Try to make pemmican with less fat and it doesn't preserve as well. More importantly, it doesn't nourish as well. The men who later traverse the continent on pemmican rations understand this instinctively. The fat is the fuel. The protein is just the structure that holds the fat. --Sama Hoole
1820s, Great Plains. A Lakota hunting party has killed a buffalo. This is a successful hunt. The entire village will eat well. Except the hunters are making decisions that would horrify a modern nutritionist. They take the tongue first. This is the prize. Fatty, dense, rich. It's divided among the hunters immediately, often eaten raw on the spot. Then they go for the organ meats. Liver, kidneys, heart. The fat deposits around the kidneys are particularly prized. Hunters will argue over who gets the kidney fat. Then comes the backstrap. The prime cuts. The ribeye sections. But even here, they're selective. The fattier portions are kept. The leaner portions are often left or given to dogs. The lean muscle meat, what modern grocery stores sell as "premium" cuts, is considered the lowest quality part of the animal. It's taken because it's there and waste is foolish, but it's not celebrated. Much of it will be dried into jerky, but even then, it will be mixed with rendered fat before consumption. Straight lean jerky is considered poverty food, what you eat when nothing better is available. The hunting party returns to camp with specific portions. The women begin processing immediately. The fat is rendered and stored. This is valuable beyond measure. Pemmican, the legendary survival food that will later fuel the entire North American fur trade, is roughly 50% rendered fat to 50% dried lean meat. That ratio isn't arbitrary. It's what works. It's what keeps you alive. Try to make pemmican with less fat and it doesn't preserve as well. More importantly, it doesn't nourish as well. The men who later traverse the continent on pemmican rations understand this instinctively. The fat is the fuel. The protein is just the structure that holds the fat. When lean times come and buffalo are scarce, the Lakota hunt smaller game. Rabbits are abundant. You can kill rabbits all day. But the elders warn the young hunters: rabbits will not sustain you. Rabbit is lean. If rabbits are all you eat, you will starve with a full belly. The term "rabbit starvation" will later be coined by Europeans who learn this lesson the hard way. The Lakota don't need a term for it. They just know. Lean meat without fat is a slow death. Fattier animals are always preferred. Always prioritised. Always celebrated. When the buffalo herds are destroyed in the 1870s and 1880s, the US government provides beef rations to displaced tribes. The beef is lean. Carefully trimmed. The government agents think they're providing quality food. The Native Americans recognise it as trash meat. The fat has been removed and sold separately. They're being given what their culture always fed to dogs. The health collapse that follows isn't just about forced relocation and cultural destruction. It's about being forced to eat a diet their ancestors would have recognized as starvation rations. Lean meat, government flour, sugar. Within one generation, people who had been robust and strong become shorter, sicker, weaker. Your great-great-grandparents knew which parts of the animal to eat first. They knew fat was essential. They knew lean meat alone would kill you. Then nutritional science came along and decided they were wrong. Decided fat was dangerous and lean protein was ideal. Decided to throw away thousands of years of survival knowledge because it didn't fit the lipid hypothesis.1820s, Great Plains. A Lakota hunting party has killed a buffalo. This is a successful hunt. The entire village will eat well. Except the hunters are making decisions that would horrify a modern nutritionist.
— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) December 13, 2025
They take the tongue first. This is the prize. Fatty, dense, rich.… pic.twitter.com/vbBUKBPlxC
The Lakota were feeding lean scraps to their dogs 200 years ago. You're paying premium prices for it today and calling it healthy.
