diff --git a/README b/README
index d3d6257499..4b19c23c8b 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -11,6 +11,24 @@ EFL is a collection of libraries for handling many common tasks a
 developer man have such as data structures, communication, rendering,
 widgets and more.
 
+VALGRIND DEPENDENCY:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+EFL uses the concept of memory pools (mempool) and this will confuse
+valgrind memcheck tool. By using memory pool, the memory is still
+owned by EFL, then valgrind won't alert on memory leaks or use of
+unused memory. EFL will use memcheck.h from valgrind to declare its
+memory pools to valgrind, producing better debugging results.
+
+However valgrind is only available to limited platforms, making us
+hard to declare it a mandatory requirement. Based on
+--with-profile={dev,debug} valgrind will be used if available or will
+be issued a warning. You can force valgrind with --enable-valgrind, or
+disable it and the warning with --disable-valgrind.
+
+EFL does NOT link to valgrind libraries. Then there is NO runtime
+dependency on valgrind.
+
+
 BULLET PHYSICS DEPENDENCY:
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 EFL comes with EPhysics(a physics wrapper library) enabled by default, to
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 49909c3313..6a84b5ad75 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -708,7 +708,7 @@ case "${build_profile}" in
    dev)
      with_max_log_level=""
      have_stringshare_usage="no"
-     want_valgrind="no"
+     want_valgrind="auto"
      want_debug_malloc="no"
      want_debug_threads="no"
      want_default_mempool="no"
@@ -717,7 +717,7 @@ case "${build_profile}" in
    debug)
      with_max_log_level=""
      have_stringshare_usage="yes"
-     want_valgrind="no"
+     want_valgrind="auto"
      want_debug_malloc="yes"
      want_debug_threads="yes"
      want_default_mempool="yes"
@@ -759,6 +759,23 @@ EFL_ADD_LIBS([EINA], [-lm])
 ## Options
 
 # Valgrind
+AC_ARG_ENABLE([valgrind],
+   [AC_HELP_STRING([--disable-valgrind],
+       [enable valgrind mempool declaration. @<:@default=disabled@:>@])],
+   [
+    if test "x${enableval}" = "xyes" ; then
+       want_valgrind="yes"
+    else
+       want_valgrind="no"
+    fi
+   ])
+
+if test "${want_valgrind}" = "auto"; then
+   PKG_CHECK_EXISTS([valgrind >= 2.4.0], [want_valgrind="yes"],
+      [want_valgrind="no"
+       AC_MSG_WARN([valgrind support desired by --with-profile=${build_profile} but not found. If your platform supports it, install valgrind.])])
+fi
+
 if test "${want_valgrind}" = "no"; then
     AC_DEFINE([NVALGRIND], [1], [Valgrind support disabled])
 else