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Date:

January 2, 1825

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Ashley-Smith learns that good fresh meat can bring uninterrupted health to those who consume it exclusively, remarking that 100 men subsisted upon nothing but meat for 4 years.

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The Ashley-Smith explorations and the discovery of a central route to the Pacific, 1822-1829

URL:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015007021887&seq=145&q1=grass

Important Text:

of sand or a light coloured barren earth, which is in many places wholly destitute of the least semblance of vegetation.

In relation to the subsistence of men and horses, I will remark that nothing now is actually necessary for the support of men in the wilderness than a plentiful supply of good fresh meat. It is all that our mountaineers ever require or even seem to wish. They prefer the meat of the buffaloe to that of any other animal, and the circumstance of the uninterrupted health of these people who generally eat unreasonable quantities of meat at their meals, proves it to be the most wholesome and best adapted food to the constitution of man. In the different concerns which I have had in the Indian Country, where not less than one hundred men have been annually employed for the last four years and subsist altogether upon meat, I have not known at any time a single instance of bilious fever among them or any other disease prevalent in the settled parts of our country, except a few instances (and but very few) of slight fevers produced by colds or rheumatic affections, contracted while in the discharge of guard duty on cold and inclement nights. Nor have we in the whole four years lost a single man by death except those who came to their end prematurely by being either shot or drowned.

In the summer and fall seasons of the year, the country will afford sufficient grass to subsist any number of horses in traversing it in either direction and even in the winter season, such is the nutritious quality of the mountain grass that, when it can be had plentifully, although perfectly dry in appearance, horses (moderately used) that partake of it, will retain in a great degree their flesh, strength, and spirits. When the round leaf or sweet-bark cottonwood can be had abundantly, horses may be win—

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	Trapping, Exploring, Hunting	The sales of furs, and the exploration of new routes to new lands, and finally the hunting of animals made a significant impact in the history of the modern world, and often the people living remote to civilization would have to take advantage of the ways of the native people and eat like them. In this way, they would be carnivores by need, as fishing, hunting, and eating trapped animals would be the best way to get a meal, and animals can be processed down into high fat pemmican to get the best bang for the buck when it comes to transporting fuel as weight.
	Digestion of meat	Habits or cuts of meat that are said to be good for digestion, or when digestion is mentioned in context of carnivore diets.
	Diseases of Civilization	Common diseases that appear in civilization - such as cancer, diabetes, IBS, gout, heart disease
	Facultative Carnivore	Facultative Carnivore describes the concept of animals that are technically omnivores but who thrive off of all meat diets. Humans may just be facultative carnivores - who need no plant products for long-term nutrition.
	Carnivore Diet	The carnivore diet involves eating only animal products such as meat, fish, dairy, eggs, marrow, meat broths, organs. There are little to no plants in the diet.