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Polar Journeys: The Role of Food and Nutrition in Early Exploration

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Stupidity, arrogance, foolishness - courage, brilliance, vision. The path to scientific discovery is never straight and not always rational. Such was the path to our current understanding of modern nutrition. In Polar Journeys: The Role of Food and Nutrition in Early Exploration, Professor Feeney, a real-life polar explorer and food biochemist, does a wonderful job describing the trial and error (and sometimes irrational) approach to establishing what we now know as "recommended daily allowance" (RDA) or the basic nutritional requirements for human health. Feeney traces the course of nutrition research from early explorers who ventured onto the oceans in small ships for months and years looking for new lands and learning the hard way, the basics of human nutrition. Did you know that ship rats are a good source of vitamin C? Did you know that 165 years after British Navy doctor James Lind found that citrus fruit cured scurvy, polar explorer, Robert Scott, still believed that scurvy was caused by ptomaine poisoning? Did you know that before there was an Atkins Diet, there was the "Eskimo Diet" which consisted of 2900 calories per day - 73% fat, 26% protein and 1% carbohydrate (one of the benefits of the Eskimo Diet was nearly odorless stool). Long before there were Institution Review Boards to oversee human experimentation, explorers were using the Earth's poles as laboratories to test the very limits (and beyond) of human endurance. Hundreds of men gave their lives, often needlessly, to discover that humans need a balanced diet of protein, fat and carbohydrate, laced with just the right mix of vitamins and minerals. If you like food, adventure and a good yarn well spun, you will enjoy this book.