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Global food prices are so high Haitians are feeding themselves dirt — or more specifically, mud cookies made with salt and vegetable shortening. AP reporter Jonathan Katz sampled one: it had "a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered." To be sure, this isn't some innovation borne simply of the desperation of the time; Haiti has long been the poorest country in the Western hemisphere (Here's a decent primer as to why), and the immune system strengthening power of dirt cookies, or "pica" have long made them such a staple of the impoverished woman's prenatal diet in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean that some women actually get cravings for them during pregnancy (which, as you can imagine, is not one of those urges the childbirth authorities of the U.S. encourage acting upon.) More »
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