SAMA HOOLE: The Lakota were feeding lean scraps to their dogs 200 years ago. You're paying premium prices for it today and calling it healthy.

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.… pic.twitter.com/vbBUKBPlxC

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) December 13, 2025

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.

The Lakota were feeding lean scraps to their dogs 200 years ago. You're paying premium prices for it today and calling it healthy. 

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.