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How The Inuit People Thrive on Almost No Carbs
Nutrition | April 27, 2015
A few warriorz have mentioned the Inuit people in my recent posts about eating meat and low-carb diets. I did some investigating and was really fascinated by what I discovered!
More commonly known as Eskimos, the Inuit live mainly in Alaska, Canada and Greenland – incredibly cold climates that are commonly known as arctic (that’s really frickin’ cold!). More importantly for us, their diet is almost completely lacking in carbs of any kind. Not even fruits and vegetables aside from some wild berries in the summer! Naturally, I was incredibly curious about what they eat and how it relates to my perspective on diet and nutrition.
Traditionally speaking, the Inuit live by hunting and fishing. Their sources of food include seal, walrus and even whale. They also eat a lot of wild game including moose, elk, duck, geese, etc. Pretty much their diet is made up of protein and fat and lots of it!
Muktuk is very common staple of the Inuit diet as well. What is muktuk? Oh nothing, just chunks of whale blubber! Apparently, muktuk has the consistency of a car tire according to Patricia Cochran, a native Inupiat (a tribe of the Inuit) and director of the Alaska Native Science Commission. Still, such fat must be very important in such a harsh climate where food is hard to come by.
What’s most interesting about the Inuit diet is how they get their essential nutrients. In an interview given to Discover Magazine, Harold Draper, a biochemist and expert on Eskimo nutrition, says that the Inuit get their essential nutrients from unlikely sources. Instead of fruits, vegetables and whatnot, the Inuit get their nutrients from the variety of fish oils that make up their diet as well as – wait for it – an abundance of organ meats. Nothing goes to waste. Liver, kidneys, hearts, brains (BRAINS!), etc., are all eaten. Many of these organ meats contain a lot of vital nutrients. In fact, some organ meats contain, of all things, Vitamin C. This is why the Inuit never developed scurvy – a terrible disease caused by a lack of Vitamin C that was very common in sailors for some time.
Also, for all that whale blubber and organ meat, heart disease is relatively low among the traditional Inuit according to this study. Unfortunately, now that ‘progress and development’ are available to the Inuit in the form of restaurants and grocery stores, illnesses such as diabetes are skyrocketing.
Who’s ready for my new recipe using muktuk? Seriously though, what the Inuit people demonstrate to us is that many conventional ideas about diet and nutrition are not truths set in stone. There are many diverse and different ways for us to thrive.
Private Member |
ellijay, ga, united states
Mmmmm, I love organ meat! I knew it was high in iron, but didn’t know much else about it (maybe I’ll have to eat it more often! It’s been a while!) Chicken liver/hearts/gizzards are the best!! (Especially sautéed with onions and rosemary! YUM!!) I tried pork brains a few times, prepared differently each time…not very good. :-p
Private Member |
zagreb, croatia
I love Chicken liver 2. Try it with onions and whipped eggs. 🙂
I don’t like other organ meat, just liver.
Private Member |
It is important to consider the living conditions. They live in extremely cold conditions, I don’t think that the same diet will work equally well in a tropical climate. The body will be generating way too much heat and that much fat is not really needed for temperature control. At the same time, eating fruits and vegetables are not going to help provide all the nutrients needed for an Eskimo.
That is why it is also important to eat what’s in season. Mother nature is extremely intelligent. If curious, this is probably a good diet to try during a harsh winter.
Private Member |
lake tahoe, nv, usa
I agree, you have to consider the fact that food is really hard to come by in those areas so they have to adapt and make the best with what they have!
Private Member |
seattle, washington
Zuzka, what might be more interesting is how the current Inuit are doing with a more carbs rich diet. I’m sure they living in modern times have assess to rice, pasta, pizza and bread! 🙂
Private Member |
Before everyone starts looking for muktuk all the time– the inuit probably have a high concentration of heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants in their body because they are eating high up on the food chain, and many of these mammals are very polluted because humans have polluted the water. These pollution levels are beginning to decrease, but that is in part probably due to how many inuit (in Canada anyways) are moving away from traditional diets to fast food and junk food (ex. chips and carbonated beverages).
There are also physiological differences in the bodies of inuit– they have brown fat that comes from their adaptation to the cold environment.
It’s interesting stuff, but I don’t think muktuk is the solution for anyone :/
Private Member |
Just a few corrections I feel are worth noting:
First we all have brown fat. So do animals. Mammals generate it in a cold climate to insulate their organs. If you spend a lot if time outside in the winter you’ll notice you start to shiver less and less as the days go by. We all do this as we “temper” ourselves to the winter.
Inuit in a lot of cases, have less heavy metal poisonings due to the waters they fish from. I once read about a study done on this in an old outdoorsman magazine years ago. I don’t recall the specifics but it seems that the warm tropical waters and lakes in the more populated areas with hotter weather seem to be the real problem areas for this. There is an exception though, Alaska. High industry and high pollution. Greenland, not so much.
Private Member |
What is important here is their gut microbiola have adapted to the food they can find to eat!
Private Member |
uk
I think this shows that human body is extremely adaptable and we can survive eating just about anything. Im sure if they were eating bread and rice with their fish they would be just fine or even in better health. If you travel around the world you would find many groups or nations eating high carb diets and still thriving. The key is to eat the food as close to the nature as possible and move a lot mainly outdoors. Other than that what you eat is not that important.
Private Member |
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I believe that they (the Inuits) are adapted to their environment, and of course they have to eat something in order to survive, but those aren’t ideal conditions (nor normal conditions where most people live, for that matter) and I don’t personally see any benefit (on the contrary) on one, outside of such harsh conditions, adopting that specific Inuit diet…
Private Member |
santa cruz, ca
I would have to agree with Katarina above all else. The human body is very adaptable.
It is important to eat a diet that is balanced and supports healthy microflora, provides essential nutrients. That’s it. The more digestible, the better. Just as Katarina says, whatever the local environment provides can be consumed via traditional, time-tested methods.
One of the major problems with modern, conventional diets is that the food is far from its natural state, and or not even food at all. And so much of the food consumed is very damaging to the body, overly stimulating, and not nourishing. A recipe for disaster.
I’m a fan of the Weston Price Foundation. Anyone else?
Private Member |
I think studying a little bit of different cultures and what they eat is really beneficial. It shows that not one ‘diet’ is perfect and shows how things we can be worrying about eating, like fat, is not that bad for us. Tropical islands, before they got the processed food, they were also eating a diet rich in coconuts and they were super healthy.
I find this information interesting 🙂
Private Member |
The human body gas an incredible power in changing for the enviroment, climate and diet! And this is an incredible example… So, there is no special diet that can suit for everybody in the world!
Private Member |
I believe Zuzka, that some warriorZ are mentioning that Inuit diet because Paleo-like diets are so popular among strength-circuit training circles these days (I’m a perfect example, since I’ve been on the Paleo diet myself for more than two years). Because people get bored easily they want to try anything new even if it’s only for a slight difference to it 🙂
Of course that Inuits eat lots of fat because fat is our secondary source of energy – not the main one, the one our body prefers and utilizes the more efficiently, according normal active conditions and less harsh living conditions that those – which are the majority of the living conditions, where people have various climate seasons in a year, all in a balanced way.
That much fat put their bodies into ketosis mode, which is a SURVIVAL mode where they’re going to burn fat for fuel (so, they also lose weight AND also lean mass…) and feel fuller for longer and / or too sick to eat properly, that is: feeling hunger and appetite. This is not our optimal state of thriving, but that’s all they have, of course, I do understand that – they’re not living active lifestyles on a daily basis, anyway.
Regular people in regular weather conditions are getting it all wrong: just try for yourselves – living through fat and tons of concentrated animal protein on a daily basis, and watch your energy, alertness and lean mass (or will to workout; ability to workout properly) go to waste: the main fuel for muscles, brains and cells are carbs: this means good, at their natural state carbs, such as potato; sweet potato; brown rice, legumes, fruits and veggies (let’s not forget the micronutrients here!) – I’m not talking about white sugar and white flour, nor candy… Ones body runs on (good) carbs… That’s why the most anabolic hormone one has on ones body is… insulin! 🙂 If some warriorZ are / would be willing to give that Inuit diet a try then they might as well quit their ZWOWs, which will naturally happen (and should – or they would deplete themselves trying) 🙁 I bet the Inuits aren’t doing ‘those’ 🙂
The Inuits never develop scurny, nor anyone else you know Zuzka, as I’m sure 😉 – unless one’s starving and barely eating a regular, balanced diet, that kind of nutrient-deficiency is unlike to happen anywhere; but for some other health issues though, at least according to MD John McDougall, I’m not as sure:
«By nature, the Paleo Diet is based on artery-clogging saturated fats and cholesterol, and bone-damaging, acidic proteins from animal foods. Respected researchers find that those modern-day hunter-gather populations who base their diets on meat, such as the Inuits (Eskimos), suffer from heart disease and other forms of atherosclerosis, and those modern-day hunter-gathers who base their diets on plant foods (starches) are free of these diseases. Osteoporosis, from their high animal food-based diets, is also epidemic among meat and fish consuming hunter-gathers, specifically the Inuits.» Source: drmcdougall.com/misc/2012nl/jun/paleo2.htm
All this being said, I believe that in life balance is everything, and I agree for the most with your last paragraph Zuzka, but as a final message for everyone, if I may, I would say: just eat a balanced diet, eat a little bit or “everything”, but most important: eat your local veggies, fruits and good carbs! 🙂
Private Member |
nürnberg, germany
I do absoluteky agree with you. Unfortunately I have read, that those good carbs, such as in Potatoes do the same roller coaster to blood sugar levels than sugar…I can hardly imagine it…Does somebody know more about it? To e honest I don’t eat such carbs at all…just the ones from fruit, veggies and legumes…
Private Member |
This post brings up a question I have had for about a month now. I am recently vegetarian, and while I wish I could be a selective omnivore, my recent study of factory farms and the modern “production” of meat (as well as slaughterhouse ethics, or lackthereof) has led me to eradicate meat from my diet. However, I of course love your work and have followed you for 4 years now. How would you recommend being vegetarian while remaining low-carb, and what is your opinion of the most healthful manner in which to consume dairy?
Private Member |
lake tahoe, nv, usa
Hi Marie, I would suggest you buy meat from farmer’s markets or places like Whole Foods, where actual farmers make a difference in the way the farm animals are being treated. It will cost you more, but I think that supporting the old fashion farming and eating healthy meat is worth every penny. If you cut out meat out of your diet, you can always substitute protein with supplements out of vegan sources such as pea or rice protein powders. That way you can follow low carb diet. Make sure to also get some vitamin B12 that is going to lack in your diet and it’s pretty important in overall health.