There's a word for people who eat dirt...what is it?

I heard this term used once a long time ago. It refers to people who literally eat dirt (they believe it has health benefits or something-or-other). IIR, it starts with pico-

Actually, it’s geophagy----a form of pica

Pica, chthonophagia and geophagia all mean dirt-eating.

Pica is the general disorder which causes people to eat non-nutritive substances. Geophagia is specifically the compulsion to eat clay or dirt.

I had a college roommate who had a fish tank with a pair of fish he called “geophagus”. They scavenged for food by picking up mouthfuls of gravel off the bottom of the tank, sifting out the fish food, and then spitting it out the rocks.

Here’s Cecil’s column on the subject.

Better a geophagus than a scatophagus, I think.

Didn’t we have a poster named scatophagus? If not, Mangetout needs a new cause. :smiley:

Continuing the hijack, there’s a fish called Scatophagus Argus, which means “hundred-eyed shit-eater”.

Heh, I read that article and discovered I have pagophagia :slight_smile:

Is it true that in the south(US) there are convenience stores that sell packaged dirt? I think I recall reading about this.

I’ve never seen one… been all over texas, oklahoma, louisiana, alabama, mississippi, georgia, and florida.

It’s called Skoal. :wink:

Yes.

Clay to be more precise. Kaolin (white clay, also used to make fine china) to be even more precise. I saw some in a store in south Georgia just yesterday, conveniently packaged in bite-sized chunks, and sitting right by the cash register in prime impulse-buy location. :slight_smile:

As Cecil noted in his column, kaolin is also the active ingredient in Kaopectate (which may help explain why some folks munch it).

Thanks Spoke, I was just pretty curious about that after reading the article some time ago.