Last night at dinner we had a rousing discussion about eating dirt. Should he? Shouldn’t he? Did we? Didn’t we? Is it beneficial? Harmful? If so, how much? How much is enough? How much is too much?
It all started with Lake in the garden. Daddy comes home to find him eating dirt. Not just a little dirt. Fistfuls apparently.
Nana proclaims, Eat a pound of dirt a day! is the sensibility she was raised with from her grandmother. But is that a saying or an actual amount?
Michael is worried about all the worm eggs and bacteria. Eww. Who wants that? On the other hand, I’m thinking a little bacteria could be good, assuming the soil is healthy and the bacteria are probiotic types. Grandpa exclaims he never ate dirt when he was a baby. Nana counters,
Most certainly he did! Everyone does!
Meanwhile Lake blithely carries on eating the dirt…
Happy as can be!
A Perfect Day . . . 
Maybe give him a little more food to experience during the day. I told Oliver and Benjamin the true story of why Grandma washes her hands all the time (they were having a little fit about washing after coming in from playing outside).
“When I was a little girl I liked to play in the sandbox and dirt would get under my nails. The dirt had little worm eggs that I would get into my mouth when I ate. The eggs hatched in my tummy and they went down to my butt. My mom saw that I was itchy ‘down there’ because the worms wanted to come oUT and I had to take medicine to get the worms out. So what do you want to do? ” There was a unanimous concensus that hands should be washed.
True story.
LikeLike
Rene ate lots of sand by Lake Quinault one day when he was about Lake’s age. No problems noted but his poop that day was very dense with sand! I’d say a little here and there is not to worry about but a steady diet is not to be encouraged! One looks at the world differently after taking microbiology, eh?!
LikeLike