Why do some people eat soil? From a prisoner’s lifeline to a modern tasting menu, the history of geophagy

Soils on display inside the Museum of Edible Earth's temporary exhibition at Somerset House in London. David Parry/PA Media Assignments, CC BY-SA

Editor’s note: The UK’s Food Standards Authority and Health Security Agency both advise against eating clay, soil or earth. Links to their guidance are included in this article.

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...