At Calabash, a West African speciality grocery store in Newark, New Jersey, plastic containers line the impulse-purchase aisle next to the cash register. Hungry shoppers can choose from a wide range of traditional edible offerings, including sacks of caffeine-rich kola nuts, packets of vanilla sugar — and thumb-sized rolls of chalky clay. In such markets, edible clay isn't a strange thing to find. Joyce Corletey, a Ghanian customer in the store, says she ate fire-cured clay, known as shra, during two of her pregnancies. The dirt became a food substitute that gave her the illusion of eating, without the fear of vomiting food during morning sickness.
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