119 of 132 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Useful overview. Check the details., August 23, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: The Clay Cure : Natural Healing from the Earth (Paperback)
The Clay Cure : Natural Healing from the Earth
by Ran Knishinsky
For those who are not familiar with medical uses of clay, this book has some useful information. That same audience may find some of that information more difficult to swallow than clay itself. If this book were my first introduction to the subject, I might have dismissed the whole idea. The author is enthusiastic about the subject and the style is easy to read and funny, but the coverage is shallow.
I ordered this new book because other older books about eating clay (geophagy) are not easily available. I would like to hear about other available books that I may have missed. I was also hoping that a recent book would have the information on currently available commercial products.
Two pages at the end of the book give the names and telephone numbers of supplement manufacturers who have clay related products. Only USA companies are listed. This list is useful for calling to ask for a catalog. If you ask the customer support at these companies about clay products some may tell you that they do not have any. If you ask them for the ingredients of a product listed on these pages they would read you the list that includes bentonite without realizing that it is a type of clay.
Only the product names are listed. The author does not cover any of the commercial products in any further detail. There is no comparison of the products. There is a general discussion on how to select clay, but the only advice that stuck in my mind is: Ask which clay sells best.
He discusses the use of clay in treating a number of diseases. This part is good as a general overview. He adequately explains how clay works by attracting and removing toxins. He discusses the types of clay but leaves me confused at the and when he reveals that labels of commercial clay products often use the wrong names for the clay. Yet, for me, the long list of names for clay may be the most useful information to take from this book, even if I am not clear about the differences in their meanings. Now I could search for: clay, kaolin, illite, glauconite, smectite, (calcium) montmorillonite, Fuller's earth, bentonite, chlorite, vermiculite, Luvos earth.
Back cover tells me that the author is an owner of a health food store, and it shows between the covers. The most frequently repeated statement in this book is that anything you find on the shelves of a health food store is safe. Proof: nobody wants to be sued.
Those of us who cannot accept that generalization, will also carefully scrutinize another generalization: that there are no contraindications for eating clay. That may be closer to the truth, but I believe that there are contraindications even for drinking water.
Some practical advice is confusing and contradictory:
- "Clay should not be eaten within three hours before or after having taken medication because it will interfere with effective natural digestion of most drugs. ("Medication" here refers to any sort of drug, not a supplement)"
- "The clay should be taken on an empty stomach so it will not interfere with the digestion of food."
- "Furthermore, clay will assist the assimilation of food."
I do not understand how it could both interfere and assist, and how it can distinguish medications from supplements.
- "The more water you drink the better the clay will work."
- "Begin by taking the clay once a day on an empty stomach before retiring to bed."
I assume that water must be taken after the clay, to be effective. I am still developing the skill of drinking more water in my sleep.
- "If the clay either does not measure up to or exceeds [U.S. federal purity standard], it should not be used."
Exceeding purity standards is not good?
The reason I am still interested in health effects of clay eating is that I have read about it in another book that I tend to trust more:
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration; Weston A. Price
That book was published in 1939 by a leading dental researcher. Frustrated by the inability of modern medicine to stop tooth decay and other non-infectious diseases, he decided to take another approach: instead of studying diseases he turned to research of the natural state of human health in tribes not yet affected by the influences of modern civilization. He hoped to find tribes with perfect teeth and immunity to tooth decay and other degenerative diseases. He wanted to study their eating habits. He found them in many areas of the world. His results are enlightening, and deserve to be more widely publicized. The book is still in print. Clay eating was one of his smaller discoveries, it is just briefly mentioned in his book:
"... I have asked for the privilege of seeing what they carried in their knapsacks. ... among this group in the Andes, among those in central Africa, and among the Aborigines of Australia, each knapsack contained a ball of clay, a little of which was dissolved in water. Into this they dipped their morsels of food while eating. ... to prevent "sick stomach"."
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