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History List
The surgeon-in-chief of Napolean's Grand Army, Baron Dominque-Jean Larrey, ordered the slaughter of horses during the Siege of Alexandria in order to help the French soldiers cure their scurvy and contribute powerfully to the healing of the sick and wounded.
HYGIENIC STUDIES ON HORSE FLESH AS FOOD
September 2, 1801
John Cronin's case of Diabetes - "The success of this case must be attributed entirely to the use of the animal diet, as bark, when given without prohibition from vegetable food, has but little effect in the cure of this truly formidable disease. The medical world is certainly indebted for the suggestion of the plan of animal diet alone."
History of a Case of Diabetes Mellitus, successfully treated by Animal Diet, and the use of the Cinchona, with Remarks. By George Alley, M. D. &c.
January 2, 1808
Richard Borshay Lee wrote "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari" published in the Dec 1969 issue of Natural History. The San Ju/'hoansi tease an anthropologist that an ox selected for Christmas festitivities was not fat enough. The article features extensive examples of how important fat is to the diet. “My friend, the way it is with us Bushmen,” he began, “is that we love meat. And even more than that, we love fat.”
Eating Christmas in the Kalahari - December 1969 Natural History Magazine - by Richard Borshay Lee
December 15, 1969
The estimated per capita consumption of soybean oil increased >1000-fold from 1909 to 1999. The availability of linoleic acid (LA) increased from 2.79% to 7.21% of energy (P < 0.000001), whereas the availability of α-linolenic acid (ALA) increased from 0.39% to 0.72% of energy by using 1909-C modeling.
Changes in consumption of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the United States during the 20th century
January 4, 1909
About 1880 cottonseed oil was introduced into hog lard to temper it for use in cold climates, and thus began a story that “is filled with the intrigues of competitive industries.“ The new product, it was estimated in 1888, constituted about half the total of 600,000,000 pounds of lard produced in the country.
The Rise of the American Cottonseed Oil Industry
January 4, 1880
As with shipments of raw oleo oil, notable trends for oleomargarine include a change in destination into the early 1900s to include expanding markets in Asia, Central America, South America, and Africa.
The growth in exports of finished oleomargarine from the United States to other regions in the world in 1900
January 4, 1900
For margarine, the trade grew from five export ports in 1890 (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New Orleans) to six in 1910 and from five main global regional destinations to eight. This was an increase from about 6 million pounds to 26 million pounds by the first decade of the twentieth century.
The growth in exports of finished oleomargarine from the United States to other regions in the world from 1890 to 1910
January 4, 1890
There was French complaint in 1880 that refined cottonseed oil was reaching France under the name of olive oil from Spain and Italy. With New Orleans shipping 73,782 barrels to Europe, including 40,000 barrels to Italy, in the year ending August 31, 1879, there might be a question as to spurious olive oil, concerning which “the world must draw its own conclusions.“
The Rise of the American Cottonseed Oil Industry
August 31, 1879
What was garbage in 1860 was a fertilizer in 1870, cattle food in 1880, and table food and many things else, in 1890. Nine tenths of the american product enters into the composition of foods, chiefly for salad and cooking oils and for the making of refined lard. The latter use is the most important of all.
Waste Products: Cotton-Seed Oil. By Frederic G. Mather.
January 2, 1894
Before seed oils entered the market as food, the world used whale blubber to light lamps and fry donuts, but as its availability declined, new machines requiring lubrication were demanding more oil, preferably from cheaper plants than animal fats, than ever.
The Origins of Industrial Oils
January 2, 1853
I will state in this connection, that bread, rice, wheaten grits, hominy, tapioca, sago, potatoes, green peas, string beans, green corn, beets, turnips, squash, asparagus and the various meats, have each been fed upon exclusively and continuously by from four to six men at a time, for from seven to forty-five days. I have had patients afflicted with grave diseases, thrive and become perfectly well upon beef. Many of them have continued this as an exclusive diet from three to four years, before bringing breads and vegetables into their diet list.
LII. A FINAL WORD ON FOODS AND ON MEAT DYSPEPSIA.
March 5, 1888
After thirty days of an exclusive oatmeal diet among 4 subjects, Dr Salisbury ends the experiment saying "Concluded it was neither prudent or safe to carry the experiment any further" as they had awful digestive illnesses and uncomfortable sleep. A return to beef steak cleared up the problems.
EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING ON OATMEAL CONTINUOUSLY, AS AN EXCLUSIVE DIET.
October 9, 1857
"The stomach is the first organ to suffer. In man this organ is mainly designed for digesting lean meats. It may be called a purely carnivorous organ. It requires lean meats to excite a normal quantity of healthy secretions in its glandular follicles for digestion."
SOME OF THE DISEASES PRODUCED BY TOO EXCLUSIVE FEEDING UPON AMYLACEOUS AND SACCHARINE FOODS AND FRUITS, WITH THE DIET TO BE USED FOR THEIR CURE. Vegetable Dyspepsia, or the first Stage of Consumption.
March 4, 1888
Dr Salisbury hires six men to live upon a diet of only baked beans and coffee, but after 18 days, they "all presented such a forlorn, dilapidated appearance" that the doctor ordered a beef only diet to help them recover so that in just a few days "All felt unusually well, clear headed and happy."
EXPERIMENTS WITH " BAKED BEANS " AS AN EXCLUSIVE DIET, UPON STRONG HEALTHY MEN.
September 13, 1856
Schwatka addresses a dinner in his honor - "It was the first expedition wherein the white men of a party lived solely upon the same diet, voluntarily assumed, as its native allies. This fact, coupled with those already stated, shows that white men are able to live the same as Esquimaux in the Arctic"
Epilogue
October 28, 1880
Schwatka explains the Arctic diet. "When first thrown wholly upon a diet of reindeer meat, it seems inadequate to properly nourish the system and there is an apparent weakness and inability to perform severe exertive, fatiguing journeys. But this soon passes away in the course of two or three weeks. Our trip was also our first continued experience with a raw meat diet"
Summer on King William Land helps make Search Complete
September 5, 1878
Lieutenant Schwatka: "On June 15 the last of the hard bread was used and the time was now rapidly approaching when our diet would be a la Innuit until Camp Daly was again reached - some six months hence. Arctic aquatic fowl were now getting quite plentiful, and, to vary our monotonous diet of reindeer and seal meat, we secured many. "
King William Lord - Last Tragic Trail
June 15, 1879
The dogs, many of them old musk-ox hunters and with an appetite sharpened by hard work, and a diminishing ration, tugged like mad at their harnesses and hurried along at a rate that threatened a broken neck many a time over the rough gorges. We soon came upon them and dispatched ten, including calves.
The Long Sledge Journey Begins
May 3, 1879
Schwatka sets out on his journey to find the Franklin Expedition with 18 people, 44 dogs, 3 sleds, 15 guns, 4000 rounds of ammo while expecting to hunt meat for up to a year and live off a carnivorous diet. "Dependent as we would soon become upon the game of the country, we had fair reasons to believe such existed in sufficient quantities to support us and our dogs if our hunters were only vigilant."
The Long Sledge Journey Begins
April 1, 1879
Schwatka was annoyed at the Inuit superstition that different animals had to be butchered in different igloos due to two Gods antagonistic to each other, one ruling the seas and the other the land, and had to hold true allegiance to only one at a time. "When the reindeer hunting season is over the walrus and seal come into the Esquimaux market, completely excluding the reindeer, which from that date becomes forbidden fruit."
Last Visit with Whalemen - Preparation for Departure - Page 44
February 1, 1879
Lieutenant Schwatka "I found a great deal of scurvy prevailing among the ships and the large number of crews. The greater variety of animal life in the frigid zones over the vegetable (the latter having hardly an edible representative in the whole arctic flora) makes it the main dependence on which the polar voyager must rely to secure exemption from that disease."
Last Visit with Whalemen - Preparation for Departure
February 14, 1879
"In such manner has the work of the semi-annual hunts been conducted for over half a century, and in the same way will it continue, growing less in importance yearly, until the last buffalo shall have ceased to exist. Their importance the years gone by can hardly be overestimated. They have furnished the main support of a population numbering ten thousand souls."
The Great Fur Land - The Great Fall Hunt
August 2, 1867
"Pemmican forms the principal product of the summer buffalo-hunt, when, to preserve from decay the vast quantities of meat taken, some artificial process is necessary. Each bag weighs one hundred pounds, the quantity of fat being nearly half the total weight, the whole composition forming the most solid description of food that man can make. It is the traveling provision used throughout the Fur Land."
The Great Fur Land - The Great Fall Hunt
August 1, 1867
The Great Fall Hunt of the buffalo is depicted in which thousands of hunters charge into a massive herd and shoot them point blank. "The hunter pauses not a moment, but loads and fires with the utmost rapidity, pouring in his bullets at the closest range, often almost touching the animal he aims at."
The Great Fur Land - The Great Fall Hunt
July 27, 1866
"Two active hunters, taking in their hands the long lines of raw-hide, called "shagnappe," isolate a buffalo cow from the herd. Then, seizing either end of the line, they proceed to revolve about their victim in opposite directions, so entwining her legs in the folds of the cord as to throw her to the ground by the very struggles she makes to escape."
The Great Fur Trade - The Great Fall Hunt
July 10, 1866
The diets of the people in the Forts in the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic are shown to be mostly fish and red meat, but imported goods such as flour, sugar, vegetables, and fruits are considered rare luxuries. "In many of the extreme Arctic stations the supply of provisions is limited the year round to reindeer-meat, and fish, and not infrequently to the latter alone." However, "the climate favors the consumption of solid food, and, after short residence, the appetite becomes seasoned to the quality of the fare obtainable."
The Great Fur Land - Life in a Company's Fort
January 3, 1805
Dr Densmore explains the already common occurrence of vegetarians in 1890's America and mentions how if health is the doctor's primary duty, he must encourage the eating of meat. He mentions that those who attempt to live on bread and fruit without animal products end in disaster. "The flesh of animals...may be said to be a pre-digested food, and one that requires the minimum expenditure of vital force for the production of the maximum amount of nutrition."
How Nature Cures
January 2, 1892
Dr Emmet Densmore describes the rationale of the meat diet basing it on Dr Salisbury and Emma Stuart's recent work. "A good quality of beef or mutton, roasted or broiled, to the average stomach will be found quite easy of digestion. All persons who are at all corpulent, having more adipose tissue or fat than is natural, will find this diet of special value."
How Nature Cures
January 2, 1892
Dr Densmore promotes an "exclusive flesh diet" to cure obesity and comments how family doctors give poor advice.
How nature cures: comprising a new system of hygiene; also the natural food of man; a statement of the principal arguments against the use of bread, cereals, pulses, potatoes, and all other starch foods.
January 2, 1892
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