A mum is so addicted to eating clay that she has quit her teaching job to sell it.A mum is so addicted to eating clay that she has quit her teaching job to sell it.
Mandisa Mayne was diagnosed with rare eating disorder, pica – which causes people to eat non-food substances – after going to her doctor for help. The 36-year-old said she began getting strong cravings for clay from childhood – however she was initially addicted to chewing chalk.
She said: ‘My cravings started with chalk. I used to steal it from the blackboards and nibble it during lessons as a child. ‘The more I did it, the more I enjoyed it.
‘By secondary school, I was full-on craving it and needed to eat more and more.
‘I used to take the chalk from the art department and eat that. Then, when I started getting pocket money, I would go to the shops and buy my own supplies.’
Buying ten packets of chalk at a time from her local Wilko shop, as she got older, Mandisa struggled to control her cravings at work.
She admitted: ‘When I became a teacher, I’d eat clay and chalk in my classroom in my breaks.
‘Before that, working in admin, I remember one time when I was pregnant, when my work building was being refurbished and plaster was hanging off the wall, I couldn’t resist getting a screwdriver and hacking more plaster off, just so I could eat it.
‘It was an uncontrollable craving – I just couldn’t help it.’ After she had been with her husband, who she met in 1999, through mutual friends, for two weeks, she revealed her peculiar food choices.
Remembering his reaction, she said: ‘He was shocked, but that wasn’t going to stop me – nothing would.’
But, Mandisa’s palette changed with age and, in 2011, when she discovered clay, it wiped clean her craving for chalk.
She said: ‘I’d had enough of chalk, I’d got to the point where it really wasn’t doing it for me.
‘All the shops I was buying it in were cheap and it didn’t taste like it used to.
‘I tried everywhere to find something which was as good as the old stuff, but I had no luck.’
Admitting that her husband and her kids still find her clay eating habit strange, she said: ‘I’m passionate about clay.
‘I started selling it, as I wasn’t passionate about teaching anymore. I order in up to 40kg a week, keep it all around my house and then distribute it.
‘Now I’m a successful businesswoman, selling it to people just like me.
‘Eating clay makes me feel healthy, it’s just like a detox. I even eat it off a spoon, sometimes, like yoghurt or ice cream.
Before she set up her business she was spending £20-a-week on a 500g bag. And Mandisa, who eats it as chunks, is particularly partial to a bite after a helping of fast food, like pizza.
She continued: ‘I’ll take it to the cinema in a little bag and eat it after my popcorn, have it on a night out, after we’ve been to the chip shop, or nibble on a small amount if I have indigestion. ‘It’s always in my bag, wherever I go.’
Mandisa has been warned she could be damaging her body, but she remains adamant that her unusual snack is good for her.
She said: ‘It’s my body, and the clay is actually a real detox for me. People have been eating it for hundreds of years.
‘I won’t eat clay after I’ve had a healthy meal, but if I’ve just had a really junk-fuelled snack, it makes me feel so much better and healthier.’
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