Tue, Dec-14-10, 21:17
|
 |
Senior Member
Posts: 15,075
|
|
Plan: mostly milkfat
Stats: 190/152.4/154
BF:
Progress: 104%
Location: Ontario
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by M Levac
It's easy to forget that the blog author tried to make the point that the Inuit sought plants for food, not just anything for food. The debate is between an all-meat diet, or a mixed diet. She argues the Inuit ate a mixed diet. There's no doubt about that. She further argues the Inuit sought plants for nourishment. There she fails. The best should could do was show that the Inuit ate some plants for pleasure or medicine.
|
But, I didn't forget that. I agree that the fact that the particular Inuit studied gathered these plants doesn't prove that they needed them to survive; but since they did indeed eat some plant matter, we can't use the Inuit as proof that a plant-free diet is sustainable long-term.
Or, at least, the Inuit written about in the blog. These may not be the same people Stefansson learned about the all-meat diet from. Here's what the blog author wrote;
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
Generations of Inupiat have lived healthy lives eating predominately meat and fat. They got all the necessary nutrients because their diet included much raw or lightly cooked meats, including heart, liver, kidney, brain, eggs, the edible parts of stomach, stomach contents, intestines, bones, and/or skin. Essential or not, plant foods remain a treat. Inupiat have always eagerly sought and stored in quantity all that were available.
|
The book is called Plants That We Eat, subtitled "From the traditional wisdom of the Inupiat Elders of Northwest Alaska."
According to Stefansson;
Quote:
|
With these views in my head and, deplorably, a number of others like them, I resigned my position as assistant instructor in anthropology at Harvard to become anthropologist of a polar expedition. Through circumstances and accidents which are not a part of the story, I found myself that autumn the guest of the Mackenzie River Eskimos.
|
Are these "Mackenzie River Eskimos" identical in culture and diet (at least at the time of Stefansson's visit,) to the Inupiat? Indeed, are the Inupiat themselves a homogenous culture? Steffanson never claimed to have stayed with every Eskimo family from Alaska to Greenland. He claimed to have lived with some particular Eskimos who lived on nothing but fish and a little tea and tobacco, while he was with them. I think the tea and tobacco are doubtful sources of vitamin c or calcium. Then again, he didn't live with these people for very long, just the winter. Maybe they ate berries in the summer.
http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm |
Linear Mode
