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  #1   ^
Old Sun, Dec-12-10, 19:48
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Default The Plants We Eat

A report from an Inuit on the plant foods they eat.

Quote:
One of the views that I get the most email about is my assertion that Inuit ate and still do eat plants. I have gotten dozens of emails saying I am wrong because of

1. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, an explorer, said so, in Fat of the Land

2. My professor/cousin/best friend's daughter lived with the Inuit and said they didn't eat any plants

Perhaps Anore Jones is part of a conspiracy, but if she is, it seems to be fairly usophisticated, because almost none of her book's content has been disseminated online and it contains recipes that use such crowd-pleasing ingredients like seal oil and fish heads. Her book is called Plants That We Eat and it's 240 pages, which is curious for a culture that supposedly eats no plants. If it's fiction, she's done a rather miserable job and I suggest you read Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings instead.

But I doubt it's fiction. She lived in Kotzebue with Inupiat for 19 years and has numerous photos of them preparing plants. I think people with plant-free anecdotes may have either not spent enough time with the Eskimos or might have not had enough contact with women. According to Anore
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  #2   ^
Old Sun, Dec-12-10, 20:01
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Rosebud Rosebud is offline
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Very, very interesting! Thanks for posting, Nancy.
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  #3   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 06:27
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Quote:
In fact, it seems Inuit women (and sometimes men) go to a great deal of trouble collecting seemingly trivial tiny plant foods even when ample fat is available. I suspect that many of the plants they eat are very powerful nutritionally.

We go to great lengths to grow opium, cannabis, coca and tobacco too. That's doesn't make these plants any more nutritious or at all. I suspect the lengths we go to are not always driven by the obvious. It's not because we eat it that it is food. Drugs, we eat them, but they're not food. Candy bars, we eat them, but they're not food.

Maybe we should compare the lengths we go to to acquire food versus anything else. Maybe then we'll see something other than a confirmation of our belief. But then, maybe it won't work if we believe plants are food.
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  #4   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 06:45
M Levac M Levac is offline
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The Bellevue experiment showed us that we can maintain perfect health indefinitely on an all-meat diet. Any argument in favor of plants-as-food is therefore made invalid. We can then apply the argument of plants-as-drugs, -therapy, -pleasure, -condiments, etc.

Quote:
Some interesting ones include Sura (Salix pulchra), which is preserved in seal oil after picking, and contains 7-10 times the vitamin C of oranges!

So what? We don't need 7-10 time the vitamin C content in oranges. We don't even need more than what's contained in an all-meat diet.

Quote:
Anore found that Inuit used lacto-fermentation to store some greens in the winter. Sourdock (Rumex arcticus), for example, is fermented in an underground sod house stored in sealskin pokes. A recipe is provided in case you have those ingredients on hand The Inuit warn you to turn it every few days to keep the bottom from rotting and occasionally untie it to let gases out.

So what? It pales in comparison to the processing that goes into extracting cocaine from the coca plant. Not to mention the criminal behavior we are willing to use.

Quote:
Berries were often made into a dessert called Akutuq.

At last, an admission that berries weren't collected for their nutritional content but for the pleasure they brought us.

Quote:
Having eaten many far-northern berries, this doesn't make any sense to me unless they had some religious taboo, which they don't.

OK, so no religious taboo. How about nutritional science, did they have any of that? Because if it's not obvious enough by now, this discussion is not about religion, but about nutrition. So then, why else would they collect plants if not for their obviously ample nutritional value? Right, carry on.
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  #5   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 08:44
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Kristine Kristine is offline
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I know your sacred cow of 100% ZC Inuits is being attacked here, Martin, but you're really going out on a limb comparing their plant consumption to the cocaine trade.
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  #6   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 09:19
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ubizmo ubizmo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M Levac
The Bellevue experiment showed us that we can maintain perfect health indefinitely on an all-meat diet. Any argument in favor of plants-as-food is therefore made invalid. We can then apply the argument of plants-as-drugs, -therapy, -pleasure, -condiments, etc.


First of all, the Bellevue experiment showed no such thing. "Perfect health" was not one of the things measured in the experiment; it's mere hyperbole. Second, a year-long experiment on two people cannot possibly show that anyone can live indefinitely on an all-meat diet. It merely shows that such a diet leads to no overt health problems in a year. That fact is significant enough; there's no need to oversell it. Third, and most important in this context, there is absolutely no warrant for the inference from the Bellevue experiment to the conclusion that plants are not food.

There are vegetarians who can easily go more than a year in excellent health without eating muscle meat, but consuming eggs, dairy, etc. If they were to conclude from this that muscle meat is not food, you would be quick to accuse them of committing a logical howler.

I distrust hagiolatry in all forms, including the unquestioning acceptance of claims made by Stefansson (or Taubes, for that matter). There are, however, multiple sources that indicate that the Inuit used plant foods when they could get them, and so did the Plains Indians. In fact, from my own reading on this subject over a period of more than ten years I conclude that human beings have always consumed plant foods when they could get them. The fact that they can survive without them does not begin to show that a diet without plant foods is optimal for our species, unless you could also show that populations that avoid all plant foods have better health than all populations that consume them. But no one has ever even begun to show that, so the claim is without support.

Finally, to go from the simple fact that people enjoy plant foods to the suggestion that consuming them is equivalent to opiate addiction is nonsense. People enjoy meat too. Addiction is not mere enjoyment.

Ubizmo
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  #7   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 09:20
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KarenJ KarenJ is offline
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Quote:
In a good berry year the otherwise green tundra actually has a blueish cast from so many berries. Even after people and all the creatures have taken their fill, the berries will still be thick. They freeze on the bushes and on the ground for the mice and ptarmigan to eat all winter and are there, dried and sweet, for bears, birds, and people to eat next spring. It’s such an enormous wealth of food, but one never to be counted on, for in a poor berry year you will walk all day and not find enough to taste. Then the animals that ate berries must find other foods and some must eat each other.


I suspect it's more the other way around: that the animals eat each other is the norm, and the berries are only there once a year. Berry season is what, three weeks if that, in a good year?

Quote:
I wish this book had color photos, but while some of the recipes are impossible to make in Brooklyn, it's a beautiful testament to human ingenuity and opportunism. I trust Anores' information will stand the test of time and I'm some people who insist Stefansson showed Inuit ate an all-meat diet might not have read his complete work. I also think that Inuit food is probably more diverse than anthropologists traditionally thought— for example, in the works I just linked to he mentions several plants that are absent from Anores' book! I hope more of Anore's work and actual Native voices on food reach the greater world.


I don't know how anyone could live on our planet and NOT be ingenious and/or opportunistic when it comes to plants. But plants aren't stupid, which is why so many of them are poisonous. Seeking out a few roots and berries to use as condiments (tea, dessert, seasoning) still doesn't constitute a major part of the diet.
It's a little bit dishonest to suggest that they are.
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  #8   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 09:30
mathmaniac mathmaniac is offline
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  #9   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 09:59
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kristine
I know your sacred cow of 100% ZC Inuits is being attacked here, Martin, but you're really going out on a limb comparing their plant consumption to the cocaine trade.

And I contend the author of the blog piece is going out on a limb to show that plants were a source of nutrition for the Inuit. Yet even there, she fails. She fails because she argues that desert is a form of food. It's not. She fails because she argues we need lots of vitamin C. We don't. While ZC might be my sacred cow, carbs is much more sacred for a whole lot more people, and it's got nothing to do with its nutritional content. I could have compared it to the cannabis trade, or the opium trade, or the tobacco trade, or or. You see my point. We go to great lengths for things that bring us pleasure.
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  #10   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 10:07
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ubizmo
First of all, the Bellevue experiment showed no such thing.

Well, that's a question of perspective, isn't it. For me, perfect health is the lack of disease or infection or disability of any kind. As far as I can see, the Bellevue experiment showed exactly that. But if you want to argue the opposite, please provide us with an equivalent experiment with plant matter only.

Health was measured in the experiment. It so happens that there was no indication whatsoever that any ill effect had occurred as a result of an all-meat diet. How do you quantify that level of health if not perfect? Half-perfect implies failing health. There was no such thing. Almost perfect health implies still a failing health somehow. There was no such indication. Thus, health was perfect for the duration of the experiment. There is no hyperbole. It's just a matter of fact. Their health was perfect as far as we can measure.
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  #11   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 10:09
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Angeline Angeline is offline
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Vegans also claim they enjoy perfect health when they exclude all animal protein from their diet. And it's true that for the most part they do see improvements when they switch over from the SAD diet. The honeymoon can last years... and then the nutritional deficiencies and long-term damage kicks in.

Human are opportunistic eaters. If there was edible plant matter to be eaten, it was eaten. If it was tasty and/or provided nutrition, it was eaten whenever available. And it turns out that this is the case even in places like the arctic. Why is anyone surprised.
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  #12   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 10:12
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ubizmo
There are, however, multiple sources that indicate that the Inuit used plant foods when they could get them, and so did the Plains Indians.

Here you make the easiest error in logic. They eat them, thus it is food. We eat drugs, yet it's not food. I don't blame you, the blog author makes the same mistake. Before we can make the argument that the Inuit sought plants for nourishment, we have to show that plants are food for humans. As far as I can see, the blog author failed to do the latter. Rather, it is assumed that plants are food for humans.
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  #13   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 11:41
mathmaniac mathmaniac is offline
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Maybe they thought they were drugs, not food!
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  #14   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 11:47
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KarenJ
I suspect it's more the other way around: that the animals eat each other is the norm, and the berries are only there once a year. Berry season is what, three weeks if that, in a good year?

It sounds like they mastered preservation of roots and things. Berries are pretty easy to preserve; just dry them.

Actually, humans have gone a long ways towards making plants more edible. Almonds were once too poisonous to eat but humans were responsible (long before agriculture) for encouraging the non-poisonous ones to grow.

Jared Diamond has an interesting bit in Guns, Germs and Steel about humans inadvertently domesticating plants by picking out the best ones and pooping out their seeds. The better plants would grow around the midden heap or latrine.
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  #15   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 14:08
HappyLC HappyLC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M Levac
The Bellevue experiment showed us that we can maintain perfect health indefinitely on an all-meat diet.


How did it do that when the experiment lasted only one year?
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