ABSTRACT
In Chapter 6, I discussed the pathogens in soil and their impact on human health. This chapter presents another aspect of human health related to soils: geophagy. Geophagy is the deliberate ingestion of soil; the practice of consuming earthy or soil-like substances. Another term often used is pica (Izugbara 2003). Pica differs from geophagy in that it is less specific because it connotes the ingestion and appetite for largely nonnutritive substances. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a unit of the National Institutes of Health, defines soil pica as eating 500 mg to more than 50 g of soil per day.
