Article: Geophagy in the tropics: a literature review.

Geophagy, 'the habit of eating clay or earth' (Weller, 1989: 385), is a common practice undertaken by many members of the animal kingdom (Kreulen and Jager, 1984). Amongst humans, the deliberate consumption of soils occurs extensively in the tropical peasant world, yet the occurrence, scale and nature of this practice is little known. The aim of this paper is to review the literature on geophagy as it appertains to the tropics (defined here as the region between the two parallels of latitude, respectively the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, roughly 23 [degrees] N. and 23 [degrees] S. north and south of the equator [Stamp, 1961]). In particular, the possible nutritional role ...

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