I have not heard of that before but its interesting. Perhaps in countries of extreme poverty where people try to get any tiny amount of nutrients out of the soil?
There is a condition called ‘Pica’ where people crave strange things like mud. Animals get it too – often for even less appealing things like other animals’ poo… but that’s another story. Most of the time Pica is a behaviour or mental problem rather than a health problem, but not always.
If someone is missing a certain mineral or vitamin in their diet, they might get a craving for dirt, that is high in that particular mineral but if you have a balanced diet you would not need to eat mud to be healthy.
eek… imagine what it would look like once digested if it goes in already looking like mud!
I’d heard of people who are starving who eat mud to try and fill them up – but it’s probably not all that effective, since humans can’t really get much nutrition (if any) out of mud! In some areas, soils do have some micronutrients (like iodine, magnesium or iron), so people might be able to extract some of these from mud, but I think it would be a pretty inefficient process.
You certainly wouldn’t want to try living on mud – you wouldn’t last very long!
Hi nickskii,
I have not heard of that before but its interesting. Perhaps in countries of extreme poverty where people try to get any tiny amount of nutrients out of the soil?
There is a condition called ‘Pica’ where people crave strange things like mud. Animals get it too – often for even less appealing things like other animals’ poo… but that’s another story. Most of the time Pica is a behaviour or mental problem rather than a health problem, but not always.
If someone is missing a certain mineral or vitamin in their diet, they might get a craving for dirt, that is high in that particular mineral but if you have a balanced diet you would not need to eat mud to be healthy.
eek… imagine what it would look like once digested if it goes in already looking like mud!
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Hi nickskii,
I’d heard of people who are starving who eat mud to try and fill them up – but it’s probably not all that effective, since humans can’t really get much nutrition (if any) out of mud! In some areas, soils do have some micronutrients (like iodine, magnesium or iron), so people might be able to extract some of these from mud, but I think it would be a pretty inefficient process.
You certainly wouldn’t want to try living on mud – you wouldn’t last very long!
0