Allotriophagy

(an abnormal desire to eat "unnatural" things for food)

The Persistent Eating of Non-nutritive Substances

Eating Disorders or Eating Non-nutritive Substances, or Nonfood Items.

Pica is an eating disorder typically defined as the persistent eating of non-nutritive substances for a period of at least one month at an age in which this behavior is developmentally inappropriate; for example, 18-24 months. The definition occasionally is broadened to include the mouthing of non-nutritive substances.

Individuals involved with pica have been reported to mouth and/or ingest a wide variety of nonfood substances, including, but not limited to, clay, dirt, sand, stones, pebbles, hair, feces, lead, laundry starch, vinyl gloves, plastic, pencil erasers, ice, fingernails, paper, paint chips, coal, chalk, wood, plaster, light bulbs, needles, string, cigarette butts, wire, and burnt matches.

The following contents present a mixture and/or the causes and results of allotriophagy

mucophagy (s) (noun) (no pl)
The act of swallowing mucus: Some organisms are noted for mucophagy in that they eat or feed on the mucus of fishes or vertebrates.
pagophagia (s) (noun), pagophagias (pl)
A form of pica characterized by the compulsive eating of large quantities of ice: A pagophagia may be associated with iron-deficiency anemia.
plumbophagia (s) (noun), plumbophagias (pl)
The consumption of lead: Plumbophagia is a compulsive disorder in which lead paint, old pieces of paint, lumbiferous soil or dust is eaten or swallowed. .
self-cannibalism (s) (noun), self-cannibalisms (pl)
A rare condition in which one's own body parts are being bitten off and swallowed; autocannibalis: Self-cannibalism can be a symptom of a a mental disorder, but there have been a few people who have really consumed an amputated a part of their own body!l
trichophagia, trichophagy (s) (noun) (no pl)
The practice, or habit, of biting or eating hair or wool: Little Sally was always twisting, chewing on, and swallowing pieces of her own hair, and the doctor's diagnosis was that she had a case of trichophagia, which should be treated.
urophagia (s) (noun) (no (pl)
The act of drinking urine: The condition of urophagia has been practiced in some places in the case of extreme water scarcity.
xylophagia (s) (noun) (no pl)
The act of devouring of wood: Xylophagia describes one of the conditions of the pica syndrome in which people have a very strong desire to eat wood or paper.

Xylophagia can also refer to insects,, like termites, or microorganisms that feed on wood or paper.

A page about a pica eating More details about pica are available.

The phago or eating unit of words The word unit of phago-, -phagy words.

A page about eating non-nutritive things. It's Pica Again.