誰人生前沒吃過一抔土 A Spoonful of Dirt

Q. Did eating a little bit of dirt ever hurt anyone?

問：吃下一點點泥土是否對人有害？

A. Sometimes but not always, by any means. The key to staying safe is “a little bit,” and preferably dirt that is not contaminated by things like insecticide, fertilizer, flakes of lead paint and especially parasites, according to Medline Plus, a service of the National Library of Medicine.

答：有時候會，但也未必。據美國國家醫學圖書館(National Library of Medicine)的Medline Plus服務稱，確保安全的關鍵在於泥土的量只有“一點點”，而且它們最好沒有受到殺蟲劑、化肥、鉛塗料，特別是寄生蟲的污染。

A 2003 review article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tends to confirm the old saying, “You eat a peck of dirt before you die.”

2003年，美國疾病控制和預防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)主辦的《新發傳染病》雜誌(Emerging Infectious Diseases)上發表了一篇綜述文章，恰似證實了一句老話：“哪個人死前沒吃過一抔土。（You eat a peck of dirt before you die。引申義爲：人生在世總會受點委屈。）”

Child or adult, the article says, “each of us inadvertently eats a little dirt every day,” found in “contaminated food, soiled hands and inhaled dust.” Many small children also eat dirt on purpose, usually show no ill effects and usually grow out of the habit.

該文稱，無論小孩還是成人，“我們每個人每天都在不經意間吃下過一點點塵土”，它們可能來源於“受到污染的食物、髒手和吸入粉塵等”。許多小孩子還會故意去吃泥土，一般也沒出現什麼不良影響，而且隨着他們逐漸長大，通常就會慢慢改掉這種習慣。

Eating large amounts of dirt is called soil pica, or geophagy. It can cause constipation or intestinal blockage.

進食大量泥土的現象稱爲土壤異食癖，或食土癖。它可引起便祕或腸梗阻。

In 2000, a committee of the United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry set an arbitrary amount of 5,000 milligrams of soil a day, about a teaspoon, as the division between “a little bit of dirt” and the amount that constitutes a disorder if consumed.

2000年，美國有毒物質和疾病登記局(United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry)的委員會主觀地將每天5000毫克土壤（約一茶匙）設定爲劃分“一點點塵土”與“如若食用可導致疾病的量”的界限。

Eating comparatively large amounts of dirt, often clay rather than topsoil, is common behavior in some cultures, especially among pregnant women, and it has been suggested that it helps people obtain missing mineral nutrients or absorb and counteract nauseating toxins. It has even been proposed, but not proved, that children are instinctively compelled to eat dirt to vaccinate themselves against infectious agents.

進食較大量的泥土（通常是粘土而非表土）在某些文化中是相當常見的行爲，在孕婦中尤其如此，據稱，此舉可以幫助人們獲得缺失的礦物營養素或吸收並抵消讓人感到噁心的毒素。甚至還有人提出（但未經證實），小孩有吃土的本能，這是一種讓他們的身體對傳染性病原體產生免疫的方式。