Freaky Eaters: Do people actually get addicted to corn starch?

One of the latest episodes of TLC’s Freaky Eaters featured a woman, Nikki Miles, who was addicted to corn starch! She loved the powdery substance more than food: more than some of the yummy, fried, sugary, fatty foods that people usually get addicted to. Nikki was packing away three boxes a day (about 3300 calories) and it was causing weight gain, belly pain, and constipation. She was also lying to her husband, telling him she only ate about 3 boxes a week.

There’s something fascinating about watching someone have clouds of fine powder coming out their mouth after indulging in a spoonful of their favorite food. But what’s the deal here?

What is corn starch?

Corn starch causes constipation because it has no fiber. It’s pure starch derived from the endosperm of the corn kernel, and it’s highly processed so it has very little nutritional value. Most people don’t just eat spoonfuls of corn starch out of the box, but pretty much everyone eats corn starch because it’s a very effective thickening agent for soups, sauces, and other foods. When it’s heated, the molecular structure unravels, and then combines with other starch chains to form a mesh.

Are lots of people addicted to it?

Although most people don’t snack on corn starch out of the box, there are probably a lot more people who do than you’d think. Loving corn starch is a form of pica, a disorder that causes people to crave non-food items. Corn starch is technically a food, but since it have very little nutritional value, it can be a problem. People who crave corn starch often are women with an iron deficiency, which isn’t helped by eating the starch, but something about the the imbalance results in sometimes uncontrollable yearnings for the powder. When treating Nikki on the show, the counselors didn’t mention this link to iron deficiency.

Here’s a link to an interesting board where  mostly women discuss their corn starch addictions. Many of the women note that they were able to kick the habit by incorporating more iron into their diet, and say that their cravings usually started during pregnancy, or after they saw their mother or grandmother indulging in the starch.