Pregnant women sometimes have a craving for eating earth. They eat
the earth which has been mixed with wheat on the threshing-floor,
or the ashes of cowdung cakes which have been used for cooking. They
consider it as a sort of medicine which will prevent them from
vomiting. Children also sometimes get the taste for eating earth,
licking it up from the floor, or taking pieces of lime-plaster from
the walls. Possibly they may be attracted by the saltish taste, but
the result is that they get ill and their stomachs are distended. The
Panwar women of Balaghat eat red and white clay in order that their
children may be born with red and white complexions.