SAMA HOOLE: Pemmican: 2 ingredients (meat and fat), lasts decades, provides stable energy for hours, requires no packaging beyond leather or wax paper. Fueled every major exploration and expansion in human history.

Pemmican wasn't invented in one place. It evolved independently across multiple continents wherever humans needed portable, shelf-stable, calorie-dense food for survival.

North American Plains Indians: Pemmican. Dried lean meat pounded into powder, mixed with rendered fat 1:1… pic.twitter.com/b8EmX60wZD

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) January 10, 2026

Pemmican wasn't invented in one place. It evolved independently across multiple continents wherever humans needed portable, shelf-stable, calorie-dense food for survival. North American Plains Indians: Pemmican. Dried lean meat pounded into powder, mixed with rendered fat 1:1 ratio, sometimes dried berries added. Stored in leather pouches. Shelf-stable for years. Primary food for long-distance travel. Arctic Inuit: Variations using seal fat and dried fish or caribou. Same principle - dried protein combined with concentrated fat. Essential for winter survival and long hunting expeditions. Mongolian steppes: Borts. Dried meat strips, sometimes mixed with dried dairy products and animal fat. Carried by warriors on campaign. Similar 1:1 lean-to-fat ratio. South African Khoekhoe: Biltong mixed with rendered fat. Sustained long-distance cattle drives and hunting expeditions. Tibetan highlands: Tsampa variations with yak butter and dried meat. High-altitude endurance food. The pattern is identical across cultures separated by thousands of miles and no contact. When humans needed maximum nutrition in minimum space, they arrived at the same formula: Dried lean protein + concentrated animal fat in roughly equal ratios. Why this specific ratio? Because lean protein alone causes rabbit starvation - your liver can't process excessive protein without fat. Pure fat is calorie-dense but doesn't provide enough protein for muscle maintenance during extreme activity. The 1:1 ratio solves both problems. The North American version became famous because European fur traders adopted it and documented it extensively. They tried bringing their own rations - hardtack, salted pork, flour. All of it failed in extreme conditions. Men weakened, got scurvy, couldn't maintain the pace. Then they tried pemmican. The difference was immediate. Same men, same conditions, but now they could travel 30-40 miles daily, maintain strength, avoid scurvy. The Hudson's Bay Company made pemmican their standard long-distance ration by the 1820s. Lewis and Clark expedition 1804-1806: Flour ran out multiple times. Men weakened. They purchased pemmican from Plains tribes and expedition performance improved immediately. Clark documents this repeatedly - when they had pemmican, progress was fast and men stayed healthy. When they relied on other rations, everything deteriorated. The North Pole expeditions provide even more dramatic evidence. Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911 using pemmican as primary ration. His men arrived healthy and well-fed. Robert Scott's expedition using British rations of biscuits and tinned meat? Everyone died. The difference was pemmican. Modern analysis shows why it worked. Pemmican averages 70-75% calories from fat, 25-30% from protein. This keeps you in ketosis - burning fat for fuel instead of glucose. In ketosis, you can access stored body fat efficiently and you don't need constant eating. Arctic explorers could go 10-12 hours between meals while traveling because ketosis provides stable energy. The shelf stability is remarkable. Pemmican stored properly (dry, cool conditions) lasts 10-20 years with no refrigeration. The fat doesn't go rancid because it's saturated fat from ruminants - extremely stable. Some pemmican recovered from failed polar expeditions was still edible after 50+ years. Compare this to modern energy bars. Clif Bar: 70% carbohydrates, 12% protein, 18% fat. Requires constant re-eating as blood sugar spikes and crashes. Contains 20+ ingredients including processed sugars and seed oils that go rancid within months. Wrapped in plastic that leeches chemicals. Pemmican: 2 ingredients (meat and fat), lasts decades, provides stable energy for hours, requires no packaging beyond leather or wax paper. Fueled every major exploration and expansion in human history. The modern food industry can't monetise pemmican. It's too simple. You can make it at home for pennies per pound. It doesn't require their processing plants or chemical stabilizers or fancy packaging. So they convinced you that you need specialized sports nutrition products with 40 ingredients and scientific-sounding names. Meanwhile your ancestors crossed continents eating dried meat and fat mixed together.

One built civilizations. One builds profit margins.  

Here is one place you can get it from, Grassland Beef.

SAMA HOOLE: Alcohol is hepatotoxic (damages liver), neurotoxic (damages brain), and carcinogenic (causes cancer). These effects occur at any dose. The "moderate drinking is healthy" research has been thoroughly debunked.

Alcohol metabolism produces acetaldehyde, a toxic compound that damages DNA and proteins throughout your body. 

Your liver prioritizes alcohol detoxification over every other metabolic process because alcohol is literally poison and must be cleared immediately or you die.

While your liver is processing alcohol, it cannot effectively burn fat, regulate blood sugar, or perform normal detoxification of other compounds. --Sama Hoole

There is no safe dose of alcohol. Every drink causes cellular damage.

Alcohol is hepatotoxic (damages liver), neurotoxic (damages brain), and carcinogenic (causes cancer). These effects occur at any dose.

The "moderate drinking is healthy" research has been thoroughly debunked.…

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) January 10, 2026

There is no safe dose of alcohol. Every drink causes cellular damage. Alcohol is hepatotoxic (damages liver), neurotoxic (damages brain), and carcinogenic (causes cancer). These effects occur at any dose. The "moderate drinking is healthy" research has been thoroughly debunked. Those studies were confounded by abstainers including former alcoholics with existing health problems. When you control for that: No benefit at any dose. Only dose-dependent harm. Alcohol metabolism produces acetaldehyde, a toxic compound that damages DNA and proteins throughout your body. Your liver prioritizes alcohol detoxification over every other metabolic process because alcohol is literally poison and must be cleared immediately or you die. While your liver is processing alcohol, it cannot effectively burn fat, regulate blood sugar, or perform normal detoxification of other compounds. This is why alcoholics develop fatty liver even when not consuming excess calories. The liver is overwhelmed processing ethanol and cannot process fat, so fat accumulates. "But red wine has antioxidants!" The alcohol negates any potential benefit. Drink grape juice if you want antioxidants. Or eat liver for 100x more antioxidants without the poison. Every "health benefit" attributed to moderate drinking exists in greater quantity in whole foods without the cellular damage. The alcohol industry has successfully marketed their product as health food. It's not. It's recreational poison. Enjoy it if you want, but don't pretend it's healthy.

Your body treats alcohol exactly like it treats other toxins: as something to detoxify and eliminate immediately. 

SAMA HOOLE: Russian nobility ate: meat daily, game, poultry, fish, dairy, butter, eggs, some bread. Essentially unlimited animal protein. The physical results were stark. Serf conscripts into the Russian army averaged 5'4" to 5'6". Noble officers averaged 5'9" to 6'0". Same Slavic genetic population. Six-inch height difference.

Imperial Russia, 1700-1861. The class divide was extreme and the diet reflected it.

Russian serfs ate: black bread from rye, cabbage, beets, potatoes, occasional kasha, minimal dairy, almost no meat except feast days. Fish where available but most serfs were landlocked.

Russian… pic.twitter.com/6lmK4R7fOe

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) January 10, 2026

Imperial Russia, 1700-1861. The class divide was extreme and the diet reflected it. Russian serfs ate: black bread from rye, cabbage, beets, potatoes, occasional kasha, minimal dairy, almost no meat except feast days. Fish where available but most serfs were landlocked. Russian nobility ate: meat daily, game, poultry, fish, dairy, butter, eggs, some bread. Essentially unlimited animal protein. The physical results were stark. Serf conscripts into the Russian army averaged 5'4" to 5'6". Noble officers averaged 5'9" to 6'0". Same Slavic genetic population. Six-inch height difference. Military records are explicit about this. Recruitment standards had to account for class because the height difference was so consistent. Serfs were shorter, weaker, more prone to disease. This created military problems. Russian armies performed poorly against Western European forces partly because the conscript base was physically inferior. Napoleon's soldiers, even common infantry, were taller and stronger than Russian serfs despite similar poverty. Why? French common soldiers had more meat access. Even poor French ate cheese regularly, occasional meat, plenty of fish. Russian serfs had almost none. The health differential was documented. Serf communities had tuberculosis rates 3-4x higher than noble estates. Rickets was endemic among serf children, essentially absent among noble children. Life expectancy for serfs was 35-40. For nobility it was 55-60. Russian literature preserves this. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky both describe the physical weakness of peasants compared to nobles. It's treated as natural order but it was nutritional hierarchy. After serf emancipation in 1861, there was gradual improvement as former serfs could access better food. But the improvement was slow because most remained poor. It took until Soviet period with industrialization for average Russian height to increase substantially. Soviet nutrition policy, whatever else was wrong with it, did prioritize protein access. State farms, collective farms, meat rationing ensured wider distribution. Average Soviet height increased 3-4 inches between 1920 and 1960.

The class-based height difference in Imperial Russia wasn't genetic destiny. It was bread versus meat. The nobles ate meat and grew tall. The serfs ate bread and stayed short.