Inuit, and other inhabitants of the arctic regions, have for many centuries survived on a diet of meat only. I’m wondering if vegetables have been universally accepted into their diet, and what effect this has had on their general health and developement.
By “vegetables”, I mean veggies, fruits, and grains etc. Lots of sugars there.
Peace
mangeorge
I’ve heard that the contents of reindeer stomachs make up an important part of the “vegetable” part of their diet. (But I don’t have a cite right now.)
The type of meat that they eat will pass on to them the nutrients needed.
Some animals and their “meat”, of course, have the nutrients/vitamins/minerals from the plant life they consumed. So, while an inuit or other arctic dweller might rarely eat veggies, they are still getting the benefits, especially if they are eating animals that ate a variety themselves.
I don’t know if that is where the question was going, but figured it’d get there eventually.
You may find this article interesting:
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/6/1447
Arctic people get most of their calories from meat, but they still eat plant parts. Berries are picked and preserved in oil or dried. Starchy roots are harvested. People eat seaweed. Very young greens are eaten. Raw meat can also provide small amounts of vitamin C. And fish are sometimes fermented (“stink heads”). Yum.
But imported food makes up a very large fraction of your typical Alaska Native person’s diet, even in the bush. Fresh fruits and veggies are damn expensive in the bush though. Food that can sit on a river barge for a month is relatively cheap, food brought in by small plane is very expensive.