Godot asked a question in the shout box.

[vesta111]

  Pemmican is a cracker that is fat free that was used by Arctic explorers in the 1800's.   These explorers carried and ate them for months at a time.

One story was that an explorer with native guides suddenly went blind, his guides forced him to eat seal blubber, in a couple of days his sight returned.

Lately in the the 1980's a Russian scientist in Antarctica got lost and when found was close to death.  The American medic at that time with the group shoved a stick of butter down his mouth, the Russian said later that he could feel warmth fill his body---better then Vodka.

So I gave this a test a few years ago.     We had to go outside to smoke at work.  When the temps. fell to zero and wind chill was terrable, I stocked a Thermos jug with hot soup and added a bit of butter.

When my hands began to hurt from the cold and I began to shiver I drank this soup and within seconds I could feel the heat. 

Give this a try when out in the cold doing your own thing. 

My winter survival kit for the car has a lb. of butter added in just in case it takes hours for anyone to find me if I get stuck in a snow bank somewhere.

[Celtic Rose]

I think you may be confusing Pemmican with hardtack.  Hardtack is cracker type food made of flour, water and salt.  It is generally so hard that you need to either gnaw on it or dip it in liquid to soften it enough to eat.

Pemmican is basically dried meat mixed with fat, and it actually has a lot of fat, generally about half as much fat as meat by weight, which means that more of the calories actually come from fat.  Generally carbohydrates, such a dried fruit would also be added.  

Fat is very important to human life.  There have been stories of people starving to death when the only food available was lean mean (ie Rabbit Starvation).  Most societies that are based in very cold climates have fat as a very important part of their diet.  

[thundley4]

Yeah, I think pemmican has more in common with beef jerky than crackers.

[vesta111]

I think you may be confusing Pemmican with hardtack.  Hardtack is cracker type food made of flour, water and salt.  It is generally so hard that you need to either gnaw on it or dip it in liquid to soften it enough to eat.

Pemmican is basically dried meat mixed with fat, and it actually has a lot of fat, generally about half as much fat as meat by weight, which means that more of the calories actually come from fat. Generally carbohydrates, such a dried fruit would also be added.  

Fat is very important to human life. There have been stories of people starving to death when the only food available was lean mean (ie Rabbit Starvation).  Most societies that are based in very cold climates have fat as a very important part of their diet.  

Yes you are correct I did confuse the two thank you for pointing that out.

I read this book written in the earl 1900's about an American that journeyed down the Nile.   He related in his memorys how he came across a villiage of people that had pulled a dead Hippo from the water.

He mentioned at that time the woman had been disfigured by circumcision then went on to describe what he saw with the Hippo.

The author was aghast as the people had been living on plant life and were so starved that some of them were actually inside the body eating raw fat.

As he sailed past the scene he could not believe that people would have to go so crazy for fat.