Eskimo

EvolutionistX finds from Kabloona:

I do not know what the hour was, but I who had dozed off woke up. Under my eye were the three Eskimos, three silhouettes lit up from behind by the uncertain glow of a candle that threw on the walls of the igloo a mural of fantastically magnified shadows. All three men were down on the floor in the same posture… They were eating, and whether it was that the smell of the seal had been irresistible, or that the idea of the hunt had stimulated their appetites, they had embarked upon a feast. Each had a huge chunk of meat in his hands and mouth, and by the soundless flitting of their arms made immeasurably long in the shadows on the wall, I could see that even before one piece had been wholly gobbled their hands were fumbling in the basin for the next quarter. The smell in the igloo was of seal and of savages hot and gulping. …

I have seen astonishing things, in remote places and not merely in circuses. In the New Hebrides, for example, I have unpacked my own meat in a circle of cannibals and have seen in their eyes a gleam that was perhaps more intense than comforting. Here, in this igloo, all that I had seen before was now surpassed. There were three men, and there must have been fifty pounds of meat. The three men attacked that meat with the rumbling and growling of animals warning their kind away from their private prey. They ground their teeth and their jaws cracked as they ate, and they belched… The walls of the igloo were horrid with the ruddy dripping of bloody spittle and still they ate on, and still they put out simian arms and turned over with indescribable hands morsels in the beginning disdained and now become dainties greedily swallowed. And till, like beats, they picked up chunks and flung them almost instantly down again in order to put their teeth into other and perhaps more succulent bits. They had long since stopped cutting the meat with their circular knives: their teeth sufficed, and the very bones of the seal cracked and splintered in their faces. What those teeth could do, I already knew. When the cover of a gasoline drum could not be pried off with the fingers, an Eskimo would take it between his teeth and it would come easily away. When a strap made of seal skin freezes hard–and I know nothing tougher than seal skin–an Eskimo will put it in his mouth and chew it soft again. And those teeth were hardly to be called teeth. Worn down to the gums, they were sunken and unbreakable stumps of bone. If I were to fight with an Eskimo, my greatest fear would be lest he crack my skull with his teeth.

But on this evening their hands were even more fantastic than their teeth. … Their capacity of itself was fascinating to observe, and it was clear that like animals they were capable of absorbing amazing quantities of food, quite ready to take their chances with hunger a few days later.

The traditional Eskimo diet contains little to no vegetable matter, because very few plants grow up near the North Pole, especially in winter. It consists primarily of fish, seal, polar bear, foxes, and other meats, but by calorie, it is mostly fat. (This is because you can’t actually survive on a majority-protein diet.)

To run through the dietary science quickly, de Poncins has throughout the book been generally eating white-man’s food, which includes things like bread and beans. This is not to say that he disdained fish and seals–he does not make much mention of whether he ate those, but he does talk about bread, potatoes, beans, etc.

Tom Naughton writes on fathead-movie.com 

He soon realizes it’s not such a bad idea to toss bloody seal guts into the corner of an igloo when you’ll abandon that igloo in a couple of days and move on. He even begins to appreciate the simplicity of living in a shelter that’s basically an icebox: catch your fish, toss them into the corner, and they’re preserved by the cold. Wake up, warm the fish with your hands and breath, then enjoy cold sushi for breakfast.

He’s also amazed by the endurance of the Eskimos. The nutritionists who parrot their textbook knowledge that “you need carbohydrates for energy!” should read this book. Poncins recounts running along trails with Eskimos for hours – he was fatigued and panting, while they barely seemed to notice the effort. After a year in the Arctic, Poncins finds he is beginning to prefer their diet, even though he had supplies of “white man” food on the sled carrying his belongings. As he explains in one passage, boiled rice could warm him up temporarily, but then he’d feel colder an hour or two later. By contrast, raw meat or raw fish was cold going down, but then he felt warmer for the rest of the day.

In the far northwest Arctic, Poncins eventually meets up with a priest who’d been living among the Eskimos for six years. The priest was a fellow Frenchman, and Poncins had brought him some “civilized” food as a gift – a block of cheese being the real prize. But the priest, Father Henry, politely explains that he’s lost his taste for civilized foods. He no longer likes rice, biscuits, or cheese. As Poncins writes, “He’d been living on nothing but caribou, seal and fish for six years, yet he was none the worse for it.”

“In 1941 another Eskimo, Amos Martin, dled of cancel of the throat. Other cases between 1943 and 1945 in Nain were Boaz Obed, cancer of the stomach, and his wife Rosina, cancer of the womb. Then came Judith White, cancer of the breast (here was successful amputation). Then came two half-breed brothers, John and Amos Voisey, both of whom died of cancer of the throat and mouth. This was followed by John Samiat, Eskimo, cancer of the throat; then Karoline Kojak in 1955, cancer of the womb and breast. All these cases, with the exception of Nochasak, were at Nain and there were undoubtedly cases on other stations; all died with the exception of Mrs. Kojak who returned from hospital last summer and is still living.”

This paragraph was read in manuscript by Dr. Philip R. White, specialist in vegetable cancers but a general student of malignancy problems. He suggests that the paired junctions are remarkable and should not pass without remark — two men who die of stomach cancer whose respective wives die of womb cancer; and both of a pair of brothers who died of throat cancer. Numerous commentary possibilities rise to mind. However, with the foregoing analysis of the views expressed by northern medical missionaries in mind, it is fairly obvious what their suggestions would be. Believing that cancer is environmental in causation and chiefly nutritional, they would point out that husband and wife almost necessarily live in the same houses and eat the same foods prepared the same way. Like similarity would hold for brothers. So, why should not a nutritional disease be likely to strike these paired individuals within a few years of each other?

The results of analyses of Eskimo foods are presented in Table 1. On the basis of nutritional surveys with individual food weighings in different families from four Eskimo settlements in Alaska and the above-mentioned results of cholesterol determinations in Eskimo foods, supplemented by figures available for the cholesterol content of nonEskimo foods (Okey, 1945; Pihl, 1952), the cholesterol intake of Eskimos has been estimated (Tables 2, 3). From these calculations it is observed that the mean caloric consumption of the 45 adult male and female Eskimos was about 2,700 calories, the fat consumption was 105 g and the mean cholesterol intake was roughly 340 mg daily, varying from 150 mg to 700 mg per day. It should be noted that these cholesterol figures may be considered as minimum values because several of the food items ingested could not be included in the calculation since the cholesterol content was unknown. It may also be noted that the cholesterol intake varies greatly from one Eskimo group to another, depending on the different dietary habits. Thus, it was observed that among the inland Eskimos, the Nunamiuts at Anaktuvuk Pass, some of the men consumed as much as 70 grams or more of boiled brain from mountain sheep in a single evening meal yielding almost 600 mg cholesterol from this food item alone. 

It is thus evident that some Eskimos have fairly high cholesterol intakes compared with healthy American white men, although the mean intake for the 45 Eskimos studied is in the order of 2.5 g per week (varying from 1 to 5 g) . This corresponds to the group of moderate habitual cholesterol intakes reported for normal American men (Keys, 1949) while in the Inland Eskimos the mean figure is in the order of 4 g cholesterol per week, which corresponds to the group of highest habitual cholesterol intakes for normal American men, reported by Keys (1949). 

Keys (1950) has estimated that the American diet varies with regard to cholesterol content from a low of 200-300 mg daily to 700-800 mg, depending on the food consumed. Gubner and Ungerleider ( 1949) have given the figure 200--360 mg for daily cholesterol intake on a mixed diet. 

It thus appears that the estimated mean figures for cholesterol intakes in Eskimos may be comparable to those of Whites on a mixed diet. 

The average figure for the daily fat consumption in the 45 Eskimo subjects reported here was only about 105 g (377 of the calories), while in a larger survey the average daily fat consumption in Alaskan Eskimos was 139 g (40 % of the calories). In normal white men living in Alaska the fat consumed represented 37.5 %( of the calories ingested. 

In the Eskimo subjects the mean serum cholesterol concentration was 203 mg per 100 ml (Table 4) which is about the same as is found in normal Whites. Thus L. J. Milch (personal communications) found an average level of 207 mg cholesterol per 100 ml serum in Whites 30-35 years old. 

On the other hand, the Eskimo serum concentration of Sf 12-20 lipoproteins was 20 mgl100 ml as against 28 mgl100 ml in Whites of similar age, observed by Milch (personal communications). For Whites under 25 years of age Milch found 24 mg/lOO ml, and for Whites 40-45 years of age 38 mg/l 00 m!.

The Fat of the Land is a 1956 update of Not By Bread Alone, and I will review both here, as they appear to be identical, with the addition of commentary at the front of The Fat of the Land by Frederick J. Stare, Paul Dudley White, and the author, Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

Mr. Stefansson seems to have been quite a character, and led an interesting life of anthropology and arctic exploration. Many controversies surround the man and his actions, which led me to take his words with a grain of salt at the beginning. But his captivating writing style and generosity of spirit soon won me over. I don't know how accurate his interpretation of anthropology would have been considered during his lifetime, and how well it has stood the test of time - I think one should read many sources to formulate an opinion. But I found the various subjects covered in the book quite interesting. I especially enjoyed the chapter titled: "And Visit Your Dentist Twice a Year."

This book tells the story of the 1928 experiment conducted by the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology at Bellevue Hospital in New York and affiliated with the Medical College of Cornell University, in which Karsten Andersen and Mr. Stefansson ate essentially nothing but meat for one year, and how very well they fared on this diet - provided they had substantial amounts of fat as well as lean.

Two chapters of the book discuss scurvy, and give examples of people who became ill (and some who died) with it, in spite of having citrus fruit juice; whereas many traditional groups of people that rarely ate fruits or vegetables never encountered the disease. The author proposes that the necessity in preventing scurvy lay in obtaining fresh foods, whether meat or plant-based. (I am currently reading Weston Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and he states that American Indians in northern Canada explained to him that eating small parts of adrenal glands of animals prevented the disease. And it looks like vitamin C was originally isolated from adrenal glands by Albert Szent-Györgyi.)

The last five chapters of the book tell everything one would probably ever wish to know about pemmican - originally a "travel food" made from dried lean bison meat combined with rendered fat; occasionally with berries added. Mr. Stefansson sings the praises of this compact and energy-dense food not only to his readers, but tells of his efforts to sway the United States military establishment to include it in rations for soldiers. After reading these chapters, I would like to try pemmican - also biltong, a southern African dried meat which the author mentions.

I first learned of this book in William Campbell Douglass's lively work, The Milk of Human Kindness . . . is Not Pasteurized, and had wished to read it for some time. Mr. Stefansson is also mentioned by Broda Barnes in his classic, Hypothyroidism - Unsuspected Illness; and the arctic explorer and meat-eater opens the first paragraphs in Nina Teicholz's wonderful new book: The Big Fat Surprise.