“When I’m pregnant, it’s just like takingdope,” said the Negro woman bearing her ninth child at the District ofColumbia General Hospital in Washington. “I can hardly wait to get homeso I can get some more starch,” she added, referring not to starchyfoods but to laundry starch. “Sometimes I’ll eat two or three boxes aday.”
To their astonishment, Northern doctors have lately discovered thateating laundry starch is all the rage among Negro women—especiallypregnant women—in many Northern-city slums. At D.C. General Hospital,Chief Obstetrician Dr. Earnest Lowe estimates that up to one-fourth ofhis patients are starch addicts. At Los Angeles County Hospital, threeor four patients a week are diagnosed as having anemia apparentlycaused by starch binges.
Magnesia & Matzo. According to the few doctors who have studied thesubject, the craving for laundry starch is an offshoot of theclay-eating habit still prevalent among some Southern Negroes. Thosewho migrate North sometimes receive packages of clay (known as”Mississippi Mud” in Los Angeles) mailed by friends back home, but mostswitch to laundry starch, which is easier to obtain and apparentlysatisfies the same hunger.
Across the country, the preferred brand is Argo Gloss Starch, availablein either the economy-size blue box at 19¢ or the handy red box at 11¢.Both contain chewy lumps that taste, according to one gourmet, like “across between milk of magnesia and matzo. The texture is that of anafter-dinner mint.” Like peanuts, one handful leads to another. “Aftera box of it,” said one woman, “my throat gets kind of sticky, so I goand get a big glass of ice water. Then I get a powerful desire formore.” Some enthusiasts spice laundry starch with salt and pepper;others munch it with ice chips. A few housewives wash it down withCoke.
Inexpensive Psychiatry. Argo representatives say that their laundryproduct contains nothing but cornstarch, a common thickener for soupsand desserts. (They also say the starch-eating habit is “rare.”)According to medical opinion, eating large amounts of laundry starchoften brings on anemia by blocking the body’s absorption of iron. Somedoctors state that overeating laundry starch may also cause adeficiency of folic acid, which in pregnant women may lead to prematurebirths or bleeding near delivery time.
Whether starch gobbling results from a physical need or a cultural habitis a minor medical mystery. According to Manhattan Internist HarryRoselle, who sees many cases at St. Luke’s Hospital, Negro women nibblestarch in times of stress as a form of “inexpensive psychiatry.” ManyNegroes believe that starch prevents nausea during pregnancy. Indeed,some doctors agree that starch probably does soothe “morning sickness,”though probably only for psychological reasons. Unfortunately, theother effects are all bad.