Haitians Turn to Mud Cakes to Fill Empty Bellies

Impoverished Haitians have been reduced to living off mud cakes, the Guardian reports. The cakes of clay and water—long eaten by poor pregnant women seeking calcium—are increasingly the only food many families can afford. The global fuel and food crisis has hit Haiti, and half the population is malnourished.

Haiti relies on imports for almost all of its food. In a country where two-thirds of the people live on less than a dollar a day, food price hikes have pushed an already poor population to the verge of starvation and rioting. "It stops the hunger," said one woman baking mud cakes to sell for 3 cents each. "You eat them when you have to." (More Haiti stories.)