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History List

Dr Sandler links polio to eating sugar. "Their susceptibility to infection was possibly due to their poor diet with its high sugar and starch content. The human is a carnivore and can thrive on protein and fat alone, if necessary."

Diet Prevents Polio

January 2, 1951

Schwatka addresses a dinner in his honor - "It was the first expedition wherein the white men of a party lived solely upon the same diet, voluntarily assumed, as its native allies. This fact, coupled with those already stated, shows that white men are able to live the same as Esquimaux in the Arctic"

Epilogue

October 28, 1880

Schwatka explains the Arctic diet. "When first thrown wholly upon a diet of reindeer meat, it seems inadequate to properly nourish the system and there is an apparent weakness and inability to perform severe exertive, fatiguing journeys. But this soon passes away in the course of two or three weeks. Our trip was also our first continued experience with a raw meat diet"

Summer on King William Land helps make Search Complete

September 5, 1878

Lieutenant Schwatka: "On June 15 the last of the hard bread was used and the time was now rapidly approaching when our diet would be a la Innuit until Camp Daly was again reached - some six months hence. Arctic aquatic fowl were now getting quite plentiful, and, to vary our monotonous diet of reindeer and seal meat, we secured many. "

King William Lord - Last Tragic Trail

June 15, 1879

Schwatka meets a group of Esquimaux who had never met white people before and were starving, not having been able to kill enough musk ox deer during the winter.

Voices from the Past - The Old Esquimaux's Story

May 14, 1879

The dogs, many of them old musk-ox hunters and with an appetite sharpened by hard work, and a diminishing ration, tugged like mad at their harnesses and hurried along at a rate that threatened a broken neck many a time over the rough gorges. We soon came upon them and dispatched ten, including calves.

The Long Sledge Journey Begins

May 3, 1879

Schwatka sets out on his journey to find the Franklin Expedition with 18 people, 44 dogs, 3 sleds, 15 guns, 4000 rounds of ammo while expecting to hunt meat for up to a year and live off a carnivorous diet. "Dependent as we would soon become upon the game of the country, we had fair reasons to believe such existed in sufficient quantities to support us and our dogs if our hunters were only vigilant."

The Long Sledge Journey Begins

April 1, 1879

Schwatka was annoyed at the Inuit superstition that different animals had to be butchered in different igloos due to two Gods antagonistic to each other, one ruling the seas and the other the land, and had to hold true allegiance to only one at a time. "When the reindeer hunting season is over the walrus and seal come into the Esquimaux market, completely excluding the reindeer, which from that date becomes forbidden fruit."

Last Visit with Whalemen - Preparation for Departure - Page 44

February 1, 1879

Lieutenant Schwatka "I found a great deal of scurvy prevailing among the ships and the large number of crews. The greater variety of animal life in the frigid zones over the vegetable (the latter having hardly an edible representative in the whole arctic flora) makes it the main dependence on which the polar voyager must rely to secure exemption from that disease."

Last Visit with Whalemen - Preparation for Departure

February 14, 1879

A summation of the autumn's hunting showed that between two and three hundred deer had been killed, so we felt relieved of all anxiety in regard to a winter's supply of the very best of all Arctic meat.

Encamped for the First Winter

November 1, 1878

Sometimes Inuit hunters would get trapped on ice floes over the entire winter, and would catch seals and then process the intestines into strands of beads full of snow to melt it with their body heat for drinking water.

The Lore of St Lawrence Island - Volume 2

January 2, 1920

An Inuit woman describes how the reindeer were used on the island of St Lawrence - the importance of fat and how only some people ate the liver and kidneys.

The Lore of St. Lawrence Island - Volume 2

January 2, 1920

"In such manner has the work of the semi-annual hunts been conducted for over half a century, and in the same way will it continue, growing less in importance yearly, until the last buffalo shall have ceased to exist. Their importance the years gone by can hardly be overestimated. They have furnished the main support of a population numbering ten thousand souls."

The Great Fur Land - The Great Fall Hunt

August 2, 1867

"Pemmican forms the principal product of the summer buffalo-hunt, when, to preserve from decay the vast quantities of meat taken, some artificial process is necessary. Each bag weighs one hundred pounds, the quantity of fat being nearly half the total weight, the whole composition forming the most solid description of food that man can make. It is the traveling provision used throughout the Fur Land."

The Great Fur Land - The Great Fall Hunt

August 1, 1867

The Great Fall Hunt of the buffalo is depicted in which thousands of hunters charge into a massive herd and shoot them point blank. "The hunter pauses not a moment, but loads and fires with the utmost rapidity, pouring in his bullets at the closest range, often almost touching the animal he aims at."

The Great Fur Land - The Great Fall Hunt

July 27, 1866

"Two active hunters, taking in their hands the long lines of raw-hide, called "shagnappe," isolate a buffalo cow from the herd. Then, seizing either end of the line, they proceed to revolve about their victim in opposite directions, so entwining her legs in the folds of the cord as to throw her to the ground by the very struggles she makes to escape."

The Great Fur Trade - The Great Fall Hunt

July 10, 1866

The diets of the people in the Forts in the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic are shown to be mostly fish and red meat, but imported goods such as flour, sugar, vegetables, and fruits are considered rare luxuries. "In many of the extreme Arctic stations the supply of provisions is limited the year round to reindeer-meat, and fish, and not infrequently to the latter alone." However, "the climate favors the consumption of solid food, and, after short residence, the appetite becomes seasoned to the quality of the fare obtainable."

The Great Fur Land - Life in a Company's Fort

January 3, 1805

The winter hunt of the buffalo in the Fur Land is described - a crucial slog through the snow to surprise and gun down the buffalo providing caches of fatty meat for the trappers and hunters of the lonely American Plains.

The Great Fur Land

February 1, 1820

Dr Densmore explains the already common occurrence of vegetarians in 1890's America and mentions how if health is the doctor's primary duty, he must encourage the eating of meat. He mentions that those who attempt to live on bread and fruit without animal products end in disaster. "The flesh of animals...may be said to be a pre-digested food, and one that requires the minimum expenditure of vital force for the production of the maximum amount of nutrition."

How Nature Cures

January 2, 1892

Dr Emmet Densmore describes the rationale of the meat diet basing it on Dr Salisbury and Emma Stuart's recent work. "A good quality of beef or mutton, roasted or broiled, to the average stomach will be found quite easy of digestion. All persons who are at all corpulent, having more adipose tissue or fat than is natural, will find this diet of special value."

How Nature Cures

January 2, 1892

Gray Cloud was more than 100 years old and had never been sick. University scientists lived with him for several months and learned he mostly ate meat.

The Steak Lover's Diet

January 2, 1998

Dr Densmore promotes an "exclusive flesh diet" to cure obesity and comments how family doctors give poor advice.

How nature cures: comprising a new system of hygiene; also the natural food of man; a statement of the principal arguments against the use of bread, cereals, pulses, potatoes, and all other starch foods.

January 2, 1892

We learn the value of fat flesh again when Native Americans court a beautiful white woman, the first they had ever seen, in the Columbia River area during the fur trade 200 years ago by offering "she would always have an abundance of fat salmon, anchovies, and elk"

The Savage Country

January 5, 1810

The importance of sturgeon on the Columbia Was comparable to that of buffalo on the prairies, or whitefish in the forest belt. It was the staple food of the traders:
"Our party, when all together, numbers 60 men, who consume 13 sturgeons per day, weighing from 25 to 250 pounds each."

The Savage Country

January 2, 1802

The full importance of pemmican is understood as a vital survival food that could last "through a winter's scarcity of game and fish. It was his staff of life in a way that bread never was in more civilized parts of the world." Two pounds of pemmican was worth eight pounds of buffalo meat.

The Savage Country

January 5, 1802

Fur traders of the Nor West company didn't have access to many plant foods, but would use berries, saved flour, and maple sugar to spice up his diet of meat and fish.

The Savage Country

January 4, 1802

"As in the case of fish, enormous quantities of meat were required to sustain a man who ate only flesh. The daily allowance of buffalo meat at Fort George was eight pounds a man. The Canadian voyageur's appetite for fat meat is insatiable." Meat, fat, and pemmican were hunted and stored for long winters at fur trading camps, but some of them were supplemented with summer harvests or traded wild rice. Some even got fat by eating maple syrup.

The Savage Country

January 3, 1803

"The posts in the forest belt subsisted largely on fish. Often, indeed, the traders in the northern departments had no other food at all. Yet, eating nothing but fish the year around, without vegetables or even salt, they were healthier, Mackenzie avers, than the venison eaters of the west." The best fish was the whitefish.

The Savage Country - Rum, Women and Rations

January 2, 1802

The fur traders of the Nor West Company often faced starvation and hunger and would have to boil animal skins for nourishment. However, when even this was unavailable, they could eat herbs or a rock lichen called tripe de roche. When eaten in excess, it weakened the body and led to violent vomiting and acute spasms of the bowels.

The Savage Country - Rum, Women, and Rations

January 2, 1801

John Hughes Bennett predicts that weight loss will help with cancer, and also advises that starch and sugar should be avoided.

On Cancerous and Cancroid Growths

January 2, 1849

I have been eating the natural human dietary regime for over 47 years now. I do not eat anything whatsoever from vegetable sources. The only things veggie I use are spices. My diet is usually 60% fat and 40% protein by calories. I used to eat 80/20 when younger and about twice as much quantity of meat also, but that seems too much energy at my age, which is 71- even though I am very active

Owsley Stanley The Bear Forum Posts

January 5, 1958

Owsley Stanly - "The Bear" discovers the Carnivore Diet in 1958.

Diet and Exercise

January 2, 1958

"Long ago, when I was young, said Albert Iyahuk, "people were never sick." Now cancer and heart disease were common; one of the causes may be a partial change to Western food. Recent studies by scientists have shown "that the incidence of cancer [among Inuit] has increased significantly following westernization."

Arctic Memories - Return to Diomede

April 15, 1990

Ten walruses were dead. The men pulled the umiak onto the floe, patched the hole, and with amazing speed and precision cut up the 2-ton carcasses. Blood flowed everywhere; piles of steaming guts lay on the ice; men with axes cut heavy-boned skulls to remove the precious ivory tusks. Ivory and a sea of blood; it seemed the essence of the hunt. We loaded the boat to the gunwales with meat, fat, and ivory, and headed for Diomede.

Arctic Memories - Island Between Two Worlds

June 2, 1975

These Mackenzie Delta Inuit took all that a bounteous nature offered, but the beluga large, easily killed, and abundant - was their favorite prey. "Eskimo whale camps will soon be no more," and Nuligak wrote in the 1950s that "the Inuit eat white man's food nowadays."

Arctic Memories

June 3, 1888

"What is the most important thing in life?" He reflected for a while, then smiled and said: "Seals, for without them we could not live." Seal meat and fat, raw or cooked, was the main food of most Inuit and their sled dogs. The high-calorie blubber gave strength, warmth, and endurance to the people; it heated them from within.

Arctic Memories

March 2, 1578

We lacked fat. The spring caribou were thin after their long migration and our main food, mipku, dried caribou meat, was leathery and lean. We ate pounds of it each day, yet were forever hungry. Living on an exclusive protein, fatless diet took its toll. We tired easily, and after a month developed the first signs of protein poisoning: diarrhea and swollen feet. As soon as we could supplement our lean-meat diet with fat fish, we felt fine again.

Arctic Memories

May 15, 1969

Bruemmer explains the importance of the caribou to the Inuit and reminisces about a hunting trip he took with them. "Caribou meat was eaten fresh, or cut into strips and air-dried for future use. Fat fall caribou, often killed far from camp, were cut up and cached, food for the coming winter."

Arctic Memories - The All-Purpose Caribou

April 15, 1967

Elizabeth Arnajarnek feeds a pre-chewed morsel of caribou meat to her baby at a camp on the Barren Grounds in 1966. The Inuit gather thousands of duck eggs and eat them raw or hard-boiled. They store them for the winter.

Arctic Memories

August 1, 1966

Bruemmer discusses other important sources of animal foods for the Inuit, including clams, some even pulled from the stomachs of walruses, fish caught through holes or in nets made of whale baleen, crabs, and even a raw seal feast.

Arctic Memories - Fishing, Clamming, and Crabbing

June 2, 1975

"A calorie, is a calorie, is a calorie," testified Ms. Slavin, "whether from HFCS or an egg..." - She received a $25k grant from Coca-Cola in 2014

Snickers maker criticizes industry-funded paper on sugar

December 21, 2016

"The general conclusion is that cancer patients, particularly those with a high level of blood sugar, should be put on a low carbohydrate diet which should contain little or no sugar."

Find Sugar is Fuel for Cancer - Develops Fastest Where Blood Has High Sugar Content - ADVISE DIET LOW IN CARBOHYDRATES

September 3, 1931

Navigator John Davies is quoted as saying about the Inuit "The people are of good stature, well proportioned. They did eat all their meat raw."

The Private Journal of Captain G.F. Lyon, of H.M.S. Hecla

June 1, 1586

"Sugar was offered to many of the grown people, who disliked it very much, and, to our surprise, the young children were equally averse to it. The fatigued and hungry Eskimaux returned to their boats to take their supper, which consisted of lumps of raw flesh and blubber of seals, birds, entrails, &c.; licking their fingers with great zest"

The Private Journal of Captain G.F. Lyon, of H.M.S. Hecla

July 22, 1824

According to Caption Lyon, the Sadlermiut Inuit board the HMS Hecla and devour some beef, but refuse biscuits. "Some slices were cut off and thrown down to them , and these they instantly devoured with great satisfaction ; but they refused to eat the biscuit which was offered at the same time."

The Private Journal of Captain G.F. Lyon, of H.M.S. Hecla

July 21, 1824

The Sadlermiut were "discovered" in the summer of 1824 by the explorer Captain G.F. Lyon of the Royal Navy. 150 years later, a visit to this island found "Ashore were ancient stone houses, man-high cairns, box-like graves built of large flat stones, and everywhere masses of bleached bones of caribou, walrus, bowhead whale, and seal." The Sadlermiut were killed off by infectious diseases by 1902.

Arctic Memories

July 8, 1824

Settle says about the Inuit "Those beastes, flesh, fishes, and fowles, which they kil, they are meate, drinke, apparel, houses....[they] are contented by their hun∣ting, fishing, and fowling, with rawe flesh and warme bloud, to satisfie their gréedie panches, whiche is their onely glorie."

A true reporte of the laste voyage into the west and northwest regions, &c. 1577. worthily atchieued by Capteine Frobisher of the sayde voyage the first finder and generall With a description of the people there inhabiting, and other circumstances notable. Written by Dionyse Settle, one of the companie in the sayde voyage, and seruant to the Right Honourable the Earle of Cumberland.

March 2, 1577

Superb sea-mammal hunters, Thule-culture Inuit pursued and killed everything, from the small ringed seal to the giant bowhead whale, and, according to archaeologist Robert McGhee of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, they had evolved "a technology more complex than that of any other preindustrial society, which allowed not only an economically efficient but also comfortable way of life throughout arctic North America."

Arctic Memories

June 1, 800

Between 1850 and 1885, the Inuit population of coastal arctic Alaska declined by 50 percent. In two generations, the Mackenzie Delta Inuit were reduced from about 1,000, to fewer than 100. Labrador's Inuit numbered about 3,000 in 1750. In 1946, 750 were left.

Arctic Memories

January 3, 1850

"The whale meant food and life and glory, the primal thrill of being, and at that moment nothing else mattered.... We ate the steaming seal meat; drank the fat, scalding broth; and glowed with marvelous warmth."

Arctic Memories - Beginnings

January 2, 1960

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