Criticism on the Inuit diet page 3

**Daryl** · 07-21-2011, 01:14 PM

Here is Steven Phinney discussing Idigenous Diets, including our Inuit friends:

Steve Phinney on Pemmican and Indigenous Diets | Me and My Diabetes

**twa2w** · 07-21-2011, 01:52 PM

IMHO there is lots of absolute crap on this thread both in the OP and the comments.
First, there is plenty of evidence that precontact Inuit suffered from osteoporosis, including several autopsies done on frozen bodies. Bones with osteoporosis do not appear different on the outside that regular bones so unless you broke those bones open you would not know it. Inuit do not live in snow year round. Check out the summer temperatues in whitehorse and yellowknife - they often reach 30 degrees celsius in summer. While some inuit eat primarily fish, a good portion of them ate caribou and othe game animals who have to have vegetation to survive.
Does anyone on this forum not know than Stephanson's diet was supplemented by the Doctors when he was on the 'all meat' diet.
On another note, I have heard that the Neaderthal bones we have show plenty of healed fractures. I have no idea if this is true or not but most HG tribes today do not have a high fracture rate so what did the Neaderthals do differently. Were they going after bigger game or did they live where there were more predators, or did they just have a poor sense of balance.
Cheers

**MamaGrok** · 07-21-2011, 01:59 PM

Most things I've read take the fractures of Neanderthal to show that they were very brute strength style hunters and fighters. I have no idea if that's true, just that that has been the consensus in what I read. Their body structure was quite different.

Osteoporosis, if I understand correctly can result if one is lacking in Ca, Ph, or any of the fat-soluble vitamins that allow you to use them, or Mg. What comes to mind first for me is vitamin D. Yes, you get some in all those extremely fatty animal bits they were eating, but the amount you can get in diet is so much less than you can get from the sun that it's almost negligible. Take somewhat dark skinned people living in the Arctic with no high-angle sun and covered head to toe most of the year anyway ... could that play a major role in not being able to make use of the bone-strenghtening factors? Lack of fat-soluble vitamins certainly played a major role in my own family's tooth decay, which is just another form of poor bone status.

I don't know squat, just engaging in friendly speculation b/c it's fun to exercise my brain now and then.

**Daryl** · 07-21-2011, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by twa2w

Does anyone on this forum not know than Stephanson's diet was supplemented by the Doctors when he was on the 'all meat' diet.

Such as?

**KestrelSF** · 07-22-2011, 06:07 AM

The whole Vegan vs Paleo thing was settled a while ago:

Exclusive - Backstage With John Durant - The Colbert Report - 2010-22-02 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

**Solldara** · 07-22-2011, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by twa2w

On another note, I have heard that the Neaderthal bones we have show plenty of healed fractures. I have no idea if this is true or not but most HG tribes today do not have a high fracture rate so what did the Neaderthals do differently. Were they going after bigger game or did they live where there were more predators, or did they just have a poor sense of balance.
Cheers

According to a TV documentary I watched Neanderthals were stronger and larger than us (Homo Sapiens) and in a fair fight it should really have been them that were the dominent species rather than us but they had two fatal flaws -

1 Because they were larger they needed more food to survive and due to the climate changes etc at that time food was extremely scarce and almost caused extinction for both species.

2 They were unable to throw spears due to their physiology so they could only use them by getting close in to the animal which is obviously a lot more likely to result in them getting injured. Homo sapians (us) had the ability to throw spears and even invented a throwing device that allowed them to throw the spears further and with greater impact. So in the battle for survival the Neadertal really had no chance against its enemy (us) despite being larger and stronger as all the Homo sapian had to do was stand back and kill the target from a position of safety.

**alexgrace** · 07-22-2011, 10:14 AM

He studied them personally from 1902 to 1913, and had access to the detailed birth and death records kept by missionaries from the previous century.

Hutton said: "Old age sets in at fifty and its signs are strongly marked at sixty. In the years beyond sixty the Eskimo is aged and feeble. Comparatively few live beyond sixty and only a very few reach seventy. Those who live to such an age have spent a life of great activity, feeding on Eskimo foods and engaging in characteristically Eskimo pursuits."

Okay, where do we begin with this?

We are talking about a survey of 11 years over a hundred years ago, and death records from the 19th century.

And we are being presented with the idea that it is somehow "bad" that a group of 19th century indigenous peoples, with rigorous lifestyles and native medicine, started getting old at 50, and "only a few" reached 70.

That this means they "aged early and died young".

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry.

But I do have to say that if I was getting old at 50 in the 19th century and living to 60, I would be doing significantly better than the wealthiest members of British upper class society at the time who only had an average life expectancy of 52.

And based on such comparisons, I don't think one could really argue that getting old at 50 in the 19th century constitutes "aging early"; in fact, I would suggest that such people would have some of the highest life expectancy rates in Western Europe at that time.