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What did Indians eat for Vit C in the winter?

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indians vit c
6K views 39 replies 34 participants last post by  abo4ster 
#1 ·
What did Indians eat for Vit C in the winter?
 
#4 ·
Good question.

Maybe you don't really get messed up by not having vitamin C for part of the year, if your diet for the rest of the year is ok?

Also, think of the eskimos. I believe they had the most meat-based diet of everybody.

A quick search on vitamin C and meat returned this result: "sufficient amounts of vitamin C can be acquired from raw liver, fish roe and eggs."

So maybe drinking animal blood, or one of those other sources.
 

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#5 ·
Just noticing that potatoes have 80% of the vitamin C of oranges. But they're native to South America. I don't think North American Indians had them.

Also searched a little more and found that there are blueberries and grapes that are native to America.

Here are a couple more vitamin C factoids, too. Cranberries are farmed in NJ. I think they might be native to the northeast.
 

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#6 ·
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#8 ·
Actually the Native American did know that the white cedar/arborvitae contained the nutrition they needed for the winters. The French fur trader came to know it as "The tree of life".

However not all cedars/pines are the same anymore with the introduction of some shrubs that are called cedar and pines, that you don't want to ingest. At least I know the one in my front yard is fine because the llama and donkeys shred that thing of all leafs/needles whenever they can.
 
#9 ·
Sheesh people....I guess none of you live on the Rez. Everyone here knows about natural vitamin C.

Rose Hips. A vitamin C superfood that stays edible on the bush all year long. I was chewing on some just the other day along the ditch road. They where a staple food of the natives.

One cup has 900% your daily value.

Just a few berries a day eaten or made into tea and your good, and they stay on the bush all winter with no other preservation needed.

So plentiful up here in Montana I don't grow any or stock vitamin C as year round I can get all I want out my front door, and I'm pretty sure these grow all over the country.
 
#14 ·
Pine needle tea is outrageously delicious. Properly prepared, it tastes a lot like roses smell...

Chop up fresh green pine needles and soak in room temperature water over night or a day. Strain before drinking.

You can also make a warm infusion (it will still contain a lot of other goodies from the needles). Just don't actually boil the tea. Boil a cup of plain water, remove from the heat, wait a few minutes before dropping a tablespoon or two of chopped green needles. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes then enjoy!


Chickweed is another vitamin rich wild edible that often sprouts in late winter.

Most wild edibles are richer in vitamins and minerals than most things you buy from the grocery store.

Fresh wood violet leaves are high in Vitamin C (and A!) and grow in early spring, (and late, late winter in some places). Eat raw. I love this with chopped pineapple.
 
#18 ·
I think you have to use white pine and the needles that grow in bunches of 5 to each cluster. If you watch the Jamestown documentary on YT they think vit C deficency was what caused a lot of the deaths. Of course back then I don't believe they knew what vitamins even were but knew the effects of the lack of them on the body. Thats where the British sailors got the name Limeys because the limes they carried prevented scurvy when ate.

I had to look up what rose hips were. I am not sure I have ever seen those in the wild. But if I do at least I will know what they look like now.
 
#20 ·
Fortunately, white pine is not the only species you can enjoy! I have tried many species over the years and never met one I didn't like. :D:
 
#22 ·
Pemmican was quite high in vitamin c...

Some other things great for vitamin c are rose hips gathered in fall, they are crazy high in vitamin c, just brew them into a tea.

Elderberries are also high in vitamin c, they can be dried and made into a drink. Oregon Grape berries are high in vitamin c, service berries, huckleberries, black berries etc can all be dried and used in winter for vitamin c.

Early in the spring Dandelions come up and the leaves are very high in vitamin c.

Some modern ways to get vitamin c in winter... Plant beets in soil indoors and harvest the greens, 11% vitamin c in beet greens. Same with turnips but 55% vitamin c... Plant carrots in soil in the house in winter and harvest the greens which are also quite high in vitamin c.

Bean sprouts have an average of 29% vitamin c per serving.

Dried apple slices have 2% daily vitamin c per serving... Dried cherries 18%... Dried plums 10%....

Not the tastiest source but 1 cup of pine needles contains 7% of your daily vitamin C... Spruce needles have vitamin c, Tamarack bark contains vitamin C... Making any of these into a tea is an emergency supply of vitamin C in the winter. I dare say if you are not used to this it might cause a bit of stomach/intestinal discomfort. Best bet would be to plan ahead and dry fruits and gather things like rose apples to make teas from. Or ferment berries and fruits into vinegar or alcohol for a supply of vitamin c that keeps through winter.
 
#24 ·
ok little known factoid, in WVA they have the wild ramp festivals in the spring, the reason is that the ramps come up early in the spring and contain a large amount of vitamin c , if these plants were not around many states would not have been populated due to the scurvy that would set in.

alex
 
#31 ·
The British switched to limes after their source of lemons was cut off by another Country. There is a post somewhere on here about it but I've lost it at the moment. Later methods involved squeezing fresh juice into a bottle, topping the juice with olive oil and sealing the bottle with a cork and wax. The juice content of vitamin C remained viable for many months.

Edit: http://hekint.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/sailors_scurvy-final.pdf
"Because there was still no agreement on the best method of preserving lemon juice, the navy ordered a prospective controlled trial. HMS Investigator sailed to the Arctic in August 1850 in search of Sir John Franklin.155 The lemon juice was either boiled with no spirit, or not boiled with 1 in 10 added brandy, each in a 64-ounce bottle, with a ½ inch of olive oil above, then corked and sealed.At that time, provisions and juice were issued to each sailors but there was “no guarantee whatever that each man drinks his own allowance”.Addington therefore divided the men by tubs, and “each man drank his allowance in presence of an officer”, just as Lind (or his staff) in 1747 and Trotter in 1783 had given the fruit to their subjects rather than trusting the sailors to take it themselves. The normal juice dose was one ounce daily, and no scurvy developed until the crew had to be placed on short rations and the lemon juice dose reduced to ½ ounce per day in September 1852. At the end of the voyage, in June 1853, the bottles with the boiled juice had sediment at their bottoms, but the brandy added juices were still clear; therefore, Addington recommended this method."
 
#36 ·
A very low carbohydrate diet high in fat reduces the dietary requirement for vitamin C largely because glucose competes with vitamin C for cell absorption. Most animals make their own vitamin C which is converted from glucose (i.e. the molecules are very similar in their structures). Furthermore, meat contains sufficient vitamin C under these conditions. In fact, fresh meat has long been known as a cure for scurvy.
 
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