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Originally Posted by canana  Thanks guys for your insight! I appreciate your warnings... I know there's been a lot of stuff written about DE for and against it.
Just out of curiosity, could you take a look at this one: Diatomaceous Earth General Fact Sheet
It claims that "There are thousands of non-pesticide products that contain diatomaceous earth. These include skin care products, toothpastes, foods, beverages, medicines, rubbers, paints, and water filters. The Food & Drug Administration lists diatomaceous earth as "Generally Recognized as Safe". "Food grade" diatomaceous earth products are purified. They may be used as anticaking materials in feed, or as clarifiers for wine and beer." What are your thoughts about the facts they've provided?
In any case, I got sucked into this other science forum and read a lot about what others think about it here: Diatomaceous earth, food grade, is this really so good , or dangerous ?
Maybe I will stick to using it to clean the home of parasites (if needed) rather than feeding my babies (until it's better proven later on)... |
The first article is about the use of diatomaceous earth as a pesticide. It is fair and factual. The greatest danger is inhaling it. We used to use it as a pesticide to control flour beetles in corn seed packages. It did a good job. The corn seeds were not intended for consumption, so I just avoided breathing the dust.
The second article is an online discussion forum, so the opinions are all over the place. I would say that diatomaceous earth is more similar to glass than to sand. In botany class, we used to examine diatoms under the microscope--they are very beautiful. Our teacher described their shells as being like very tiny glass containers. Diatoms are extremely small, so eating them wouldn't be as bad as eating pieces of glass, but I would be concerned about the long term effects of eating something abrasive on my digestive system. Any health benefits to eating diatomaceous earth are purely speculative at this time.