Because of war, climate and economic problems, there are food shortages around the world, and it just so happens that corn flakes, bacon, and milk in the traditional American breakfast are all victims of price increases.
Moreover, as a major exporter of nitrogen, potassium and phosphate fertilizers in the United States, the cost of agrochemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides in the United States has increased by nearly 50% as the Russo-Ukrainian War progressed.
According to a survey conducted by the U.S. Federal Government, poultry and seafood prices are expected to rise by 8.5 percent, meat by 7.5 percent, and eggs by 20.5 percent in 2022.
In April 2022, overall prices in the U.S. rose 11 percent from the same period last year, with an average of $275 more per American spending per month. At the same time, prices are rising.
Some Americans joke that food is too expensive now, and if you continue like this, you will have to eat dirt sooner or later.
However, eating soil is not just a simple joke in the United States.
There is a proverb in southern regions such as Georgia: "A child's gotta eat their share of dirt. ）”
While this proverb may not be literally what it means, some Americans simply don't care.
Some stores and flea markets in the southern United States are peddling a kind of plastic packaging soil with the label "novelty goods", and the local people know very well that this thing can not grow flowers or build walls, it is used to eat.
Soil sold in a store in Atlanta
Not only that, during the COVID-19 epidemic, there is also a land sales company that has swept the United States and Canada. Some Americans not only buy it for themselves to eat, but also give it to parents and children, even as gifts to leaders or neighbors.
These people shared that parents are not sore after eating, children have improved their grades after eating, leaders are ready to remarry after eating, and even conquering cancer is only a matter of dosage and time.
Some Americans have come to believe that eating soil can cure all diseases.
In May 2021, a large number of content labeled "Black Oxygen Organics" or shorthand "BOO" appeared on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok.
These are usually a woman who pulls out a bunch of mud like a baby and puts it in a cup to soak in water.
Or stir the mud and water into a viscous consistency and apply it to the face as a mask.
Some people even put mud into the feeding tubes of vegetative families, praying that the patient will wake up after eating the mud.
The mud they used came all from the Canadian company on the label, Black Oxygen Organics (BOO).
According to the company, BOO sells not ordinary soil, but material from the decomposition of ancient organic matter in ontario peat swamps.
It has a variety of benefits such as improving brain function, strengthening heart health, eliminating parasites and increasing immunity.
Many of the products are packaged with the words: "Gifts from the earth." ”
The company's founder, Marc Saint-Angers, introduced in an interview that he began peddling dirt in the 90s.
In the early 1990s, he visited spas in Europe and found several of them using a black mud from a swamp for healing.
"I saw people in the swamp for two or three hours and then walk out and throw away their wheelchairs and crutches, which is a miracle. So, I brought this therapy back to Canada. That's where it all begins. Mark said.
One of the promotional posters, Why Athletes Choose Black Oxygen Organics
Mark founded a spa near the Moose Creek swamp in Kasselman, Ontario, Canada, and in 2015, he founded Black Oxygen Organics, a pyramid scheme (MLM) company.
The company sells products made from swamp mud, such as a mud drug called Black Oxygen Tabs, which sells for $110 in a pack of 40 tablets;
A multi-purpose powder called black oxygen mud powder, which sells for $110 per bag of 125 grams;
There's also black oxygen puree coffee, which costs $30 per box of 12 servings.
Although these products are expensive, sales have soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to anti-vaccine propaganda and a resurgence of alternative medical care in the United States, many Americans have chosen Black Oxygen Organics to treat and prevent COVID-19, as well as to take care of their bodies.
A Florida-based BOO MLM writer shared on Tik Tok that she earned $21,000 a month selling mud during the pandemic.
However, as the number of users increased, various problems began to emerge one by one.
Some people apply BOO mud as body milk to the child, and the child has red and swollen skin;
Someone gave BOO mud to the elders to alleviate Alzheimer's disease, and the elders ate it but the disease worsened;
There are also people who eat BOO mud as a prenatal supplement during pregnancy, but accidentally miscarry when they are six months pregnant.
Propaganda posters that say that mothers giving birth to children reduce minerals in the body, thereby increasing the risk of viral infection, and BOO mud can solve this problem
As more and more customers questioned the security of boo, some U.S. activists began investigating the company.
Eventually, they found that BOO's mud came entirely from a swamp just two kilometers from the landfill, and that the mud that people drank, bathed, and even fed to pregnant women and children as mineral supplements was identified as containing toxic heavy metals, including lead and arsenic levels that were severely exceeded.
Satellite image, you can see that the swamp is very close to the garbage dump
In November 2021, four Georgia residents filed a class-action lawsuit against BOO, alleging that the boo sold products containing toxic heavy metals.
The BOO was shut down on November 23, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to stop and discard their BOO products on the grounds that the lead and arsenic levels in the black oxygen mud powder sampled at the Canadian border exceeded the standard.
· BOO official website
Although the BOO has been shut down, many people still believe that eating puree has many therapeutic effects.
In the secondary market, there are also some BOO MLM salesmen who are selling.
"In fact, it does contain toxic heavy metals, but they're good for you. They are organic toxic heavy metals, they are very safe and you should take it, especially if you have COVID-19! A MLM officer said on Tik Tok.
And people believe that eating soil can cure all diseases is because eating soil has a long history in the United States.
In order to be healthier, some people even cross most of the United States to eat soil.
In 2018, U.S. politician Betto O'Rourke ran unsuccessfully for the Senate and drove along the road all the way to New Mexico.
There, he made a special trip to a place called The Chimayo Shrine to eat soil, which is rumored to have regenerative properties that heal his wounded heart.
Not only O'Rourke, according to statistics, Chimayo Shrine is one of the most visited holy places in the United States, with tens of thousands of people going to eat soil every year.
Chimayo Shrine
An American named Danise Koppenhaver shared on a blog that his daughter was 15 years old and had bone cancer, and doctors told him that her daughter had only three months left.
He took his daughter on a trip to the Chimayo Shrine and left a picture on the prayer wall and some soil home.
After a few weeks, her daughter's leg was sore, and she put the dirt on her leg and stirred it with water, and the pain disappeared.
Soon after, they went to the hospital for examination, and the doctor told them that the tumor had mysteriously disappeared.
Similar cases abound, in a small room in a shrine, there are wheelchairs, crutches, and letters praising the soil that prove that the shrine soil can cure diseases.
The reports drove many health-worried Americans crazy, taking small plastic spoons bought from outside the shrine and digging up a spoonful of soil to eat in their mouths.
Although casimiro Rocca, the pastor of The Cimayo Shrine, has repeatedly stressed that because the soil has been dug up so much, they have filled in the soil outside the shrine more than once, so the soil here is no different from the soil in your yard. But believers are still in droves.
"It is not the dirt that works miracles, but God!" Father Rocca told The New York Times reporters.
Some people can't go to New Mexico, and they will choose a feng shui treasure nearby to dig up dirt to eat, such as the suburbs north of the city, such as the parking lot of Costco supermarket.
Many Americans believe that excessively raising hygiene standards can reduce immunity and make people unhealthy. Eating soil is the simplest and most effective way.
A book about eating soil to cure intestinal leakage
There are a lot of books on the Amazon that guide eating dirt
Some sociologists believe that the soil-eating phenomenon in the United States was brought about by African immigrants.
Because of poor medical care, at least 30% of people in Africa eat soil.
Many of them are pregnant women, and because minerals are lost during pregnancy, soil eating is an evolution of survival of the fittest in Africa.
With the arrival of African immigrants, many African-American pregnant women living in the southern United States not only taught local whites to eat soil, but also mailed high-quality dirt to other expectant mothers in the north.
Some of them said they ate a handful of dirt every day, usually baked first and then seasoned with vinegar and salt.
The New York Times on February 13, 1984 reported on the eating of dirt in the southern United States
With the popularization and progress of medical treatment, eating soil has become a historical legacy that is about to disappear.
However, with the development of the new crown epidemic, the practice of eating soil has become the most popular alternative therapy on the American continent.
• Soil stalls in Africa
The significance of alternative therapies is that they are less toxic and can reduce the side effects of drugs on the human body.
However, compared with the behavior of eating soil, it is difficult to say who has the greater side effects.
According to research in Western medical journals, eating soil poses many health risks, such as parasitic infections, hyperkalemia and heavy metal poisoning.
People blindly pursue alternative therapies out of health concerns, which is tantamount to losing watermelon and picking sesame seeds.
Whether it is eating soil or taking medicine, it is not as good as going to bed early and getting up early to eat on time, after all, it is far more important to maintain health than to go to treatment when you are sick.