Google Says It’s Okay to Eat Rocks: Exploring the Surprising Trend of Rock Eating

In a recent and astounding declaration, Google let slip that the next big health trend might just be eating rocks. Yes, you read that correctly. And since that unfathomable announcement, a great deal of rather morbid curiosity, not to mention debate and even derision, has begun to circulate around the potential, or folly, of this counter-to-nature's-course dietary practice.

Although the idea of intentionally eating the geological equivalent of brick and mortar is strange, now bordering on revolting, to the layperson and most health professionals, rock eaters lay claim to a veritable medicinal goldmine. For them, certain rocks are filled with mineral wonders that the human body can use directly and digestively. But do the advocates of rock eating—rockeries, let us call them—have any, even the thinnest, scientifically valid medical points to make? Or do they risk choking, both from the hard substance itself and from the laughter of a number of skeptics? And isn’t that itself a pretty big public health risk?

Is Eating Rocks Safe? The Science Explained

The notion of consuming rocks is indeed an unusual one, but several research studies prove the logic of it. They have indicated that some specific kinds of rocks—if you were to eat them—may be good for your health. For example, clay (yeah, like the kind you used to eat when you were a kid and didn't know any better) may contain the same minerals and nutrients as eating a carrot or a piece of broccoli. That is, if you did munch on clay, or some types of volcanic ash, or even a rock like a chalky limestone kind of thing, your mouth might be getting what you'd need from a daily multivitamin, with much less fun in the regard of taste.

What Did Google Really Say About Eating Rocks?

It is crucial to comprehend the context in which Google issued this promise: it is a mammoth technology corporation, increasingly under fire for the kinds of sharp-elbow tactics with data and in markets that it used to brush off or ignore when it was just an up-and-coming challenger to the portal sites of the turn of the century.

The company now faces rising calls to be broken up because of its market dominance, and it stands accused of a long series of privacy scandals that not even Facebook can match for their combined insolence ("Google's new privacy policy: 'We're not even going to pretend that you have any privacy'" was an actual 2012 headline in response to one particularly flagrant move by the company). Unpacking all of that background is necessary to understand the meaning and implications of this commitment to privacy.

Rock Eating in History and Culture

The long-standing and pervasive practice of eating rocks, or lithophagy, is found in a diversity of cultures throughout history and across the world. One example is the Otomi people of central Mexico, who were observed in the sixteenth century to eat "earth and other types of ground." It is thought that this was a way for the Otomi to supplement their diets during times of food scarcity, or when available foods were poor in essential nutrients, like calcium.

Another example is the Masai tribe of Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa. Similarly to the Otomi, the Masai have been observed to eat types of clay, but they were also observed to eat something else: rocks. Masai men would take a piece of an "ant hill," which often had lots of clay in it, from the top of a termite mound; and later, seated in the shade, would eat the ant hill. They would also take certain rocks and eat them, often after cooking the rocks in a fire.

Why Some People Are Embracing Rock Eating Today

The recent years have seen an increasing number of individuals drawn towards the prospect of practicing lithophany: the eating of rocks. Though the making of pseudo-geophagias human interest stories, what could have easily been a journalistic investigation for Chicken McNugget’s urban legend status, has, for the time being, taken the form of pint-sized documentaries—usually narrated by the seemingly endlessly fascinated women of comment boards from a variety of mom-ridden websites—that chronicle the practice of a bunch of no-too-sharp-or-smart individuals who’ve found a new way to consume Hostess' products. ["Don’t ask!" they seemingly say, with the climax-in-reserve secretiveness of an old-timey carnival barker, "What's next? Our eating the rocks of the beaches in an era after climate change!" they seem to be saying.

The Pros and Cons of Rock Eating

Eating rocks is not something we would advise, because health risks could come from doing that—extraordinary health risks. Why? Because on the chance that you get nutritional value from a rock, the risk of consuming that toxin-laden, heavy-metal-rich, you-poisoned-yourself rock (and it is also very hard on the teeth) outweighs the slight nutritional value that you could get from that same rock. When people talk to us about rocks somehow finding their way into our digestive systems, one of our first thoughts is not "the poor microbes in our guts; 'they' should not have to try to digest that sort of thing!"

The relatively recent phenomenon of rock eating is a topic that merits an evenhanded discussion. This blog post will attempt to offer precisely that—probing the issue from all sides and summing up the arguments for and against it that have cropped up in recent years. Somewhat incredibly, there are apparently enough people out there nowadays that a trope about them—namely, that they are the future political leaders of our country—is falling increasingly flat. You see, the blog post isn’t really about rock eating—it’s about the benefits and risks of rebellion, with rock eating as a not-so-close-to-home example. As far as authority's concerned, figures like George Washington Carver and John Muir simply let their character do the talking. However, one-half of today's population may be putting at risk its future mineral bank because they appear to be deficient in the supply of some kinds of essential minerals in their bloodstreams, according to a study cited by the rock eating subjects of this blog. So believe it or not, the modern diet may, in fact, be to blame for what is, if you think about it, potentially, a pretty serious crisis of public health and economy. Rockhead candidates aspiring to a mineral presidency exist in precisely that political bloc. Yet as Elvin McDonald, who appears to be a spokesman, more or less, for what I’ll call "the rockhead bloc," turns to authority figures in his argument, he winds up citing not just Carver and Muir, but... he also fears for our moms. I kid you not. Rockhead moms, he thinks, are at high risk for heart disease, what with some of them existing in authority over the rockhead kids. His argument, by the way, might sound risible, but it’s also, extremely dangerous, for reasons that, if they happened to pass Elvin by, don’t pass normal people by. Who knows but that the dude who aspires to "mineral presidency" might be well on his way not only to winning a political office but also to doing serious harm to his electorate. Just like you know... the kinds of guy who may not stop at just one or two not-OK things. I mean, think about it: The modern diet. Deficiencies in just how many essential minerals? Moms at risk. Moms... at high risk for heart diseases. Guys in our country with future mineral bank accounts who might be appearing to be efficient at not only rock eating but also at another kind of authority figure that they admire (not too many, and no one I'd stop to speak to or unbashingly admire in authority, by the way, and no one I'd take in any company not unbashingly aiming to be atom-smashing mineral proponents).