Eskimo what do they eat

The Eskimo diet is almost entirely meat based which has led to an overall shorter life expectancy than people in milder climates, but even with the chance to move to a more friendly environment the people of the arctic circle stay there out of choice. The communities there cannot be found in any other region of the world, with a focus being on taking care of each other and sharing. After a hunt everything is shared out amongst the whole village and no one goes hungry.

Living this way has also led to some interesting recipes such as Igunaq. This unusual dish is started in summer and consists of producing a number of steaks which are then buried in the ground, over the rest of summer and autumn the steaks ferment in the soil and are then frozen over the winter.

The next year during the spring the steaks are dug up and eaten, which may sound like a health risk but Igunaq is considered a delicacy within Eskimo communities and considered quite valuable.

What do Eskimos eat? Reindeer and Caribou Often hearded in huge groups sometimes numbering in the thousands, these animals are not only prized for their meat, but their pelts are the number one choice to make clothing from. And in the summer season people gathered a few plant foods such as berries, grasses, tubers, roots, stems, and seaweeds.

Frozen snow-covered lands were unfit for the cultivation of plants. Animal flesh was, by necessity, the only food available most of the time. The fat, not the protein, from animal foods provided most of the 3, calories required daily for these active people. Plants are the primary source of all carbohydrates, including digestible sugars and non-digestible dietary fibers. Eating raw meat indirectly provided Eskimos with enough carbohydrates in the form of glycogen found in the muscles and liver of animals to meet their necessary nutrient requirements and keep them out of a starvation condition called ketosis.

Plants not people synthesize Vitamin C, yet the Eskimo was able to avoid scurvy with the 30 mg of vitamin C consumed daily found in land and sea animals.

By the grace of environmental design, Nature made sure there was just enough nutrition for the Eskimo to survive. The human being is designed to thrive on a diet of starches, vegetables and fruits. The Eskimo experience serves as a testament to the miraculous strengths and adaptability of our bodies. We can survive on raw and cooked meat, but we thrive on starches, vegetables and fruits.

These hardy people survived living at the edge of the nutritional envelope, but not in good health. Here are some of the health costs they paid:. Claims that Eskimos were free of heart artery disease are untrue. Mummified remains of Eskimos dating back 2, years have shown extensive hardening of the arteries throughout their brains, hearts and limbs; as a direct consequence of following a carnivorous diet of birds, caribou, seals, walrus, polar bears, whales, and fish.

The June issue of National Geographic magazine carried an article about two Eskimo women, one in her twenties and the other in her forties, frozen for five centuries in a tomb of ice.

Their low-calcium diet and lack of sunshine vitamin D are only minor factors contributing to the extensive osteoporosis found in recent and ancient Eskimos. So are we! But there are people who live in the most frozen areas in the world and still resist cold weather. In this case, you may want to know what Eskimos eat to get inspired by their foods. Eskimos are the Inuit, which are culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska.

They never farm, because very little vegetation can grow in the frozen Arctic area. So, what do Eskimos eat, due to the lack of fruit and vegetables? The harsh living conditions made them learn how to hunt on the sea, but also at the shore. He added that Inuit people also eat plant-based foods such as seaweed, grass, roots, and berries. Drying is a method of food preservation that inhibits the growth of microorganisms in food. What Eskimos eat is mostly hunted meats.

Sea mammals such as walrus, seal, and whale. Whale meat generally comes from the narwhal, beluga whale and the bowhead whale. Inuit usually hunt juvenile whales, because they are easier to hunt and have a tastier skin. Most impressive, they hunted large sea mammals like seals and sea lions. What does domestication mean? Domestication means that humans have taken something wild and have tamed it.

A long time ago, when people started to populate North America, they had to search for things that were good and safe to eat. When they found something that they liked they would dry the seeds and plant them in them ground year after year. This was what we call trial and error. If something worked, they would keep doing it. If something did not work, they would not repeat it. So, things like corn and wheat once looked like grass with very small seed heads. What other plants were domesticated in North America?

Where were plants domesticated? Near East.