I have been watching a Ken Burns documentary about the Lewis and Clark expedition of the early 19th century. In one part of the documentary, having crossed the Rocky Mountains and being super-low on food supplies, it mentions how the members were craving meat, so much so, that even in the Pacific northwest, when they were moving along the Columbia river which teemed with salmon, they would trade with local Indian tribes for their dogs which they would proceed to slaughter and eat.
The documentary saying… and here’s the part… that these men were normally accustomed to eating 9 pounds (that’s 4kg) of meat per day when at home.
The PBS site claims they ate up to 9 pounds each on the trail. This figure seems to come from Clark writing:“We eat an emensity of meat; it requires 4 deer, or an elk and a deer, or one buffaloe to supply us plentifully 24 hours.”
So if the average mule deer weighs 150 lbs x 4 divided by 33 dudes. About 18 pounds of deer each, about half of which is easily edible. (Assuming how they got to 9 pounds) But I think perhaps they are putting too much into on one diary entry. I would think 4 or so pounds would be suffecient for cold weather hiking with gear. (Assuming 1000 calories a pound with no other food available)
If they ate 9 Lbs at home…I can find no mention of that anywhere. Seems rather high. Even for modern day Americans. 9000+ calories a day.
I also read somewhere that roasted dog remained a favorite of the two, long after the expedition was over. Perhaps not good neighbors to have…
What makes you think people can’t do it now? I went nearly all of May eating nothing but prime rib, t-bone, and chicken. The portions were so large I usually didn’t even touch vegetables or starches.
First that would be at a minimum (assume 90% lean) over 18,000 calories a day, not 9000*. I don’t care how hard they exercise or shiver they did not eat that much. 5000 maybe hiking up mountains in the cold all day, not over 3 times that much. Let alone at home not with those needs.
Second the body cannot handle much more than 35% of its energy each day from protein on a regular basis. Sure they could have eaten a lot more animal fat to keep in that range with less protein (and no plant material) but then 9 pounds of animal is a mess more calories than 18,000 - roughing it more like 21,000 calories.
*9 pounds at 454 g/lb comes to 4086 g. 90% protein equals 3677 times 4 calories/g equals 14709 calories in protein and 10% as fat equals 409 g times 9 calories/g equals 3681 calories totaling 18390.
Meat is 70% water when raw. 90% lean means 90% of the 30% is protein so you’re off by a factor of 3. Also, they may have been talking about 9 pounds of hanging weight meat, since there was no real conception of boneless cuts back then. 9 pounds of hanging weight is about 5 pounds of actual edible raw meat/organs, which cooks down to 3 pounds of cooked meat. It’s a lot but not inconceivable.
Also, I don’t know if anyone had accurate scales while on the trip so it’s entirely conceivable that the 9 lbs was just an estimate and an overly high one.
This reminds of my favorite story in John Dowd’s ocean kayaking book the name of which escapes me. He crossed the Pacific in a kayak for one of his adventures. He tells of being stuck off the coast of Patagonia unable to either land or paddle away because of storms, currents, rocks. They anchored their kayaks in kelp beds and trapped or shot sea ducks to survive. Eating nothing but those extremely lean ducks (raw) made them so weak they could barely paddle, until finally they were able to access a cache of sweetened condensed milk. This revived them completely, and with their new strength were able to escape that coast.
Mmm, raw sea duck and sweetened condensed milk. I must go down to the sea again.
Fact checking I indeed overestimated. It is actually a total of a bit over 7000 calories from nine pounds of 90% lean raw beef.
Raw 90% lean beef contains 6g of protein and 49 calories per ounce. (16949=7056). 49% of the energy is protein, too much too live off without additional fat or carbs.
Raw deer, which is also a too high to live off alone 59% of energy from protein, is 44 calories per ounce for the same 6 grams of protein. Still 6336 calories from the meat and to keep the protein at the tolerable 35% of energy top limit that still comes to ingesting a total of 10680 a day. The extra calories would need to come from fat that we’d discard or plant sources.
So indeed I was off but taking in over 10,000 calories a day? Still absurd.
(Cooked it still contains most of the water I had forgotten about btw - cooked deer is only a bit more energy dense, 52 calories and 7 grams of protein in a cooked ounce.)
Fishtar, your excellent analysis uses 4 mule deer at 150 pounds each but that one buffalo (bison) weighs in at 1100 pounds for a cow and 2000 pounds for a bull. An 1100 pound bison would yield 615 pounds of edible deboned meat. *That *(a small bison) would come to 18 pounds per person each day. I think Clark was exaggerating some.
I don’t eat nine pounds of anything per day, but the OP makes it sound like this is somehow impossible. I’ve seen some pretty big people at a buffet with 5 lbs of food on their tray for their first helping, but claimed to be “vegetarian,” so it was OK.
But, last buffet I went to I had 3 slices of prime rib and 20-30 shrimp, probably in the 3-4 lb range.
[QUOTE=Bardos]
The documentary saying… and here’s the part… that these men were normally accustomed to eating 9 pounds (that’s 4kg) of meat per day when at home.
[/QUOTE]
(emphasis added).
So your anecdotal evidence of special cases is of little relevance to the OP’s question, which is whether people were normally accustomed to eating nine pounds of meat.
Your personal history of eating 3-4 pounds, even if accurate, is simiarly of little relevance to the OP’s question. In any case, there’s a difference between 3-4 pounds and 9 pounds. It’s like arguing that people in the past must have easily run marathons and, as proof, citing that the last time you ran on a treadmill you easily did 8-10 miles.
The words are mixed up, they ate meat on the expedition because they didn’t have anything else.
Anyway the 9 pounds may include the total weight of soup …
Eating only (or mainly) meat for a high calorie diet, you risk gout and cholesterol long term, but meat does contain vitamins and minerals, so you can avoid scurvy , anemia, etc
Fresh meat, especially if raw or partly cooked, contains enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy (which is what enabled Eskimos eating a traditional diet to avoid it).