I’d like to try an all meat diet, eating nothing but the flesh of humanely raised and slaughtered animals. I have an inclination we’ve been fed a boatload of lies about what we need to survive. Vegetables? Psfffttt.

What would happen if we ditched our fruit and veggies? Would we become unhealthy? What sort of risk would we encounter if we gave this experiment a try? It’s already been done numerous times throughout the course of history, some more recently than you’d expect.

A study was conducted over 40 years ago in Point Hope, Alaska. Due partially to the isolated location, the friendly folks were still crushing mainly meat on the regular. They essentially consumed fat animals. Skinny creatures ain’t making through those winters.  Can you imagine the residents’ heart issues? C’mon, y’all know me better than that. From diagnosisdiet.com:

Researchers found that the incidence of heart disease among Point Hope residents was ten times lower than in the general Caucasian population of the United States.  Not only that—their triglyceride levels (levels of fat in the bloodstream) averaged 85 mg/dL, whereas the average U.S. triglyceride levels at that time averaged over 100 mg/dL.

It Seems the people of Point Hope (how cool is that name?) boast strong hearts.  So obviously they’re eating Cheerios.

Duh. Okay, probably no breakfast cereal, but surely Alaska has access to a plethora of veggies and fruit, right? Nope.

The Point Hope inhabitants represent one of the few remnants of the Eskimo whale, sea, and walrus hunting cultures in the world…Average total daily caloric intake was approximately 3,000 kcal [calories] per person, ranging from 2,300 to 4,500 kcal. Approximately 50% of the calories were derived from fat and 30 to 35% from protein. Carbohydrate accounted for only 15 to 20% of their calories, largely in the form of glycogen [animal starch] from the meat they consumed. Grain products were scarce and although sucrose was not unknown, the average adult ingested less than 3 g/day, primarily for sweetening tea or coffee.

Ahhhh, the sweetener in the coffee is the lifesaver. I hate when my plans are foiled by minutia.

There are even more extreme examples to point to.  I found a fascinating one.  From inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com:

Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson – a Canadian ethnologist spent more than a decade with the Inuit during his arctic explorations in the beginning of the previous century. For nine of these years, he lived almost exclusively on fish and meat

He, and the Inuit tribe he lived with, thrived for long periods on a diet consisting solely of red meat. Veggies, fruit and supplements were nowhere to be found. This menu contained fatty flesh.

Thus, fat played an important part in their diets. According to the authors, Andersen usually ate beef, while Stefansson often chose lamb. Both men ate about 800 grams of meat per day in 3-4 meals. The protein contents ranged from 100 to 140 grams, the fat from 200 to 300 grams, and carbohydrates from 7 to 12 grams. In calories, the percentages were 15-25% protein, 75-85% fat, and 1-2% carbohydrate.

This makes me think about my all Grape Nuts diet in 1992. I ate nothing but insanely large bowls of cereal covered in honey and passed all my classes that semester. Surely that suffices, right? For an experiment to have any value to you, you’ll need substantial data. The meat grubbers did a better job of tracking than my 16 year old self.

The following medical facts regarding Stefansson’s life during his explorations are listed:

• He spent altogether eleven and one-half years within the Arctic Circle.
• He lived for a number of days, totaling nine years, on an exclusive meat diet.
• He lived for nine successive months on an exclusive meat diet.
• He reached his maximum weight while subsisting on meat (fish).
• His sense of physical and mental well being was at its best during that period of his life.
• He found that the exclusive meat diet worked as well when he was inactive as when active, and as well in hot weather as in cold.
• Constipation was never present.
• One month’s entire absence from exercise produced neither constipation nor muscular weakness. (Stefansson avers that not a single case of constipation was observed in 600 exclusively meat-eating Eskimos for a period of three years).
• His hair thickened, and his scalp became healthier.
• Tooth decay was apparently much less rapid.

Of course, Vilhjalmur Stefansson has plenty of critics.  These sorts of studies, the type limited to 2 people with no control group, are difficult to generalize to a larger population. It’s also obvious that the Eskimos and Inuit were eating a far different diet than chowing down on a pack of hot dogs from the local grocery store. Still, our ideas about what the definition of a healthy diet is deserve examination and questioning.

I just checked; airfare to Antarctica these days is a bargain. I know the best little igloo. Yelp reviews are off the charts. Grab your faux fur coat, I’ll see you there.

Kap