Diet

Throughout history the Inuit have been known as hunters, gathers, and fishers. This indigenous tribe hunted, and still hunt, whales, walruses, caribou, seals, polar bears, muskoxen, birds. In rare cases, they will hunt smaller animals such as small foxes. Growing crops and traditional foods like vegetables and fruits are not likely due to the extreme temperatures in the Arctic. The Inuit mostly rely on gathering naturally available materials and resources. These resources include roots, tubers, grasses, stems, seaweed, and berries. These plants are essential in adding a variety in the Inuit’s diets. Also, food items that weren't eaten immediately were preserved and stored carefully depending on the conditions and seasons that were present. The typical Inuit diet is meat based and very high in protein from animals and fats. Noted by anthropologist, 75 percent of the Inuit’s daily energy came from a diet of fats.

There was an anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson who lived with a group of Inuits. He observed many things about their daily lives including the nutritional value of their diet. He discovered that the Inuit's extremely low-carbohydrate diet had no adverse effects on his health or that of the Inuit. Stefansson also observed that the Inuit were able to obtain essential vitamins from their traditional winter diet that did not contain much plant matter. In another instance, he found that “enough vitamin C could be obtained from raw meat such as Ringed Seal liver and whale skin.”  While there was a lot of concern when he reported these findings, there have been similar findings in other reports.

Bibliography: New World Encyclopedia contributors, "Inuit," New World Encyclopedia, , http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Inuit&oldid=954781 (accessed April 7, 2013).

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