"Vilhjalmur Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet was about 90% meat and fish

Watch out for that cholesterol.  It might be the very thing that keeps you healthy, strong, and alive. 

"Vilhjalmur Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet was about 90% meat and fish. Inuit would often go six to nine months a year eating nothing but fatty meat and fresh fish. Stefansson found that he and his fellow explorers were also perfectly healthy on such a diet.… pic.twitter.com/b0vgH2S06I

— Meat Head (@markeatsmeat) August 3, 2023

From All Things Carnivore.

Stefansson wrote for Harper’s Monthly Magazine’s November 1935 issue that when the supplies from white whalers failed to arrive, the Inuit had to revert to their traditional hunting practices and ate just fish.

As a guest, Stefansson was given baked salmon trout while the Eskimos themselves ate boiled fish. Against his expectation, he began to like baked salmon trout and later on discovered that boiled fish tasted even better.

And shortly after he began to eat just like the Eskimos, fish for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. He ate boiled, raw, and fermented fish. He was missing salt at first but gradually could do without it.

After a few months on this diet, he noted that “mentally and physically, I had never been in better health in my life“.

These months were the beginning of several years during which he would live on a meat-only diet.

According to his own estimate, cumulatively, he had lived exclusively on meat and water in the Arctic for more than five years in total. Another member of his expeditions lived on this exclusive meat diet for about the same length of time while several others lived on it from one to three years.

He noted that “I did not get scurvy on the fish diet nor learn that any of my fish-eating friends ever had it … There were certainly no signs of hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure, of the breakdown of the kidneys, or of rheumatism”. 

Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote a book on his experiences, called The Fat of the Land, 1956.

Thanks to Wejolyn for this tweet:

Red meat reverses aging.

Nutrients exclusively found in red meat have been shown to prevent cognitive decline, muscle loss, and fight against chronic diseases.

These are all major factors that reduce quality of life and shorten life span.

Red meat is essential for longevity.

— Paul Saladino, MD (@paulsaladinomd) August 2, 2023