Posted on 06/02/2011 3:24:23 PM PDT by decimon
University of Chicago Press Journal ... I’m surprised they’re not advising us to eat something else.
In the movie “And Then There Were None” based on the Agatha Christie story, the butler says that just before they serve a roast that was dropped on the floor. “Everybody has to eat a pound of dirt before they die”.
Does making out in the sand at the beach count at midnight? That sand was pretty good!
Years ago, there was a show about immunology on PBS.
One of the things they talked about was a group of hippy-types living in a commune in Va, I think.
Most of what they ate they grew themselves.
Once a week, they actually took some of the local garden dirt and sprinkled it on their salads.
And according to the reports, these people NEVER got sick. Never.
Problem is, I know enough about botany and biology and local fauna that I realize you could probably do this 100 times and be totally fine.
The 101st time you try it, you pick up some cootie that basically starts digesting YOU from the inside out!
LOLOLOLOL!
My mother in law often said “eat a peck of dirt before you die”. What a character she was. She was also an ardent fan of Reagan.
IIRC penicillin was discovered when Fleming had accidentally let some petri dishes get contaminated, and he didn’t realize it until he put them under the scope.
A worldwide search was then started to find related species of penicillium that had higher production rates.
After searching wordwide, nobody found anything, and one of the scientists conducting the search spotted an orange at a market right near the clinic that had a bit of blue mold on it so he said What the hey! and bought it, JACKPOT!!
The subspecies that they use today produce literally many thousands of times more that the original.
Interesting factoid: the penicillium that makes penicillin is closely related to another species of the penicillin bacteria that is the stuff that makes blue cheese blue!
There have been rare cases of people allergic to penicillin going into shock after exposure to blue cheese.
Like I always say (I really do):
GOD MADE DIRT, DIRT DON’T HURT!
I suspect that peoples who eat dirt know which dirt to eat and possibly prepare it somehow.
Just like most plants, which are somewhat edible. But many have alkaloids in them that will make you hurl.
But I have two plants that grow in my yard (right next to my garden!) that if you even took a few leaves, chewed them up and spit them out, you’d be dead before nightfall.
Foxglove and hemlock.
Hemlock is particularly bad because it has a very herbal smell to it. An immigrant gal from SE Asia living in Tacoma died from it last summer because she mixed it in her salad or soup, can’t remember which.
I recall someone telling me about a book written regarding how women ate certain types of dirt down south during the Civil War or something along those lines.
Correct. But they’re not protozoa and they’re not viruses so I tend to lump them together. But that’s OK, cause I’m not a microbiologist...
;-)
I am absolutely convinced we are too clean and too sterile. I am convinced that a little dirt and grime and junk is good for both kids and adults. I don’t mean live with rotting food and germs and diseased people. But we live in such sterile cleanliness from the cradle, I really wonder if things like Asthma and Autism adn some allergies come from the body not having to build up defense early enough, or being tested often enough. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, etc.
I’m convinced. I think a little cigarette smoke is good for you now and then. I said, a little.
I remember when that group of 8th graders knocked me down and made me eat dirt. That’s when I gave up teaching. Didn’t get sick, though.
Yeah, I guess that would be...disconcerting.
Dang, someone already got to the North Korean jokes.
Okay...
The drawback to eating dirt...
...if you soil yourself, it’s with actual soil.
I had one of those herbs and roots kind of grandmothers in Kentucky who used to advise that a pound of dirt a year was good for you.
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