The Secret to Indigenous Health is the Liberal Use of Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Diet For a Healthy Pregnancy Based based on Healthy Indigenous People in the Outer Hebrides

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

500500 OatmealOatcake Low 0.17 0.99
100 Barley Low 0.00 0.31
800 Fish with Livers Very High 1.54 1.62
100 Eggs Medium 0.05 0.12
2000   Very High 1.76 3.04


Please note that you should not take this as an endorsement to consume oats; read the pregnancy and whole grains section for more information on consuming oats.

 

Their nutrition is provided by their oat products and fish, and by a very limited amount of vegetable foods. Lobsters and flat fish are a very important part of their foods. Fruits are practically unknown. Yet the physiques of these people are remarkably fine.

 

For nutrition, the children of this community were dependent very largely on oatmeal porridge, oatcake and sea foods.

 

The fishing about the Outer Hebrides is especially favorable, and small sea foods, including lobsters, crabs, oysters and clams, are abundant. An important and highly relished article of diet has been baked cod’s head stuffed with chopped cod’s liver and oatmeal.

In order to reproduce this diet in modern times, you would need to obtain fresh oats. Oats found in stores – even in health food stores – are heat treated and thus rancid and lacking in important vitamins. The people of the Outer Hebrides ate oats that were likely soured or fermented over a long period of time to improve digestibility.

 

Diet For a Healthy Pregnancy Based on Indigenous People in the Swiss Alps

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

800 Rye Bread Low 0.07 0.46
400 Milk High 0.68 0.53
400 Cheese Very High 0.84 0.62
100 Butter Very High 0.00 0.00
100 Barely Low 0.00 0.03
100 Vegetables Low 0.06 0.08
100 Meat Medium 0.00 0.12
2000   Very High 1.76 1.84

The villagers of the remote Loetschental Valley ate a diet which is easiest to replicate in modern America. However, it takes a lot of care to do so. The 100% rye bread eaten by the Swiss valley inhabitants was sourdough, and it was aged for 2-4 weeks before it was baked. The milk they drank was of exceptionally high quality. It is very difficult to obtain such high vitamin milk today, although it is possible in some states to find excellent grass-fed dairy farms where such high-quality milk, butter and cheese is made. For a premium price, you can buy Alpine summer cheese made in chateaux.

Beaufort d’Alpage is one such cheese. My family and I feasted on Beaufort, a full-fat French cheese, for several months. Just three ounces contain one gram of calcium, and the cheese is so rich and creamy that it almost tastes like chocolate. We are currently taking a break from our cheese habit, but when we ate it regularly we got it for a bulk price of $18 per pound. That may sound expensive, but it is similar to what you would pay for a good piece of fish or a high-quality steak. Visit your local gourmet cheese shop – if it is a good one you will be able to sample summer-made raw milk cheeses from Europe, of which there are many varieties. Cheeses that are made from grassfed milk produced during the spring or summer usually have a very pungent taste.

Diet For a Healthy Pregnancy Based on Indigenous Canadian Indians

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

2500 Flesh of Wild Game Medium 0.58 4.16
400 Glands and Organs Very High 0.10 1.49
100 Vegetables, Barks & Roots Low 1.62 0.96
3000   High 2.30 6.61

 

The food of the [Indians] was found to consist almost entirely of wild game but this does not mean what we moderns would understand by a meat diet. It seems to be an inherent part of their conception of life that in order for man, woman or child to have a perfect body he must eat some of every part of the moose. (Emphasis added.)

 

This did not, of course, include indigestible structures such as hide, hair, hoofs, horns or bones, but did require that the marrow be taken from bones that even the walls of the intestine or stomach after having been thoroughly cleaned should be utilized for foods as well as the tissues of every organ and gland of the body of the animal. I was told by different Indians that even when plenty of moose were available the livers of small fur animals were utilized for food.

 

This physical activity on the part of all required a daily intake of foods which consisted of various parts of the animal prepared in different ways generally cooked either on spits before the open fire or in kettles as stews. The average amount eaten as I would judge from the sample servings would be from 5 to 7 pounds per day per individual adult.

 

The Indian knows where these special life-giving substances are to be found and he like the wild carnivorous animal is wise in food selection. He accordingly selects the liver, brain, kidneys, and glands. Part of every day’s food for the Indians includes eating some of these special tissues. The parents provide these for the children and teach them their special values. (Emphasis added.)

 

Healthy Pregnancy Diet Based Upon the Diet of Healthy Indigenous Eskimos

Calories Food Fat-Soluble Vitamins Calcium Phosphorus Iron
1700 Salmon High 1.24 2.68 0.05
200 Seal Oil Very High 0.00 0.00 0.00
100 Plants, Roots Low 0.49 1.40 0.04
500 Sea Animals Medium 0.36 1.02 0.01
500 Caribou Medium 0.05 0.60 0.00
3000   High 2.14 5.70 0.10

 

A ground nut that was gathered by the Tundra mice and stored in caches was used by the Eskimos as a vegetable. Stems of certain water grasses, water plants and bulbs were occasionally used. The bulk of their diet, however, was fish and large animal life of the sea from which they selected certain organs and tissues with great care and wisdom. These included the inner layer of skin of one of the whale species, which has recently been shown to be very rich in vitamin C.

Like the Indians of the interior who live on the animal life of the land the Eskimos eat not only the muscle part of fish and other forms of aquatic life but the livers and hearts and in many cases the edible parts of the head; also the milt and roe when these are present as is the case when the fish are running toward their spawning grounds which is the time the principal harvesting is done.

[Eskimos] also use at certain times of the year stems or roots of certain plants, particularly the growing parts.

The severity of their weather requires that they provide their bodies with large quantities of fuel for production of heat… This would be provided largely by the stored smoked dried red salmon. This salmon is dipped in seal oil as it is eaten… Small quantities of parts of several plants are used when available… The flesh of walrus, seal, caribou, moose, sea cow, and occasionally whale should be a regular part of the menu according to season.

Sources for Healthy Pregnancy Diet Based Upon Indigenous Diets

Price, “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? V. An Interpretation of Field Studies Previously Reported,” 278.

Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 6 th Ed..48.

Ibid., 51

Ibid., 44

Price, “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? V. An Interpretation of Field Studies Previously Reported,” 278.

Figures have been rounded up for simplicity

Price, “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? XI. New Light on Loss of Immunity to Some Degenerative Processes Including Dental Caries,” 243.

Ibid.,

Price, W. A., “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? IX. Field Studies Among Primitive Indians in Northern Canada,” Dental Digest, (April, 1934): 133.

Price, “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? XI. New Light on Loss of Immunity to Some Degenerative Processes Including Dental Caries,” 243.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 6 th Ed. 259.

Price, “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? XI. New Light on Loss of Immunity to Some Degenerative Processes Including Dental Caries,” 243.

Ibid., 244

Price, “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? XI. New Light on Loss of Immunity to Some Degenerative Processes Including Dental Caries,” 244.