LONG--but the quotations from Stefansson's professional journal will be of great interest to some.
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There are some differences, at least of emphasis, between the scientific journals of Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his later writings for the popular book market, and his work has been restated by others, not always with complete accuracy. What has come to us as low-carbers is something like, "The Inuit ate as much as they wanted of meat and fat, ate nothing whatsoever but meat and fat, and they never gained weight! This proves that meat and fat alone are the ideal human diet."

I think that as low-carbers, we need to give our greatest support to the strongest evidences that we can find for our lifestyle; not every evidence is strong and most will not rise to the level of scientific proof. (Feeling so good is good enough for me, for my diet, but I'm willing to grant that another diet might be best for another person.)

The leaders of the low-fat movement allowed even the slightest hint of support to be taken as "proof" of their preconceived notions. We low-carbers know what we know--that this WOE has changed our lives--but as low-carb moves foreward as a mainstream WOE, I hope that the whole truth is told about both the history and the scientific research, so that people of different cultural heritage and different degrees of metabolic resistance can make fully informed decisions.

Science progresses best when we recognize that we are biased (or I am biased, at least: I feel GREAT) and when we fight our biases. (If "low carb" takes off, the food marketers are sure to attempt to cash in without thinking hard about the science and probably not wanting much of it; overly informed consumers are not always good for profits.)

It is for these reasons that I'm going to share some quotes from Stefansson's scientific journals. Unlike his later writings, these were not intended for the popular market, were not intended to be read outside the scientific community, and were written at the time when his observations were first made, as they were made. (The last point is likely to lead to greatest accuracy.)

This is from Writing on Ice: The Ethnographic Notebooks of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, edited and introduced by Gisli Palsson (Dartmouth College, 2001).

First, let me say that against the picture we are given, of happy Inuit feasting on meat and fat to satiety 3-5 times a day, of a somewhat chilly Eden, the privations endured by the Inuit did exist and were sometimes extreme. I think it does a disservice to this resilient, powerful, historic culture to assert that they were mostly thin simply because they ate extremely low carb.

Certainly, I believe that low carb is the greatest hope for obesity management, but when it comes to convincing people of that with full data, it's hard to separate what the Inuit ate from how little they had to eat much of the time.

Their lives, customs, and statements to Stefansson reflected the constant risk and not uncommon reality of starvation, which at times destroyed entire families and significant percentages of tribes.

Second, Stefansson did not know the Inuit before tobacco, tea, and flour had already made made some impact on their culture, due to direct and indirect contact with whalers and southern traders. Stefansson speaks repeatedly of bread as a presence in the diets of the various Inuit subcultures.

Third, the reality is that while the Inuit Stefansson knew did not suffer from those diseases that are associated with the modern high-carb diet, they did not seem to be particularly healthy. They had epidemics before the whites came, as well as after, and did not seem to experience unusual health. His diaries include many references to sores, infections, sicknesses, diseases, and death.

Longevity was not exceptional; few people attained great age. Many rituals and taboos were specifically intended to avoid the threats of sickness and death.

Fourth, the Inuit were not an entirely unified group. Customs varied from place to place, and the quotations below reflect that.

Fifth, Stefansson ate Inuit-style almost immediately upon first meeting them.

Finally, some of the customs and taboos seemed to me to put women, especially pregnant women at greater risk of starvation. These are just selected quotes; some points were written over and over in various ways, and a lot of the diary gave a sad picture. Stefansson in one place described what he experienced as "the harshest realities of our earth...a pathetic and in a way tragic picture."

SOME OF THE FOLLOWING IS NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH! I will not include quotations evidencing all of the above points, but the following may be of interest as specifically related to diet--

"In eating raw fish today (only slightly high, I could barely smell it in the tent)...[one man] told me that his people never eat raw fish unless it is well rotten....[some] prefer it a little rotten, but are fond of it in all stages from fresh from the net to a cheesy consistency. His people bury fish in the ground to rot it." (100-101)

"Various men whom I have asked tell me they prefer boiled fish to rotten raw fish. It seems chiefly a matter of convenience to eat it raw, though it may be that the preference for boiled is a taste acquired since the whites came." (103)

"Diet is quite varied on this trip--fresh fish (sometimes boiled), rotten fish piptje, [whale meat]...all of which I eat on equal terms wtih the rest." (128)

"Starvation. Ovayuak brings the report that a Nunatama arrived from the mountains a few days ago with tales of hunger....Starving natives. It seems Ovayuak's account of the starving Nunatama was grossly overdrawn, at least; the sum known here iss that they had enough for themselves, but scant dog feed at the end of the dark days." (133)

"Certain individuals were prohibited from eating certain animals, and others from certain parts of certain animals--as deerhead, dearmarrow, etc., and squirrel, grouse, etc....special prohibitions placed for each whaling season....one season...deer liver, another year shoulder, another year marrow, fat of deer or flippers of seal, etc." (152)

"Several women brought us cooked or uncooked fish at different times, and one brought us two good meals of mashuk roots, locally called mahu....They were very pleasantly sour, had been merely boiled and sacked without further preparation." (168)

"[If a woman] dreams of making 'slap jacks' (but not other kinds of bread), the next day some traveler will come." (172)

"The man Kumaslik was hired on these terms: he was furnished with fifteen (or twenty) sacks flour, resides rice, beans, tea, coal oil, etc." (177)

"Most of the Eskimo I know will pick up and eat without concern a piece of blubber, cooked meat, raw meat, fish, etc., that falls on the floor, no matter what state the floor is, but most of them would throw away a piece of bread dropped in the same way." (192)

"There seems to be very little uncooked meat eaten. I have seen two cases...of a..man at end of a meal asking for a piece of frozen meat because he had not had enough cooked meat." (204)

"I have heard of Eskimo merely warming meat to eat it. These always comment unfavorably on a piece that is a trifle rare and I have not seen one eaten that would not be considered 'medium' or 'well done' if a beefsteak in a grillroom. Infact, I have never seen an Eskimo eat partly cooked meat so bloody as many steaks that I have seen devoured in cities--when they cook they usually cook well." (210)

"They had fish only for food and say that they have never had quite enough to eat since they came....They consider themselves Akuliakattagmiut thought they often hunt here." (212)

"People here are mucbh smaller eaters than MacKenzie and west, perhaps because they often starve." (216)

"Appattok fed us each with a piece of raw blubber." (216)
[Meat was eaten cooked, organ meats sometimes raw and sometimes cooked, fish mostly raw and sometimes fermented, blubber always raw.]

"...none of us know ice sealing and when the natives starve almost every winter and frequently die of hunger our chances are not good." (218)

"They and Kittegaryumiutpeople skin deer head....In boiling heads, westerners cut off nose, split rest of head, and boil brain loose (if not eaten raw)." (221)

"Have been trying to teach people to eat akpek [Arctic raspberry]....About the only berry they seem to eat is a small black one growing on a low shrub that resembles an evergree, these berries none of us like, though I eat them when brought to me as presents by the children." (223)
[Other groups of Inuit ate Akpek.]

"Women did not eat sheep of any of the four legs or front of the rear line of the shoulder blades. If they did their husbands would become sick "inside" (i.e. lungs, liver, stomach, etc.)....Of the shoulder vertebrae, the women might eat teh meat above the line of the ribs, butnot the fat and meat facing into the thoracic cavity...." (227)

"they at one time had nothing to eat but a little caribou fat. They used to make tea, of which they had plenty, and then boil over the steeped tea leaves in a little water and add the grease....Kunaslik was the only one of our party who did not eat tea leaves soaked in oil, but took the oil 'straight.'" (230)
[K had been told not to eat tea leaves by a missionary.]

"My work up here, I have been fond of asserting, entails few hardships. But just now it is pretty hard work, and has often been so these three years...this makes a monotonous--and a trying life. The continual nervous strain of a hand-to-mouth existence, where there is not even the shelter of a poorhouse in case of failure, has a telling and cumulative effect. Without the least relinquishing my hopes of many more years of arctic work, I continually feel more strongly the desire to beso well equipped in future that I shall have at least a year's supply of food somewhere awaiting me to tide me over season of failure. Just _knowing_ of such a reserve if one neverhad the comfort of a month feel of it to vary one's diet would lessen by half the strain of the winter. This is a hard country for a hungry man." (236)

"[The] Dogrib Rae Indians make a big feast for plenty people to eat, they take a small piece of meat, fat pemmican, bread, and any other food they are about to eat, then a cup is taken and a little grease and bouillon is skimmed off the top of the fot in which the meat was boiled. This cupful is spilled into the fire and then are thrown in thepieces of meat, pemmican, etc. This must be done before anyone starts to eat." (239)

"Pannigabluk when small was forbidden to eat at the same meal, berries and seal meat, especially if fresh. They habitually ate berries with old seal oil, but must not use fresh. Grown people feared this prohibition less than children." (246)

"Up to the present, three-quarters of the food of the people has been the seal and three-quarters of the year has been spent in its pursuit." (256)

"The teeth of an old woman here, Havinuk, are worn even with the gums in both jaws and as far back as the eye teeth, molars slightly less worn. Not a single tooth seems to have fallen out. Many younger Eskimo, however, have lost several teeth." (261)

"Apparently the people had the fortune not to die of starvation." (267)

"The meat of a snared deer must not be boiled....but it might be roasted or eaten raw." (273)

"Some women when with child must not eat seal. Some women wiht child became skin poor while others fared well because no allowable food was on hand. After childbirth those who bore male children were not allowed to drink water for four days, but were allowed a little meat broth as part of their food, allowed to eat only a small quantity." (273)

"Mamayuk when sick was once forbidden...to eat caribou, another time to eat seal. Sick persons were frequently forbidden to eat fish bellies....Boys were forbidden...on killing first ptarmigan, deer, etc....There were special restrictions on women whose children died...they must not get water from a fresh or salt source, they must not eat outdoors...." (274)

"...during the Beluga season all were forbidden to 'work earth'...macu roots must not be gathered, etc. Berries might be gathered, however." (278)

"All here are horrified at my telling of the Puiplirmiut that they pick frozen deer droppings, off the snow, keep them in pails, and eat them like berries. Ilavinirk says that while this practice is repulsive, the Puiplirmiut deer droppings are really a fine thing when boiled and used to thicken blood soup. (282)

"Vegetable Foods. All Eskimo known to me eat contents of stomachs and intestines of hares, rabbits, squirrels, ptarmigan, and stomachs of caribou. Sheep stomachs are eaten only in time of scarcity, as "they do not taste good." Berries, etc., found in black bear stomachs were eaten by Kotz people." (291)

"Inyukuk's wife abstains from white men's food because she is with child. After delivery of child she may eat it. If no meat is obtainable, she may eat a little bread, but no other 'civilized' food." (305)

"Hunger keeps all your thoughts on the dread of hunger, makes all your hopes and fears cluster about the acquisition of food, and when you have secured it (as you inevitably will, you are soon freed of all worries)." (307)

I hope this is of interest. I do think the Inuit experience shows that people can thrive on a high fat and meat diet (as I most definitely do myself), but I think it's helpful to get a clearer picture from the scientific journals before we use their experience as a proof.

(If not very carefully crafted, it will be too easy for "the other side" to shoot down the Inuit argument on the basis that they were not living in a state of luxury most of the time, most of the year. Some will say that if they were slim, it was only because they didn't have enough to eat.)

The way I see Healthy Low Carb diets, are those that get the majority of calories from fat, then adequate protein.

I see that ones with up to 50-60 grams of carbs from fruit and veggies as optimal.

So the zero carb diet is like a basis for all the low carb diets. People do better on variations.

I agree with you that because the inuit ate that way is not total proof, but still is a very very very important piece of the puzzle.

People from Papua New Guinea eat a similar jungle diet. They are not vegetarians by any stretch, but they have fruit and leaves, but mainly meat.

I went to school with many PNG boys and the ones that were from the traditional areas had some of the best looking phsiques in the whole school. Actually there bodies were always a topic of envy amongst the Aussies boys. We are talking ripped abs and well defined muscles and great skin. Whereas even the fittest of the western boys had much more fat on their bodies.

Native diets and lifestyle. That's where it is!