green clay??

[harma]

On a dutch message board I read a message this morning of a lady with MC who seems to have achieved remission (or at least control of the symptoms) with green clay. When I read her story I sounds quite promising (it's not someone with a fake story trying to sell something, she had been posting there before). I have done a little reading on google and I get the impressing green clay fits in the category, in Dutch, baat het niet schaadt het ook niet. What means in case it does nothing or does not help, it also won't do any harm (what can't be said of many drugs)

Before I will run to the shop and get it (yes sure, as if I know where to find this stuff in Amman, if I can get it here ), I was wondering are there people on board here who have experiences with it?

While I was reading about the green clay and how it is good for everything, also for skin, a thought crossed my mind "well maybe I should try some of the dead sea mud" (don't worry I won't try it, joking)

[tex]

Hi Harma,

You're talking about bentonite, which is a very fine textured clay, traditionally used in foundries for making molds, (or moulds), into which molten metal is poured, resulting in a metal casting, after the metal has cooled, and the clay mold is broken away. Most of the bentonite that I've seen and used typically has a slightly greenish-gray color.

Bentonite's main attribute is it's ability to hold fine detail, (which is why it is used for mold-making), but it is also an absorbent, and it may have certain chemical properties. For example, in the livestock industry, bentonite can be used, (at levels of roughly 2 to 3 % of the ration, by weight), to mask the effects of aflatoxin in corn. IOW, aflatoxin is toxic to swine, at levels above about 100-200 ppb, (parts per billion), and at significantly higher levels, it will cause aflalatoxicosis, and liver damage. Adding 2 to 3 % bentonite clay to the feed ration, however, will completely mask the effects of aflatoxin, so that the swine are completely unaffected, even at relatively high aflatoxin levels in the feed.

So, if the cause of someone's MC is a toxin in the fecal stream, then bentonite might possibly render that toxin unavailable. For most of us, though, I doubt that it will help, because there's nothing magic about it, otherwise. It's just a form of dirt.

Eating bentonite is part of a treatment that has been promoted for years as "The Makers Diet", by Jordan Rubin, and he has presumably made millions over the years, from people who have fallen for his pitch. He sells all sorts of "magical" supplements that will cure anything from hangnail to heart attack. He has a lot of "believers" who praise him to high heaven, of course. As the old saying goes, (which was incorrectly attributed to P. T. Barnum), "There's a sucker born every minute". What P. T. Barnum actually said, according to historical records, was "There's a customer born every minute".

http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/rubin.html

The poster you mentioned is correct - eating bentonite clay will not harm you, (it's not likely to help you either, but it shouldn't cause any harm), so eat away, if you're inclined to eat dirt. Personally, I stopped eating dirt after I was a few years old, after it apparently caused me to develop worms. I don't know how old I was at the time, but I can still remember how huge one of those worms was, (at least it looked huge to a little kid - that sucker looked as big as a full-grown earthworm), after I passed it, (after taking a vermifuge to kill them). Yeah, I spent a heck of a lot of time playing in the dirt, when I was young, but it apparently didn't prevent me from having allergy problems.

Tex

[harma]

tex thank you for the very clear reply, this wat I like about this board, especially you, just put your question here and you will come up with a great answer and not only an answer but also very clear motivated why a yes or why a no. If I understand you well, does not make that much of a difference if I eat deadsea mud or that strange kind of clay, dirt is dirt.

[tex]

Well, I apologize, because I apparently misled you. While it's possible that dead sea mud might produce similar results, as far as I know, no one has ever documented this. On the other hand, bentonite has been carefully tested and it does indeed do the things that I described above. IOW, if I were going to eat dirt for the purpose of masking toxins, I would definitely choose bentonite, because for one thing, it's a relatively pure product, and for another thing, it's food/feed additive properties have been well researched and documented. Bentonite is a very fine-textured product, whereas most dirt has a much coarser texture, and may have all sorts of unknown impurities, (including, but not limited to, worm ova, chemicals, etc.). Dead sea mud, for example, would contain very high amounts of salt, and high amounts of salt can be toxic. (It's very easy to accidentally kill swine, by feeding them too much salt in their ration, for example).

If anyone should want to try bentonite, I would think that any livestock feed or farm supply store should be able to order it in standard-weight bags for you. Foundary suppliers would also have it, and some hobby supply outlets may carry it, or be able to order it. Well driller supply outlets carry it, also, since it's used for drilling, and cosmetics ingredients suppliers should also carry it. And, of course, you can always buy it online. Note that buying it by the ton, or by the bag, from wholesale outlets, will result in much lower prices per pound, (or kilo), than, for example, a cosmetics supplier, where the quantities are relatively small.

Tex

[MBombardier]

My grandmother used to say that everyone eats a peck of dirt in his life, and you can't start any younger.

[Mags]

You can also get it from any winemaking supplier. It is used to "fine" wine by stirring it in. Particulates in the wine then bind with the bentonite and settle to the bottom.

Mags

[Gloria]

The "Guts and Glory" diet, also written by Jordan Rubin, requires adherents to eat (or drink) some clay every day. IOW, it isn't a cure, it's a bandaid. Once one stops eating the clay, I imagine the symptoms return.

Gloria

[sarkin]

(Not about clay, but - )

Hi, Mags, hope you're doing well.

(Less importantly, and about clay - there are other types of clay as well (somethingelse-ite - the names are similar). I'm guessing the principle is the same - it may have some beneficial effect in some conditions, but does not reverse or undo MC or other conditions.)

L,
S

[harma]

Oh Tex sorry for the misunderstanding, no I got your answer and understood it very well. That eating of the dead sea mud was more a kind of cynical joke, I have no intention of eating it at all. In writing the tone and face mimic is missing of course, I didn't realise that.

It's because when I was reading some stuff on bentonite on internet, it was described as one of those other miracle products, you know helping from hair loss to fungus nails, from heart disease to any kind of immune diseases (of course this is not exactly what was written there, exaggerating it) but I think you get the picture another miracle product. The same they tend to do here with dead sea products. Although floating in the deadsea seems to help for certain skin diseases, because of the high salt concentration (personally I think going to the dead sea you should do for fun, since floating in that water stays an amazing experience), they also claim the products with dead sea salt and mud have all kind of special and magic powers. Well comparing that, the clay and the mud (and the mud is for free), it's cheaper to eat the mud than pay an outregeous amount of money for a little clay in one of those health shops here.

But again, I wasn't planning on eating that mud or have any plans to do in future.