Up to 80% of people in Africa, especially women, regularly eat clayey soil – this habit is known as geophagy. A previous study has already shown that it is a form of craving. Now researchers have ...

The deliberate ingestion of soil, or "geophagy," has important health benefits for chimpanzees, according to scientists. Far from being a dysfunctional behavior, geophagy has evolved as a practice for ...

Geophagy, the practice of eating dirt, is a common craving among pregnant women. Young children often snack on dirt and clay — mud pies, anyone? — when playing outdoors. And in warm, tropical climates ...

London’s Museum of Edible Earth invites visitors to taste soil from around the world, exploring the ancient practice of ...

When I ask people if they have ever eaten soil before, they tend to give me a strange look. But geophagy – the deliberate ingestion of any kind of soil – is a practice that archaeological evidence ...

The parrots of Southeastern Peru crave an earthy delicacy: dirt. At the Colorado clay lick, a cliff face rising above the Tambopata River in the western Amazon Basin, parrots — often hundreds at a ...

Eating soil is a common practice in Africa. With very little research into the practice of geophagy, however, best estimates put the percentage somewhere between 30 per cent and 80 per cent of the ...