When I was a kid I ate some grass and crayons, but… Why do kids eat glue? Saw it at school and on plenty of movies already.
Some glues are gelatin based animal protiens. The taste could easily appeal to someone.
Others are starch-based, which could also make them appeal as food.
True story:
When I was in preschool, the teacher used those generic red squeeze-bottles that restaurants put ketchup in to easily dispense the Elmer’s. So since it came out of a ketchup bottle, I ate some.
As I recall, it did not taste very good.
Don’t forget Play-doh!
Yum, salty…
They want a a meal that will really stick to their ribs.
Library paste, so tasty I once in kindergarten wrapped some up in a paper towel and took it home for later, is mainly flour and water, with some sort of minty additive. I can taste it now. Also contains alum, which is toxic in high doses, but who knew that.
The question is not why do kids eat it, but why do they stop?
library paste link, including a photograph of let this be a warning to you (scroll down).
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten glue on purpose, but those Elmer’s Glue squeeze bottles always seemed to get clogged up with dried glue, and pretty much the only way to make them usable again was by biting the nozzle until you loosened the glue plug.
Little kids put everything in their mouths, and swallow if they can fit it down. They’re like dogs, that way.
When I was in first grade I ate so many crayons once I got super constipated and learned about the most horrible thing in childhood: Glycerin Suppository!:eek:
The day the shoved something up my butt my innocence died.
Maybe certain kinds of glue smells appealing to children. I know that I liked the smell of glue sticks when I was a kid, though I never ate any.
I knew a girl in second grade who ate the paste, and when I asked her why, she told me it tasted sweet. I tried a little, and it was very mildly sweet, like a broken-down starch, and I thought it was pretty gross. I can understand why a toddler might consume it, but in second grade we were too old for that behavior. Looking back, she was rather poor, and I suspect she had a nutritional deficiency.
Elmer’s glue is NOT made from casein. It’s polyvinyl acetate.
Older glues from way back were casein based.
A girl I went to grade school with used to eat glue a lot in the 2nd and 3rd grade. She was a very strange girl and got made fun of for a lot of reasons. She was teased for being ugly and strange. When they teased her for eating glue she said she didn’t care what they thought.
Ironically, when she reached high school she went through a transformation of some sort (I swear, she changed so much I almost suspected a cocoon of some sort was involved). She went from being the weird girl that everyone made fun of to being the hot babe that all the guys wanted to date.
As for why, I never got more than “I don’t care what you think” as a reason out of her.
Why?
Delicate bouquet with notes of almond and vanilla and a hint of cinnamon. Mesmerising colour varying from pale translucency to a sharp intense white. Rich creamy mouthfeel. A palate experience dazzling to the senses - complex structure of subtle cigar box elements, with soaring white sage, lilac and a hint of strawberry combined with very low acid and tannin. Huge front and mid palate, regrettably disappointing finish; no length at all to speak of. A well cellared 1962 Perkin’s Paste is one of life’s sublime joys.
Or maybe not.