"Eating dirt was forbidden. I was old enough to understand that. But I could. not. help. myself. My mother would often find me next to a houseplant, black streaks covering my mouth and hands. “Have you been eating dirt?” she would ask. I would solemnly shake my head. The perfect crime. Except for that telltale black ring around my mouth." —The Last Word On Nothing's Cassandra Willyard opens up about her past as a compulsive geophagist. She does so in relating the new scientific theory that the consumption of dirt (a phenomenon among children and pregnant women around the world) might have more to do with protection against pathogens [...]