Hypocarnivory

It is October.

An important event is now imminent. Very soon the southward autumn migration of the caribou from the tundra to the mountains will begin. Great herds will go through the Anaktuvuk Pass during a comparatively short time. The Eskimos will then have to shoot sufficient caribou bulls, which until the mating season are very fat, to ensure our main fat requirements for the winter. Later the beasts become skinny, and without sufficient fat, people on a meat diet throughout a long, cold winter are in an awkward position. 

.....

But something is. wrong. Day after day we range far over the countryside in every direction but see nothing but one or two small herds of lean bulls. A few animals are brought down, and we keep going more or less, but meals are scanty for both men and dogs.

The shortage of fat is now becoming serious. The only form of fat we have is the marrow in the bones; it is eaten raw and is a dish more delicious in times like these than words can describe. But as a caribou has only four legs and few beasts are shot, not much of this delicacy comes the way of each individual. No, a diet of tough caribou meat with practically no fat becomes dismal after a time. It is a diet which gives one the same empty feeling under the breastbone as when one has nothing to eat at all. We can eat almost unlimited quantities without feeling satisified. One's condition suffers accordingly; one feels the cold more: I have to make an effort to do things which otherwise would have been easy. 

"It's rather like eating moss," Paniaq says with a smile as we attack the tough meat. And when we are out hunting together and look out from the heights over a wide area and do not see a living creature on the snow, only cold and nakedness as far as the eye can reach, he sometimes says in his dry manner: "A hungry land."

It is becoming common to borrow meat from one another. Here the Eskimos' sense of duty toward their nearest relations is clearly shown. When the hunter returns to the settlement with game, his wife immediately cuts off a few good portions of meat and gives them to her parents and parents-in-law. This diminishes the uncertainty which attaches to a single hunter's bag. In a way the community functions in hard times like a kind of mutual benevelent society.

Our situation would be more difficult if we had not a quantity of reserve provisions running about high up in the steepest mountains--the wild sheep. They are the bright spots in our existence. Leaving the lean caribou meat for the fat, tender mutton is like changing from bread and water in prison to the choicest dish at the Cafe de Paris. The sheep keep fat longer than the caribou, from the beginning of July to April. 

Now and again we go out hunting sheep. But the beasts are rather scattered and in small herds, so even if we bring down some, they do not go far among sixty-five people(and 200 dogs). 

....

But there was a report ahead, and I saw a ram in flight far away. There sat Paniaq, smoking his pipe beside a big ram.

We rolled and pulled the animal down to the foot of the mountain; as usual we ate the glands between the hooves and the dainty neck fat on the spot. 

Introduction. 

With the increasing human activities in circumpolar areas in recent years, the problem of an adequate and physiologically suitable ration with high caloric density has been the subject for much dispute among physiologists and nutritionists. Although a high protein diet has been successfully used by Eskimos and arctic travellers for generations, both as trail diet and emergency rations, there has been a tendency in recent years to emphasize the desirability of an all-carbohydrate ration ( Mellinger, 1948, Roth, 1948, Dyme, 1950). One of the main arguments in favor of the carbohydrate ration has been its antiketogenic effect, assuming harmful effect of slight ketosis even during the short periods of survival in question under arctic conditions. 

With reference to these questions a study was designed, the purpose of which was to consider a high-carbohydrate versus a high-protein diet, with reference to physiological adequacy and an evaluation of the physiological and clinical significance of ketosis under strenuous arctic field conditions during midwinter in Alaska. 

4. Discussion. 

It is clearly realized that the determination of ketone bodies is subject to considerable inaccuracy. However, the reported data indicate that under the conditions of the test the excretion of urinary acetone in the meat group never exceeded 1 g per day. The highest figure recorded was 8 66 mg which is a very small amount. 

According to Peters and Van Slyke (1946), ketones are regularly found in the urine of healthy persons leading a normal life. Van Slyke found as much as 280 mg ketones per 1000 ml urine. Others have reported figures between 7 and 125 mg daily. 

Under conditions such as total starvation when all energy is derived from protein and fat, the production of ketone bodies by the liver is accelerated and the excretion of ketones in the urine increases. In normal adults the appearance of gross ketonuria, according to Peters and Van Slyke (1946), does not reach its height until 3 to 5 days of the fast have elapsed. As starvation proceeds ketosis gradually diminishes. He states that in the normal male, ketosis of starvation does not reach serious proportions because sufficient carbohydrate is derived from protein and oxidized, and the levels of blood ketones are not high enough to tax severely the mechanism for the preservation of acid-base equilibrium. In one subject about 6 g of ii-hydroxybutyric acid were excreted daily in the urine for the last two weeks of a 31-day fast. In diabetic acidosis ketonuria may reach values 10 times higher than this. 

Compared with these figures the amounts of acetones excreted in the urine in our subjects on the meat ration are insignificant, and it appears that this slight ketonuria observed under these conditions for the periods considered likely as the duration of a survival situation would have no appreciably harmful effect. 

Exercise greatly increases the ketosis, and a 10-mile walk in the morning without breakfast will produce distinct ketonuria in a healthy person who otherwise is living on a normal diet (Courtice and Douglas, 1936). 

A number of evidences indicate a mechanism of adaptation to ketosis. In our Eskimo studies it is observed that the degree of ketonuria is less than what is normally observed in Whites on a similar diet. On the other hand, an Eskimo soldier who had lived for several months on the normal Army mess rations excreted the same amounts of acetone as the normal white soldiers when given a "ketogenic" diet. In the subjects studied by McClellan and DuBois (1930) the ketonuria diminished after several months on a carbohydrate-free diet. 

Deuel and Oulick (1932) have demonstrated that ketosis develops more rapidly and attains greater intensity in women than in men. 

It has been repeatedly observed that ketosis frequently occurs under strenuous field conditions regardless of the diet, and Sargent and Consolazio (1951) showed that the ketosis is reduced when the same subject undergoes repeated field tests, indicating some evidence of adaptation. 

In an Arctic bivouac at Fort Churchill the approximate caloric expenditure was 4000 calories per day. The caloric intake was about 3600. Under these conditions all the men showed trace quantities of urinary ketones almost every day, starting on the third day in the bivouac (Molnar et al., 1942). 

Of the great variety of physical fitness tests (Cureton, 1947), the Treadmill Test was selected for practical reasons. It should be emphasized, however, that physical fitness is exceedingly difficult to evaluate, not only because the meaning of physical fitness is far from clear, but also because the result of the test is greatly dependent upon a number of factors beyond the control of the observer. 

In all cases we observed an improvement at the end of the field phase, most marked in the carbohydrate group, associated with approximately 10-pound weight loss (7.5 %). 

It should be noted that the subjects had been living on a caloric deficit of the order of 2000 calories a day, and performing daily route marches of 10 miles. 

In the case of untrained personnel in poor physical condition, one would expect an improvement in physical fitness during the field phase. Our subjects, however, were all well trained and in excellent physical condition at the onset of the experiment. The factor of physical training therefore can hardly explain the difference in the physical fitness scores. 

On the other hand, it appears that the weight loss may be the most important factor in explaining the observed difference. The subjects started off probably slightly overweight and the loss of 7 per cent of their body weight would tend to increase their physical performance, since there is less weight to carry during the exercise. This is in conformity with general experience under similar conditions. It is observed that the carbohydrate group, which had the greatest weight loss, also showed the greatest improvement of physical fitness scores. The purpose of the experimental phase was to study the effect of the experimental diet on various physiological functions as compared with the levels during the normal conditions in the standardization phase. The results indicate the following effect: Both in the carbohydrate group and in the meat group, there was an increase of the physical fitness scores, most pronounced in the carbohydrate group. The basal heat production was 13 per cent higher at the end of the experimental phase than during the standardization phase in the meat group, while a reduction of 7 per cent occurred in the carbohydrate group. This difference is probably due to the specific dynamic action of protein. During the experimental phase the meat group consumed 300 ml more fluid per day than the carbohydrate group. While all subjects in the meat group were in a positive nitrogen balance, the subjects in the carbohydrate group showed a negative balance of 6.3 g on an average. Ketonuria occurred in all meat subjects and in three of the carbohydrate subjects. 

During the field phase the factor of climatic stress was added to the experimental conditions, and the following results were obtained: 

No significant difference was observed in the physical performance of the subject on the meat ration, the carbohydrate ration, or on the meat-and-carbohydrate ration during the actual field phase. The physical fitness scores were improved in all three groups at the end of the field phase, and this improvement was greatest in the carbohydrate group which also had the greatest weight loss. The psychiatric evaluation revealed no distinct differences between the three groups. There was no significant deterioration in morale, but an increase in carelessness, irritability and desire to sleep which occurred in all three groups. The weight loss was 7.0 per cent in the meat group, 7.5 per cent in the carbohydrate group, and 6 per cent in the group receiving both meat and carbohydrate. There was an increase in the basal heat production of 9 per cent in the meat group and 7 per cent in the meat-carbohydrate group, while the carbohydrate group showed a reduction of 7 per cent in the BMR. The water consumption was 1500 ml in the meat group, 850 ml in the carbohydrate group, and 1200 ml in the meat-carbohydrate group. All three groups showed negative nitrogen balance, which was most pronounced in the carbohydrate group, where it was approximately 7 g, as against approximately 2 g in the meat group. Ketonuria occurred in all three groups, most pronounced in the meat group. 

On the basis of these findings, and in view of the fact that water supply, as a rule, does not present any problem in the Arctic, it may be concluded that the carbohydrate ration offered no significant advantage under conditions of arctic survival as stimulated in the present study. In terms of heat production and nitrogen balance, the high meat ration is preferable. It is evident from this study that under survival conditions, which necessitate caloric expenditure, between 2500 and 3000 calories per man per day, including travel of approximately 10 miles a day, 1000 calories per man per day is sufficient for a period of at least 10 days. 

It would therefore seem logical that survival rations developed for arctic use should consist of protein, fat, and carbohydrate in proportions which would serve to utilize the specific dynamic action of a high protein diet, the high caloric density of fat, and the physiological advantages of carbohydrates. Protein-fat rations with high caloric density such as various types of pemmican, have already been successfully used for more than half a century by arctic travellers. 

It would appear advisable to base future arctic survival rations on the principle of a high meat-fat ration as the main meal of the day prepared in the evening, and an all-carbohydrate component of the ration to be consumed in the middle of the day while on the trail. 

5. Summary and Conclusions. 

In a series of laboratory experiments followed by field experiments under strenuous arctic conditions, the physiological adequacy of low caloric arctic rations have been studied in groups of normal men under conditions which necessitate travel under various arctic conditions. The rations studied contained approximately 1000 calories per man per day and consisted of an all-carbohydrate ration and a high protein-fat ration. On the basis of the presented data it may be concluded that from a physiological standpoint the all-carbohydrate ration offered no significant advantage over the high meat ration under the conditions of the study.

Chapter 3

Science of Staying Alive

SOME NATIVES ROAST THE BLAND YOUNG ANTLERS of the deer family when they are in velvet. Others esteem the stomach contents of herbivorous mammals such as caribou, for such greens mixed as they are with digestive acids are not too unlike salad prepared with vinegar.

Some aborigines, as desirous of wasting nothing as those who can whole sardines, do not bother to open the smaller birds and animals they secure, but pound them to a pulp which is tossed in its entirety into the pot. Other peoples gather moose and rabbit excrement for thickening boiled dishes. Even such an unlikely ingredient as gall has, among other uses, utility as a seasoning.

Nearly every part of North American animals is edible. Exceptions are polar bear and ringed and bearded seal liver which become so excessively rich in Vitamin A that they are poisonous to some degree at certain times and are usually as well avoided. All freshwater fish are likewise good to eat.

Animals should not be bled any more than can be helped if food is scarce. Whether they should be so handled at other times is a matter largely of circumstances and of personal opinion.

Blood, which is not far removed from milk, is unusually rich in easily absorbed minerals and vitamins. Our bodies need iron. It would require the assimilation of ten ordinary eggs, we are told, to supply one man’s normal daily requirements. Four tablespoons of blood are capable of doing the same job.

Fresh blood can be secured and carried, in the absence of handier means, in a bag improvised from one or another parts of the entrails. One way to use it is in broths and soups enlivened perhaps by a wild vegetable or two.

Leather and Rawhide Both Edible

The skin of the animal is as nourishing as a similar quantity of lean meat. Baking a catch in its hide, although ordinarily both a handy and tasty method of occasionally preparing camp meat, is therefore a practice we should not indulge in when rations are scarce.

Rawhide is also high in protein. Boiled, it has even less flavor than roasted antlers, and the not overly appealing and yet scarcely unpleasant look and feel of the boiled skin of a large fish. When it is raw, a usual procedure naturally adopted in emergencies is to chew on a small bit until mastication becomes tiresome and then to swallow the slippery shred.

Explorers speak of variances of opinion among individual members of groups as to whether or not leather, generally footwear or other body covering, should be eaten. When we are so situated that to reach safety we will need to walk, retaining our foot protection should of course come first. If we are cold as well as hungry, we will stay warmer by wearing the rawhide than we would by sacrificing it to obtain a little additional heat via the digestive system. If the article in question is made of commercially tanned leather, the answer will be simpler indeed, for such leather generally has scant if any food value.

Bones May Mean Salvation

A lot of us, given the time, capitalize on the food value inherent in bones in two ways: Small bones go into the pot to thicken stews and soups, and we may also like to chew on the softer of these, particularly if we are lounging around a campfire. Larger marrow bones are opened so that their soft vascular tissue can be extracted.

The mineral-rich marrow found in the bones of animals that were in good physical condition at demise is not surpassed by any other natural food in caloric strength. What is, at the same time, the most delectable of tidbits is wasted by the common outdoor practice of roasting such bones until they are on the point of crumbling. A more conservative procedure is to crack them at the onset, with two stones if nothing handier is available. The less the marrow is then cooked, the better it will remain as far as nutrition is concerned.

All this is something to consider if any of us, when desperate for food, happens upon the skeleton of a large animal.

Rare or Well Done

When food supplies are limited, nothing should be cooked longer than is considered necessary for palatableness. The only exception is when there may be germs or parasites to be destroyed.

The more food is subjected to heat, the greater are the losses of nutritive values. Even the practice of making toast diminishes both bread’s proteins and digestibility. The greatest single universal error made in preparing venison and similar game meat for the table is overcooking which, in addition to drying it out, tends to make it tough and stringy. What this practice does to the flavor is a matter of opinion.

Scurvy Easily Prevented and Cured

A very definite risk when fresh food is habitually overcooked, especially under survival conditions, arises from the fact that oxidation destroys the inherent Vitamin C, lack of which in the diet causes scurvy.

Scurvy has gathered more explorers, pioneers, trappers, and prospectors to their fathers than can be reckoned, for it is a debilitating killer whose lethal subtleties through the centuries have too often been misinterpreted and misunderstood.

Scurvy, it is known now, is a deficiency disease. If you have it, taking Vitamin C into your system will cure you. Eating a little Vitamin C regularly will, indeed, keep you from having scurvy in the first place.

Free Vitamins

Spruce tea can be made, by steeping fresh evergreen needles in water, that will be as potent with the both preventative and curative ascorbic acid as the ordinary orange juice. This vitamin you can get even more directly by chewing the tender new needles, whose starchy green tips are particularly pleasant to eat in the spring.

Boiling supple needles in water will provide as much Vitamin C as fresh orange juice and can restore a body with warmth and a sense of well-being under cold and trying circumstances.

Fresh meat will both prevent and cure scurvy. So will fresh fish. So will fresh fruits and vegetables, wild or otherwise. So will lime juice and lemon juice but, no matter how sour, only if they too are fresh. The Vitamin C in all these is lessened and eventually destroyed by oxidation, by age, and, incidently, by salt.

How Rabbit Starvation Really Happens

A man can have all the rabbit meat he wants to eat and still perish. So-called rabbit starvation, as a matter of fact, is particularly well known in the Far North.

An exclusive diet of any lean meat, of which rabbit is a practical example, will cause digestive upset and diarrhea. Eating more and more rabbit, as one is compelled to do because of the increasing uneasiness of hunger, will only worsen the condition.

The diarrhea and general discomfort will not be relieved unless fat is added to the diet. Death will otherwise follow within a few days. One would probably be better off on just water than on rabbit and water.

The Tremendous Importance of Fat

Why is fat so important an item in a survival diet? Part of the answer, as we have seen, lies in the fact that eating lean flesh without a sufficient amount of fat will kill us, an actuality that may seem astonishing, for in civilization we obtain numerous fats from a very great number of often unrecognized sources. These include butter, margarine, lard, milk, cheese, bacon, salad oil, mayonnaise, various sauces, candy, nuts, ice cream, and the fatty contents of such staples as bread.

If in an emergency we have to subsist entirely on meat, the fat of course will have to come from the meat itself. The initial consideration in a meat diet, therefore, is fat.

Yet history tells of supposedly experienced men who, although starving, have burned vital fat to give nutritiously inferior lean meat what seemed to them a more appetizing flavor—a suicidal error of which we, having learned better in an easier way, need never be guilty.

Cannibalism

It has always been believed, among all social levels of all peoples, that starving human beings left to their own resources will devour everything suspected of having food value, including their fellow human beings.

“It is rare, except in fiction, that men are killed to be eaten. There are cases where a member of a party becomes so unsocial in his conduct towards the rest that by agreement he is killed; but if his body then is eaten it is not logically correct to say that he was killed for food,” Villijalinur Stefansson says. “What does happen constantly is that those who have died of hunger, or of another cause, will be eaten. But long before cannibalism develops the party has eaten whatever else is edible.”

Some scientists, who point out that objections are psychological and sociological, declare abstractly that animal proteins are desirable, in direct ratio with their chemical similarity to the eating organism, and that therefore for the fullest and easiest assimilation of flesh, human meat can hardly be equaled.

What to Kill for Food

Some member of the deer family is what anyone really bogged down in the North American wilderness is most apt to turn to for sustenance. The adult male, as any sportsman knows, is fattest just before the mating season which, varying according to species and climate, commences roughly in early autumn. The male then becomes progressively poorer. At the end of the rut, the prime male is practically without fat even in the normally rich marrows.

The mature female is the choice of the meat hunter once the rutting season is well under way. She remains preferable until approximately early spring. Then the male once more becomes more desirable. Generally speaking, older animals have more body fat than younger ones.

Tidbit of Old-Time Trappers

Beaver was something I had very much wanted to eat ever since I was a boy and had read Horace Kephart’s regretful observation: “This tidbit of old-time trappers will be tasted by few of our generation, more’s the pity.” It was a lean black-haired trapper, Dan Macdonald, who gave me the opportunity some years later, and as beaver are one of the principal fur animals along the upper Peace River I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to enjoy amisk many times since.

The meat is so sustaining that anyone lost and hungry is markedly fortunate to secure it. Beaver cuttings on trees, which indicate the presence of the amphibian, are easily recognized by the marks left by the large sharp teeth that have kept gnawing around and around, biting continually deeper until the wood is severed. Because beaver don’t know how trees will fall, the animal is occasionally found trapped beneath trunk and branch.

If you have a gun and enough time at your disposal to wait for a sure shot, an often productive campaign is to steal to a concealed vantage on the downward side of a beaver pond. The furry animal may then be seen swimming and shot in the head. If you have a choice and not much ammunition, wait to bag the biggest one you can. Beaver, the largest rodents on this continent, weigh up to fifty pounds or more.

Beaver quarters seem almost incommensurably delicious when you’re hungry from outdoor exertion, although with the larger adults the meat does, even though you may be reluctant to heed it, have a tendency to become somewhat fibrous and stringy when cooked. The meat has a distinctive taste and odor somewhat resembling that of plump turkey. A sound idea in an emergency is to supplement it with lean flesh such as rabbit, so as to take the fullest possible advantage of the fat.

A beaver tail looks surprisingly like a scaly black fish whose head has been removed. Tails may be propped up or hung near a cooking fire whose heat will cause the rough black hide to puff and to separate from the flesh, whereupon it can be peeled off in large flakes.

The beaver tail is so full of nourishing oil, incidentally, that if set too close to a blaze it will burn like a torch. The meat is white and gelatinous, and rich enough that one finds himself not wanting too much of it at a time.

What Parts of Meat to Eat

We will probably want to eat most of any animals we can secure if short of food. Some parts, such as the liver, have been recognized even among some primitive tribes as a specific cure for night blindness as it is high in Vitamin A. But any section of plump fresh meat is a complete diet in itself, affording all the necessary food ingredients even if we dine on nothing but fat rare steaks for week after month after year.”

Excerpt From: Bradford Angier. “How to Stay Alive in the Woods.” Apple Books.