiencies or anemia.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Ah, what every crunchy mom was trying to tell us.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Is that, is that literally what they say?

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

No, I feel like they tell us to eat dirt. They're like, they're like, your body wants the minerals. People say all kinds of crazy shit online, like, Our water isn't hydrating because all the minerals have been stripped from it.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Uh, so the anemia thing is interesting because they haven't been able to prove it universally. Some studies are like, yes, this holds up. Others say no, it doesn't hold up. But in those studies, there are a lot of people who suffer from pica are also anemic, but it's this chicken or the egg scenario. So are these people, again, mostly women, craving dirt because they're anemic or are they anemic because they're eating dirt? Because depending on how much you eat, it can coat the lining of your stomach and actually block the absorption of nutrients, especially kaolin clay, which I'll get into in more detail, but there's definitely more

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

does it block the calories? Haha, we're fucked

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

This is why we podcast together, clearly. I'm like, what if I ate a block of white dirt, and then A bucket of fried chicken? Like, how would that work? I don't know. It's worth a study. This is another thing. Let's get the Impolite Society research engine a churning.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

That's, uh, if only. If only we had the time and the resources.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

the last one is the last theory about why people do this is a natural defense mechanism.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I guess, I guess what? What are we defending ourselves against by eating dirt? Like, uh, people wanting to come to your house for dinner?

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

No. So this is where I really want to dig in because I think this is super interesting. Is a natural filter. This is why we use it to clean up oil spills, we smear it on our faces, you know, to draw out the impurities. You know, clay ma clay masks, right? Cosmetic masks? Like charcoal, uh, charcoal y

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

thought people like to get dirty. I don't know. I never thought

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

the Queen Helene's Mint Julep Clay Mask? So that's what it's known for, right? Clay has a lot of those properties that It can filter things out and when it's ingested, clay can actually bind with chemicals in your stomach or their intestines to keep them in your intestines and not move them out into your bloodstream. And then you can just, in theory, shit it out.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Okay, okay, let's stop recording right now, because I gotta go back in my backyard and get some clay out of the ground and eat that, because this all sounds helpful, this all sounds really nice. Like, I want, like, toxins to not be absorbed. Bind them to some clay.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Well, what kind of toxins? So that, that's the next thing.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yeah, I don't know, just toxins. They're just

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Toxins. The scary toxins that everyone talks about. I actually want to do one episode on that. What the fuck is a toxin? Doesn't my liver filter toxins? I don't know.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Well, this is a toxin.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

A delicious toxin. Anyway. Um, so we haven't done these experiments with humans because, we don't generally

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Nobody's funding the Impolite Society.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

No, because we wouldn't poison people. We wouldn't poison people.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

That too.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

So they've done this with rats they poisoned a bunch of rats and then, you know, they put in the control group as well. So they offered them clay, they offered them food. Rats that were poisoned, I mean, they were, each group was, you know, offered both. But the rats that were poisoned went for the clay at a much higher rate than healthy rats. And, those poisoned rats That ate the clay showed reduced rates of sickness and death relative to those who didn't

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

you mean I can fire my tasters and just carry around some clay? That will bolster the royal coffers for sure. Yeah. I'm like

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

the King Henry should have really like, you know looked into it,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I'm deep in Tudors right now deep in the Tudors

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Alright, enough of the tutors, alright. let's go back to these pregnant women. What is going on here exactly? A theory, if I may. So, during pregnancy, a woman's immune system is suppressed, and this allows your immune system not to go all OUTLANDER on the fetus that takes residence and not attack it and kill it like it would a virus or any other invader. This more vulnerable immune system also makes you more susceptible to other kinds of threats, the common cold, a little flu bug. The million little sniffles that I got when I was pregnant and other silly fucking things because it's absolutely true or Toxins, or poisons, or any other kind of thing that wants to get you from the inside out. So, this might be why pregnant women have such high rates of geophagia. It's this some kind, the theory, again, is that it's some kind of natural craving that's based way back in the day where we didn't have antibiotics, we didn't have pepto, we didn't even have royal tasters. But that that kind of pregnancy is, uh, that desire to eat dirt comes from the ability of these substances to help cleanse our bodies. Isn't that fucking crazy?

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

I'd buy it, personally. I, you know, what is it, ancient software running on modern hardware? Or vice versa? I can't remember

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Ancient hardware working on modern software.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yes. Right? So it's all still in there. iPhone 1 wants to do what iPhone 1 was programmed to do, even if you put iOS 1000 on it, you know? It says, I can't send a geo coordinate. I don't even know what that is.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

But I'm desiring to do it.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yeah. Yeah, all my friends are. They're selling

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

that kind of stuff. I love the thought of that. It's just, it's, it's crazy because when you look at the percentages, you know, it just, it, there's something going on. There's something that modern science hasn't quite been able to test, you know, in a laboratory scenario, just right to get replicatable results. I don't know. It's just something really interesting to think about, but that. It's a lot of back story and a lot of highfalutin theorizing. We can't prove any of it. So let's go back to the American South where this practice is kind of considered normal. Eating white dirt. So normal that all kinds of local corner stores and flea markets in Georgia and other areas in the surrounding South, they sell it. It's not in the liquid form. Not like they have in Kaopectate. What they sell is essentially Ziploc bags. I mean the kind you get at the grocery store by yourself. They stick a sticker on it. It's full of white rocks.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Ziploc bags, little zippy bags full of white rocks in the daylight.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Not the little ones that have like the real valuable ones. I mean like the big like sandwich sized ones and they got big hunkin rocks in them.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Okay, okay, I was gonna say, this sounds like maybe it's a cover for something else.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Nope. Nope. They, you look at them and you're like, that's a bag of rocks. Like it's, it's Doesn't look very different. And so if you're not willing to make the trek down South, you can even get it on Amazon. And that is Grandma's White Dirt of Georgia Kaolin Clay Chunks, 10. 99 a pound plus shipping and handling, 3. 7 out of 5 stars with 2, 092 ratings.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

And FYI, it is not on sale for Amazon Prime Day. Sorry, guys. But, I, like, that name just rolls off the tongue, and you can't not say it with a little bit of a drawl, right? Grandma's White Dirt of Georgia Cailin Clank Chunks.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

The alliteration gets you.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

That's good. I like it. And I did look it up, uh, telling you it wasn't for sale, and it literally is just a Ziploc bag with a sticker on it. And, um, Grandma is not wasting any money on

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Marketing.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

She's, she's keeping the landing costs low. Which I learned from Shark Tank, that term,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Cause they have, they, they have their target market, right? They're not trying to introduce it to people who don't eat it already.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

You want grandma's Kaelin clay chunks? Then we're gonna get you grandma's Kaelin clay chunks. Mmm.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

of opinions, just like anything on Amazon. Right. Some of them say it's just right. Just like they remember. Others say too soft, you know, gets too chewy, gummy sticks in their teeth and their mouth.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Okay, you don't want your dirt to be candy like. You want it to crumble, I

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Apparently. Yeah. I think of like a wintergreen mints or,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

yeah, that's a good analogy.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

like, uh, conversation hearts. I happen to love both of those candies, which are very chalky and I enjoy them very much. So I was like, I get this.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yeah. it's, mm

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah. And this, I, you, you always know you're smart reviewers, right? On Amazon. So there's some of these have like, you know, instructions about like, don't just open it up and eat it. You have to prepare it. And that tip. Yeah, that tip is to open that bag, let it air out for a few days. And so it'll dry out a little bit. It'll get sweet. That's what everyone says. They say, if you let it dry out, it gets sweet. There was another shortcut to say you can bake it at like 250 for an hour or something. If you don't want to wait a few days for it to dry

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

You just can't wait to get that dirt in your mouth.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

you're getting the idea. Like these people. are dedicated. They have a craving, right? But almost all of these users agreed. It's satisfied a craving that they had, you know, whether it's the best white dirt they've ever tasted. I don't know, but it's satisfied something. But a lot of the reviews did say not as good as I remember from childhood.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Is anything as good as childhood memories? No.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, Yeah, and we will get into why the childhood thing comes into play here in a moment. So if, if you ask these women why they eat white dirt, you're not likely to get a response that is going to satisfy you. People say, I like the taste. They say, yeah, I kind of, I kind of crave it. Or most commonly they say, I don't know why I do it. I just do it.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Fair enough, that explains 99 percent of my day,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

truly,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

there you go. No further questions, Judge.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

it really does, like I say it's not satisfying, it's like not logical, but like from a human perspective, I'm like, yeah, okay, I get it. I just do. I don't. Yeah, so people often cite slavery in the South for this prevalence of eating white dirt. It's thought that Sub Saharan Africans practiced this long before taking into slavery. Uh, they brought this over with them and it's kind of trickled down throughout the generations. And I think it's fair to say that this might have some truth to it, right? But we, we know that Native Americans also practiced this behavior well before Columbus arrived. We know that. Other cultures all over the world do it. So it's, you know, kind of a little bit of yes, a little bit of no on that side.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

yeah, cause it's like, oh, they practiced it before they were stolen from their homeland and then brought to the largest natural deposit of it in the world? Like, that's a little bit like coincidental. So maybe it's just that it was there and it looks tasty and it was tasty or, you know, they weren't fed what, you know, the best nutrition. So they're just supplementing it with whatever they could. Right.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

That's definitely another theory. So,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

we'll never know the real answers because we've just wiped out all that history. So that's something to feel great about America.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Bummer index. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, Okay. So it's all these women that eat this clay, You look on Amazon reviews. There's no pictures of dudes eating white clay, But there's no way all these women who are eating dirt are pregnant. So we talked about our theory about, you know, natural impurities and natural instinct. No way that all of these people are pregnant. But some of them are, again, judging from the reviews on Amazon, some were very transparent about it. Yeah. Yeah. But, women get pregnant all over the United States, why isn't my local bodega carrying white dirt if this is some, you know, natural instinct that is just inherent to pregnant women?

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Girl, we live in St. Louis, Missouri. You know we do not have bodegas here. oh wait, I think I might know what a bodega in St. Louis is. Is it, uh, is it on the corner of happy and healthy? Because that is what a suburbia bodega looks like.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Is that CVS

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Walgreens?

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

There we go. I don't have any bodegas. I only have corporate soulless chains around me, but you get the idea. And you know, we get, we, we all have to live with margins, right? That's just a fact of the world. So,

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

cost. Grandma knows how to do it.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

so when it comes to food and consumption. Things get complicated, right? Food is comfort. Food is tradition. Food is local. It is so tied to who we are as humans. It's really hard to separate all these different threads, you know? Like, well, uh, clay and chalk and kaolin and white dirt, they're not food. Yeah, well, We're eating it. They're consuming it. And who's to say what constitutes non food items? And that's the criteria for PICA. Consuming non food items. Well, I can tell you I don't consider fertilized duck eggs food items, but people in Asia really love balut. I don't even know if that's how you say it, but I, that's immediately what I thought of, It's just like, no, I don't want to eat that. So it's just so relative. Food is very complicated.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

But we can all agree, for the most part, on one thing that isn't food. And that is other people, right? No matter how scrumptious those little baby legrolls look. I just want to eat them up.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

But I mean, there's an episode on cannibalism. You

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Yes, Yeah. go check that out. So even still, while most of us don't like eating other people, it's far from a universal either.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Not the oldest taboo that I once thought that it was. So women in the American South, they have been eating this white dirt mostly, I think because it's there and it's been there for ages. Georgia, it has the best kaolin deposits in the world. And these families, they've been there for a long time too. So people had been eating that dirt for their stomach aches for a long, long time. Well before Kaopectate put it in a bottle in the 30s. And now, in the modern day, it's not medicine anymore. But it might constitute comfort food. You know, your great grandma did it. Grandma did it. Your mom did it. And then maybe you snuck a little nibbles here and there. And maybe it was why they were pregnant, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe they got a taste for it when they were pregnant, and then just kind of kept doing it. Because of that kind of familial, you know. Tie, that, that, all those things we talked about in food being wrapped up in them. And you can kind of start to see how it becomes a cultural practice. And a craving that one might give into when online shopping in the wee hours of the morning on Amazon. Add to cart? Okay, or you're at the local liquor store, you know what I mean? Like the neighborhood Corner store after you've been out drinking and

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

You see

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

some white dirt. I'll take it. Yeah, that sounds

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

up some of these toxins.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

oh i'm actually oh that's a whole nother thread that I didn't even see mentioned but that's actually not a bad one

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Mmm, yeah, it was white dirt. Uh, hangover cure? Tune in next week on Impolite Society. But no, I get it, like that stuff, that nostalgia is a hell of a drug, man. And, uh, I was thinking about doing that for one of our topics or deep dives when we get back into full length episodes, but I get it. I understand. It's kind of like the women in my family, they have this really long and standing tradition of passing down crippling anxiety.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Same Same. So the question is, are these women eating dirt because they have anemia and mineral deficiencies or because their mothers ate it because they live in an area that has the richest kaolin deposits in the world and that white dirt happens to be the absolute best kind of eatin dirt? Not one among us knows. Even the people who eat it.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

And I think. All of the above, right, is,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

That's the way to look at it. Humans, man, we're just so fucking complicated. You know, like we said, modern software on ancient hardware and we're just complicated and I don't know, I thought this episode was super interesting because it was a journey because my first impulse was just like what the actual fuck and by the end of it I was like, I get it. You know, like there's certain smells, like non food smells that will like totally

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Take you

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

ratchet me back to childhood. You know, the smell of an inner tube, a summer, You know, fresh out of the package. That like latex, fake plastic smell, or like erasers, school and you're like, Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. You

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

from school, yeah. I just went downstairs when we were refinishing, replenishing our, liquid podcasting juice. And I had the windows open cause it's actually cool here. And there's that smell of a summer night just like takes me back to being a kid with the windows open and the attic fan on. And

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, and you can fucking eat it. Yes, please.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

yeah, whatever you want. If you could get that smell in a Ziploc bag with a sticker on it delivered to your house, right? Like that is something that is definitely tempting,

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

I totally, totally get it. And that's it. That's all the dirty talk that we've got for today. So check us out on YouTube. Leave us a comment. Tell us what we got wrong, what we got right, what non food items you want to nom nom on. Is it pencil shavings? Is it erasers? Is it the summer soil? Or just the summer night, you know? Or cut grass? There's like a million different things that I think smell good, but I wouldn't want to eat. But also, maybe I would want to eat. You know what I mean?

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

if it was available in a flavor.

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

Yeah, totally. And if you're listening to this on, uh, podcasting apps, you can click the link within the show notes and text us and let us know what you think.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

All right. Thank you for listening and don't forget, never remember. No, never forget. Always remember, stay curious and keep marching to the beat of your own drum. Bloo bloo bloo bloo

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

the song properly.

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

Something like that. Bump bump Brrrrrr Bump

laura_1_07-18-2024_213037:

like Law and Order. Boom, boom. Spank it

rachel_1_07-18-2024_213036:

ending. Powww