Why can Eskimos eat raw meat? Is it because of genetic mutation, or is there another reason?

As the saying goes, people are shaped by the land and water they live in. When living there, eating habits will be related to the local environment.

For example, the eating of rice in the south and noodles in the north, as well as frying, steaming, boiling and stewing in my country are all related to the regional environment.

Looking around the world, it is the same, for example, Russians love to drink vodka, Germans love to eat sausages, French people love to eat baguettes, and so on.

In the Arctic lives the toughest people - the Inuit. They eat raw meat, sleep in igloos, and live tenaciously in the harshest place in the world.

Most people would get diarrhea if they eat even slightly undercooked meat, let alone raw meat, but the Inuit would be fine.

They are both Homo sapiens, so why are there such big differences between them? Is it possible that their genes have mutated?

People who eat raw meat

The Inuit were ridiculed by the Indians as "Eskimos", which means "people who eat raw meat". The Inuit hated this name.

No one wants to live in the ice and snow, nor do they want to live a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood, but they can only eat raw meat.

The Inuit and the Indians have the same origin and both belong to the yellow race, but they migrated to North America at different times. The Indians migrated first, so they occupied the areas with the best environment.

The Inuit arrived late and were driven away and hunted down by the Indians. The Indians drove them to the Arctic, thinking that they would soon freeze to death.

Unexpectedly, it has honed the strongest vitality in human history.

There are no tall trees in the Arctic region, only low shrubs and tundra. The Inuit cannot even make a fire to cook, so they are forced to eat raw meat.

Their only fire came from burning animal fat, which they used only for lighting and was very precious.

So why can the Inuit eat raw meat, but ordinary people can't?

Is it really because of a gene mutation?

After comparing the genes of the Inuit with those of other yellow people, it was found that they did not evolve new genes specifically for eating raw meat. The main reason they can eat raw meat is because of their intestinal flora.

Scientists explained that humans' ancestors ate raw meat, and since our evolutionary history is only more than 2 million years, theoretically humans have not lost the ability to eat raw meat.

Raw meat itself is not fatal; it is the parasites in it that make people sick.

If most people eat cooked meat for a long time, the bacteria in their intestines will only decompose the cooked meat.

If raw meat is encountered, the bacterial flora cannot function normally, and human digestion will have problems, resulting in diarrhea.

The Inuit have been eating raw meat for a long time. Under natural selection, the bacteria in their intestines can break down the raw meat and help them digest it better.

Similarly, if the Inuit are asked to eat cooked meat, they will not be able to adapt.

In other words, the Inuit who cannot adapt to raw meat cannot survive, and the Inuit who survive can eat raw meat.

The meaning of raw meat

Although eating raw meat is unacceptable to most people, for the Inuit, it is their magic weapon for survival.

Cooking will destroy the nutrients in the meat, such as vitamin C, vitamin B1, etc.

For ordinary people, these vitamins can be replenished by eating other things, but for the Inuit, they have nothing else to eat and can only eat some berries during the short period of summer.

Therefore, eating meat directly would allow the Inuit to obtain vitamins and minerals.

What the Inuit like to eat most is animal offal, which is the richest in vitamins.

The Inuit also eat pickled foods, such as their crowning delicacy, kiwiak.

This is a special kind of "cured meat" made from Arctic puffins. During the breeding season, the Inuit will catch hundreds of puffins and kill them without destroying the integrity of the whole bird.

Put the killed puffins into a sealskin bag, stuff it full without leaving any gaps, then sew the sealskin bag shut and apply seal oil to the seal to prevent air from entering.

Because microorganisms are not active in the Arctic region, puffins need to be pickled in seal skin for 2 to 3 years. After they are taken out, they are still complete puffins, but the internal ingredients have changed greatly.

The puffin's internal organs had already turned into a thick juice in their stomachs, which the Inuit sucked out, then plucked out the feathers and enjoyed the puffin's meat.

These fermented puff pastry are rich in amino acids, which are rare nutrients for the Inuit. They are usually only enjoyed during traditional Inuit festivals to entertain guests.

Because polar animals have a high fat content, the Inuit consume the most fat among all humans. Most people would definitely suffer from the three highs if they eat like this, but the Inuit do not.

Regarding this, they did have a genetic mutation, and the mutated part was the CPT1A gene, which enabled the Newt to directly use fatty acids for energy instead of burning fat.

Although the Inuit were able to eat raw meat and had adapted to it, it was clear that the harsh living environment meant that their lifespan was very short.

According to Canadian statistics around 2000, the average life expectancy of the Inuit was only 64 years old, while the average life expectancy of other Canadians during the same period was 79.5 years old.

In the era without medical care, the average life expectancy of the Inuit was even lower, probably only around 45 years old.

Strange customs

Perhaps because the Inuit's life is too hard, their lifespan is too short, and they have to face unknown dangers, their customs and habits are incompatible with those of most ethnic groups.

Some people say that the Inuit practice polyandry, but this is actually a misunderstanding. They practice monogamy, and typically men hunt and women stay at home.

The reason for this misunderstanding is that one of the Inuit customs is that when the husband goes out hunting, he will entrust his wife to other men in the tribe. During this period, the wife can have sex with this man.

Although this sounds immoral, it also reveals the helplessness of the Inuit people.

In the past, the mortality rate among Inuit people when they went out hunting was very high, and there was a high chance that they would never come back.

At the same time, for the Inuit, children are the hope of a tribe, so they naturally hope to have more children.

Because the Inuit are also tribes formed based on blood relations, the men in the tribe are more or less related.

The purpose of doing this is to ensure that the tribe has enough children born, so that even if they are not their own children, they are related to them.

The Inuit experience two peak periods of mortality in their lives, one in infancy and the other in adulthood.

Infants and young children have weak resistance and are prone to premature death in harsh environments. After adulthood, males have to take on the hunting mission of the tribe, and the chance of encountering accidents increases greatly.

Women needed to sew animal skins into clothes, which caused them to often inhale animal hair. Many Inuit women suffered from serious respiratory diseases.

Life Changes

Perhaps it was a matter of course. The Indians discriminated against the Inuit in various ways and chased them into the Arctic Circle. As a result, in the 15th century, the Indians suffered the same treatment from Western colonists.

There are more than 60,000 Inuit in the world, in Canada, Russia, Greenland and Alaska, USA.

Some Inuit have fully adapted to modern society. They live in heated houses and no longer live a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood as they did in the past. Instead, they buy a variety of food and eat like ordinary people, and have added a lot of vegetables and fruits to their diet.

And they can see a doctor when they are sick, which has brought about a qualitative leap in their lives. The average life expectancy of the Inuit is now 67 years old, which is a certain improvement compared to the past.

However, there are still some Inuit who follow the lifestyle of their ancestors. They do not go to towns and still live their previous hunting life. The local government allows them to hunt a certain number of seals and whales.

These Inuit are not averse to modern technology. They also use modern means of transportation, such as snowmobiles, but they are unwilling to move to a fixed place of residence.

The Inuit also took the opportunity to develop tourism in their own tribe, where tourists can watch the traditional life of the Inuit and experience Inuit dog sledding.

Brave visitors can also try the Inuit cuisine; Kiwiak even makes the Swedes, who love canned herring, cry.

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