Have you heard of Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth?
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Aster (
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June 12th, 2016
Always the experimenter to keep my mind off household chores, I bought a big plastic container of this stuff three weeks ago after reading about it on many webpages. I began with one teaspoon so I wouldn’t have any side effects and worked myself up to one tablespoon which I will begin increasing tonight. The only result I’ve noticed so far after three weeks is an increase in energy, motivation and lack of crashing fatigue by 5pm plus a long, deep sleep. I guess this is significant! I’d like to know if anyone else has either heard of it or takes it too and what you’ve experienced.
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8 Answers
Diatoms are tiny fossils that are basically crystalline silica. Inhaling that stuff can give you cancer. It’s harder than the enamel in your teeth. It has absolutely zero nutritional value.
The best thing you could say about it would be that it scours your digestive tract on the way out.
It would benefit you much more to just have some whole-grain oats in the morning.
It is also used as a pesticide for bedbugs and other insects. It dries out their bodies.
Wow, I’ve never heard of ingesting the stuff. It works great against insects, though. I used to have a bad ant problem. Ant traps (such as Terro) and baits (such as Grant’s) would work for a while, but then the ants would come back.
But then I read about using food grade diatomaceous earth. You spread the stuff all around your foundation (if you have a crawl space do it on the inside, too), and you plug up all the places where you’ve seen the ants come in.
I’ve have no problem with ants since. I can leave sweets and desserts out, even uncovered, and no problem. And the best part is, the stuff is relatively non-toxic. Just be careful not to breath the stuff (wear a dust mask, use a spoon and lay it down gently), and don’t apply it when windy.
I have heard of it recently but have no idea what it is. I have a feeling it’s not quite what @2davidc8 is talking about. I have heard that if you have fleas in the yard, spread the diatomaceous earth around and that helps kill them, but “food grade” can’t be something that kills bugs. I’m going to google it.
“Food grade” diatomaceous earth has slightly less silica than pesticide-grade, so you swallow a bit less ground-up glass with every tasty tablespoonful.
It works as a mechanical pesticide because the bugs eat it and it rips their innards to shreds. Our innards are a bit bigger, so we can handle a bit more.
We grind our own feed for our farm animals and add DE to
everything we feed. We really believe in it but have no idea
what it could do for humans. I know they sell it on Amazon.
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