Rising prices and food shortages threaten the nation’s fragile stability, and the mud cookies are one of very few options the poorest people have to stave off hunger.  Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their families bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

 The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets. Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them. “I’m hoping one day I’ll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these,” she said. “I know it’s not good for me.”

A sampling of a dried cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but it can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied esophagi, the scientific name for dirt-eating. Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

Messiah Missions wants to aid bona fide PORT-AU-PRINCE ministries, with additional funding for food, while sharing the love of Christ with the poorest families. If you feel moved to help, 100% of any donations via the PayPal link bottom right will immediately help these Haiti families.