The document discusses Inuit food preferences and how eating organs and other nutrient-dense parts of animals was historically necessary for survival in the Arctic. It notes that Inuit viewed organs as both "meat" and "fruits and vegetables" due to their vitamin content. It questions whether Western preferences are influenced more by modern culture or whether people would gravitate towards more nutritious foods without those influences. During World War II, the U.S. government faced challenges encouraging Americans to consume organ meats and other parts previously seen as inedible due to wartime shortages. Research suggests that repeated exposure can help people grow to like new foods.

1. “Liver and Opinions:
Why We Eat What We Eat and Despise the Rest,”
excerpt from Gulp (2013)
Focus Questions:
• What is the best way to encourage people to be open to new foods?
• What forces shape our food preferences?

2. Above, prepared muktuk (whale
skin and blubber, often eaten raw)

5. “Carrying her baby in a pouch on her back, Susan
Enoogoo, 39, hunts for ringed seal on the sea ice
near Arctic Bay, Nunavut. Inuit mothers often carry
their baby when hunting. If a seal surfaces,
Enoogoo tries to snag it with the hook she's holding
and drag it out of the water.”
“Inuit elder Olayuk Naqitarvik, 74, washes a ringed
seal in fresh water on the surface of the sea ice near
Nuvukutaak. Raised in a traditional Inuit lifestyle
before moving to Arctic Bay, Naqitarvik was
traveling on a camping trip with his family, passing
on his knowledge of the land and its animals to the
younger generations.”
Acacia Johnson for NPR (2019)

6. Inuit Foodways
“It was dawning on me that eating the whole beast was a matter not just
of economics but of preference…For Arctic nomads, eating organs has,
historically, been a matter of survival…Organs are so vitamin-rich, and
edible plants so scarce, that the former are classified, for purposes of
Arctic health education, both as ‘meat’ and as ‘fruits and
vegetables’….If we could strip away the influences of modern Western
culture and media and the high-fructose, high-salt temptations of the
junk-food sellers, would we all be eating like Inuit elders, instinctively
gravitating to the most healthful, nutrient-dense foods?”
-Mary Roach, pp. 119-120.

7. World War II and
Food on the U.S.
Homefront
Historical Case Study:
Faced with wartime shortages of
meat, which was reserved for U.S.
troops and allies overseas, the U.S.
government confronted a difficult
task: to encourage Americans to eat
organs and parts of the animal that
had previously been culturally
classified as inedible.

12. What is the best way to encourage people to be open to new foods?
“To open people’s minds to new food, you sometimes just have to get
them to open their mouths. Research has shown that if people try
something enough times, they’ll probably grow to like it….
People like what they eat, rather than eat what they like”
(Roach, pg. 124).