Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff Laurin bobel Bomb here. We all know that weep shouldn't eat dirt, but we do it anyway, mostly not on purpose. A dirt gets into our bodies all day, every day, whether we want it to or not. It's understandably difficult to figure out exactly how much is getting in, but that might be beside the point. After all, most of what we consume that isn't just water is technically made up of dirt that was only recently converted into
plant matter or animal matter or fungus. We get our daily dirt allowance in all kinds of ways from contaminated food, dust inhalation, and not washing our hands before eating. The Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, has actually compiled an enormous amount of research on dirt consumption. Apparently, the dirt we consume breaks down into two basic parts, soil and dust. About forty five percent of the stuff we inhale or invertinly eat is soil and fifty five percent is dust.
The EPA numbers on unintentional dirt consumption focus on children, with one study reporting that babies from six weeks to one year old generally get about sixty milligrams a day. From ages to one to twenty years that amount goes up to about one hundred milligrams a day. For reference, fifty milligrams equals one sixth of an aspirin tablet, so
we're not taking in all that much dirt. If you take those daily numbers and make them annual, that would be about thirty six five hundred milligrams or one point
three ounces per year. Again not a totally horrifying amount. Kids, as we know, kind of love eating dirt, especially between the ages of one and three years oh One researcher theorized that although childhood dirt eating certainly is based in curiosity about the world and the new ability to play and grab, it could also be an effort to get some vitamins and minerals. A purposeful dirt eating usually happens around a year old, which is when many babies stop breastfeeding,
so maybe they're instinctually trying to regain some of that nutrition. However, some people do keep eating dirt after early childhood, a condition sometimes called geophagy or soil pika, pika being the habit of eating non food items. In most of American culture, geophagy is regarded with some concern and a little bit
of fascination. Pika, in fact, is a recognized disease by the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, with intentional dirt consumption of five hundred milligrams a day qualifying as quote pathological. But historically and in many other cultures, it's not so odd to eat specific types of dirt in specific situations. You can find bags of white kalin clay alongside other local snacks in some American convenience stores,
often labeled by law as not intended for consumption. Similarly, some types of dirt are part of pregnancy culture in sub parts of Sub Saharan Africa, and generally the practice is meant to soothe upset stomachs or add extra nutrients to the diet. So while there's definitely cause for concern about contaminated food and soil, maybe we don't need to worry so much about inadvertent dirt consumption. It's only natural,
and we're all made of dirt anyway, right. Today's episode is based on the article how much Dirt Do I Eat in A year? On how Stuffworks dot Com written by Alison Cooper. A green Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with houstuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. The four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.