In photographs from some of Haiti’s poorest neighborhoods, they can look almost ordinary at first glance: rows of small, round discs spread beneath the Caribbean sun, drying on sheets or concrete surfaces.
But these are not conventional cookies.
They are made primarily from clay or earth.
Known in Haiti as bonbon tè—literally “earth cookies”—these discs became an internationally recognized symbol of extreme poverty during the global food-price crisis of 2007 and 2008. Reports from that period documented families in impoverished communities around Port-au-Prince turning to the clay-based cakes when ordinary staples such as rice, beans and cooking oil became increasingly difficult to afford.
The story is shocking, but it needs to be understood carefully.
Eating clay is not unique to Haiti, and the practice did not begin simply because people were starving. The intentional consumption of earth, known scientifically as geophagy or geophagia, has existed in different cultures around the world for generations. In Haiti, clay was traditionally consumed by some people, particularly pregnant women and children, because of beliefs that it could ease stomach discomfort or provide minerals.
What transformed the practice into an international story was something different: poverty became so severe for certain families that the clay cakes were no longer merely a traditional practice. They were being used to quiet hunger when real meals were unaffordable.
Nearly two decades after some of the most famous reports about Haiti's mud cookies were published, the country's food crisis has changed dramatically—but hunger remains devastatingly real.
The Story Behind Haiti’s Mud Cookies
One of the clearest contemporary accounts came from Associated Press reporting published in January 2008.
Journalists documented people in impoverished neighborhoods including Cité Soleil who were eating dried clay cakes as food prices soared. The clay used to make them was reported to come from Haiti's Central Plateau, including around the town of Hinche.
The preparation was simple.
Clay was transported to markets around Port-au-Prince, where it could be purchased by women who produced the cakes. The material was strained to remove stones and other large pieces before being mixed with water, salt and vegetable shortening.
The mixture was then shaped by hand into thin, circular discs and placed outside to dry in the sun.
Once hardened, the cakes could be carried to markets or sold in the street.
In 2008, the Associated Press reported that the cakes cost only a few cents each, making them significantly cheaper than many ordinary foods at a time when the price of basic staples was rising sharply.
That affordability mattered enormously.
A person with enough money to buy rice, beans, vegetables, meat and cooking oil would have little reason to replace those foods with clay. But for a household struggling to afford even the cheapest staples, something that could temporarily fill the stomach at a fraction of the cost might become a desperate option.
That is the real meaning behind the images of mud cookies.
They were not evidence of an unusual Haitian cuisine.
They were evidence of what can happen when the gap between the cost of food and a family's available income becomes unbearably large.
A Traditional Practice Changed by Economic Desperation
Geophagy—the intentional consumption of soil, earth or clay—is an old human practice and has been documented in multiple parts of the world.
Researchers have investigated why people practice it, especially during pregnancy. Suggested explanations range from cultural tradition and cravings to attempts to relieve nausea or gastrointestinal discomfort.
Some clay materials also contain minerals.
But the presence of minerals does not make clay a nutritionally adequate substitute for food, and the composition of geophagic materials varies enormously depending on where the soil comes from.
That distinction is important when discussing Haiti.
Historical reports said some Haitians regarded particular clay as an antacid or source of calcium. That cultural use existed before the 2008 food crisis. But reporters found that severe economic hardship had pushed some households into eating the cakes much more frequently because they were hungry.
In other words, two different phenomena became intertwined: an existing practice of consuming clay and the emergency use of clay cakes as a cheap way to suppress hunger.
The latter was what horrified the world.
When Food Becomes Unaffordable
Hunger does not always mean that there is literally no food anywhere nearby.