In the Arctic of the earth, there are a group of residents who are not afraid of cold. They are yellow or Mongolian, formerly known as Eskimos, which means "people who eat raw meat". But they don't like to be called that. Instead, they call themselves Inuit, which means "real people". So do they really eat raw meat?
What do Inuit eat
Inuit people live in polar and sub polar regions from Siberia to Greenland. Summer is very short and winter is very long, so they wear thick leather clothes and live in ice houses all year round. Because of the cold, there is no vegetation except bryophytes, and it is impossible to grow crops. Therefore, Inuit food mainly comes from wild animals.
In Siberia, Alaska, Bering Strait and river basins along the Pacific coast, Inuit people mainly feed on salmon (also known as salmon or salmon), seals, whales and walruses. In addition, they also hunt all kinds of fur animals, such as polar bears, wolves, arctic foxes, reindeer, rabbits and so on. In the Arctic, there are often some migratory birds and native Thunderbirds, which can also become their food.
Seals are the most important source of food for the Inuit people. In summer, they round up on the sea in a single kayak. In winter, on the frozen sea, seals leave some breathing holes. When they found these holes, the Inuit Hunter removed the surrounding snow, put a small Ivory stick in the hole, and then waited with a spear. The spear has a barb, which can be separated from the stick and connected with a rope at the back. When the seal comes up to breathe from under the water, it touches the ivory stick, and the Inuit Hunter stabs the spear into the hole. When the seal runs away, it will be speared
The barb on the hook was firmly tied. After being exhausted, the hunter dragged it onto the ice with a rope. In addition, Inuit people can also use nets to catch seals. They make ice holes on both sides of the seal's breathing holes and put in net cloth to catch seals like sticky net fishing. Usually, they can close the net after two or three days. Whaling is dangerous and requires teamwork. It is usually rounded up on the sea and stabbed with a poisonous spear. Reindeer tend to migrate in groups, and Inuit people will set traps and roadblocks on the migration road to lead them to a place convenient for hunting.
In Greenland, the Inuit also use a tool to hunt terrestrial animals, which is the spring hook. They use a short and elastic wicker stick or whale whisker, with its two ends sharpened and bent into an S-shape. Then they bind it with animal tendons and wrap it in a piece of animal fat to freeze it. The bait was placed where polar bears, foxes and wolves often haunt. Hungry animals often swallow bait without chewing. When the animal's stomach acid digests the fat and tendons, the spring hook will pop open and pierce the animal's internal organs, causing it to die of blood loss.
How do Inuit people supplement vitamins
Human health needs a very important thing, which is vitamin C, mainly from fresh vegetables and fruits. Man is an omnivore. He has no ability to synthesize vitamin C by himself as a carnivore such as tiger and lion. Therefore, human beings must rely on a variety of foods to provide various nutrients. Eating a single food will cause malnutrition. If you lack vitamin C, you will suffer from scurvy. In the era of great navigation, many people died of scurvy because sailors sailed on the sea for a long time without fresh vegetables and fruits. However, there are few fresh vegetables and fruits in the frozen Arctic. How do the Inuit people who live on meat supplement vitamins to avoid scurvy?
In the polar regions, plants are extremely scarce food. Although some berries and moss grow on the Arctic tundra in summer, the Inuit rarely eat it, and moss is usually only used as fuel. Although Inuit hardly eat fresh vegetables and fruits, they can eat raw animal meat and viscera, which are rich in vitamins. Raw fish and raw meat are rich in various nutrients and minerals. For example, the salmon and deep-sea fish they eat are different from the fish we usually eat. The fat contained in them belongs to unsaturated fatty acids. Eating these fish will not make people fat, but will effectively regulate the content of fat in the body.
In polar environments, Inuit also had to rely on storage to cope with food shortages. Because the climate is very cold, the temperature is above zero degrees Celsius only a few weeks a year, so just put the raw meat in the cellar and it can still be eaten in two or three years. The internal organs of animals generally stink, but they can chew. They also like slightly rotten meat and fat, just as some people prefer Stinky Cheese and stinky tofu. However, raw food also brings great health problems. For example, they are easy to infect parasites in animals and die of food poisoning.
In fact, today's Inuit people are rarely like their ancestors. They live in modern houses and eat the food supplied by the market, including some fresh vegetables and fruits.