Sheila was a child in Cameroon when she first got hooked on kaolin.

希拉（Sheila）最初迷恋上高岭土，是在喀麦隆（Cameroon），那时候，她还只是小孩。

“I was in primary school,” she says. “My aunt would eat it, and it was often me who had to go and buy it for her.” Sheila is currently studying at university in France. Many people back home, she says, continue to consume this substance every day. Some even become dependent on it.

“那时我还在上小学，”她回忆道：“常常是，姑姑要吃高岭土，就使唤我去给她跑腿，”目前，希拉正就读于法国的大学。她指出，在自己的家乡，如今依然有许多人每天都在摄入这种物质，而有些人甚至对此成瘾。

Kaolin isn’t exactly hard to come by – you can purchase it from most Cameroonian markets – but it’s not something that appears on any lists of banned substances. Kaolin isn’t a new street drug. It’s dirt.

鉴于人们在喀麦隆的大部分市场上，都可以买到高岭土，所以，它算不上有多难得。所有的违禁物品清单上都没有高岭土的身影，所以它并不是一种新型的街头毒品。它就是泥土而已。

Eating dirt, or geophagy, has a long history in Cameroon. Colonial era texts concerning the region describe the behaviour in detail. “I am told that all of [the children] eat it,” writes one perplexed author in Notes on the People of Batanga. “Even those belonging to the mission, who are […] strangers to the sensation of hunger.”

在喀麦隆，吃泥土的习俗（或称食土癖）由来已久。对于这种行为，有关该地区殖民地时代的文献中就有详细的描述记载。在《巴坦加人研究札记》（Notes on the People of Batanga）中，一位茫然不知所措的作者写道：“我听说，所有的孩子都吃它，甚至连那些来自驻外使团的孩子们都不例外，后者可（……）从未经历过饥饿感的折磨”。

According to Sera Young, resident geophagy expert at Cornell University in the US, it has a long history around the world.

美国康奈尔大学食土癖领域的住校专家塞拉•杨（Sera Young）指出，食土癖遍及世界各地，且历史悠久。

Young has spent nearly two decades getting her head round this behaviour, and in a comprehensive study analysing nearly 500 historical and contemporary accounts from around the world, she and her fellow researchers documented its global prevalence.

杨已经花了将近二十年的时间来研究这种行为。在一项综合性研究中，她和研究所的同僚们分析了来自世界各地的近500条史料记载和当代记述，揭示了食土癖在全球范围内的分布情况。

Geophagy has been reported in countries as diverse asArgentina, Iran and Namibia, and certain trends keep appearing in the team’s analysis. Consumption seems to be higher in the tropics, and two groups tend to gravitate towards it in particular: children (predictably, perhaps) and pregnant women.

据报道显示，食土癖已出现在阿根廷、伊朗、纳米比亚等形形色色的国家中。而且，在研究团队的分析中，某些变化趋势在持续不断地显现。热带地区的黏土食用量看起来更高；而且，黏土对两个群体的吸引力尤其显著：小孩（或许，这是预料之中的）和孕妇。

Of course, the lower rates seen in other countries could well be a result of underreporting owing to cultural taboos.

当然，见于其他国家的较低食用率，很可能是当地人迫于文化禁忌而少报漏报的结果。

“These non-food cravings happen a lot, and they happen right under our noses,” says Young, citing a case she heard of a renowned opera singer in New York whose dark secret was the desire to eat dirt during pregnancy. Young’s own interest in geophagy was piqued while undertaking field work in rural Tanzania. “I was conducting interviews with pregnant women about iron deficiency anaemia,” she says. “I was sitting on the floor of this woman’s house, and I asked her what she liked to eat during pregnancy, and she said: ‘Twice a day, I take earth from the wall of my house and I eat it.’”

杨指出：“对这些非食品类物质的癖好层出不穷，并且就发生在我们的眼皮子底下。”对此，杨援引了一个亲身听闻的实例：在纽约，有位著名歌剧演唱家藏了个不可告人的秘密——她怀孕的那阵子，非常想吃土。杨在坦桑尼亚农村进行田野调查期间的所见所闻，挑起了她本人对食土癖的研究兴趣。她说：“那会儿，我正在做访谈，问孕妇们有关缺铁性贫血的问题。当时，我就坐在这名女子家的地板上，问她怀孕期间都喜欢吃些啥，她说：‘我从自家的墙壁上扒土下来吃，一天吃两次。’”

Understandably, Young was shocked. “Eating earth goes against everything we are trained to do,” she says.

可想而知，杨当时就震惊了。她表示：“吃黏土这种做法，与我们平时所接受的教育是完全相反的。”

Indeed, Western medicine has traditionally regarded geophagy as pathological, classing it as a form of pica, the condition also attributed to those who intentionally ingest such harmful substances as glass or bleach.

的确，西医一向认为，食土癖是病态的，属于异食癖的一种症状。除此之外，有意识地往体内摄入诸如玻璃、漂白剂等有毒有害物质的行为，也属于异食癖的症状。

And yet clearly in Cameroon there is no taboo surrounding the practice. Similarly, Young describes her surprise when, workingin Kenya, she found she could buy packets of earth in a range of flavours, including black pepper and cardamom. In the US, the state of Georgia is renowned for the quality of its white dirt (there’s even a website). While packets are labelled ‘Novelty Item: Not Intended for Human Consumption’, everyone knows their true purpose.

可是，显而易见，在喀麦隆，吃土并不是什么禁忌行为。杨形容说，同样令自己大吃一惊的是，在肯尼亚工作期间，她发现竟可以买到一包包口味各异的黏土，其中包括黑胡椒味和豆蔻味。而在美国，佐治亚州也因其出产优质的白色泥土而远近驰名（更有甚者，这种白土还有一个专属的网站）。尽管这些白土的包装上都注明了“新奇的小玩意儿：不适宜人类食用”，但它们真正的用途，人尽皆知。

Young asks me if there are any African grocery stores near where I live, in South London. I say yes.

对于身居伦敦南部（South London）的我，塞拉•杨询问在本人的居所附近有没有非洲人开的杂货店，回答是肯定的。

“Just go into one and ask for pregnancy clay. They’ll definitely have it.”

“你只管走进其中一家，说要买‘孕期黏土’。想都不用想，他们绝对有卖。”