Last weekend I attended the combined meetings of American Society of Bariatric Physicians and Nutrition and Metabolism Society. Among the many great researchers I met was Dr. Stephen Phinney. Over dinner the topic of pemmican came up, and we shared our recipes. During his presentation he discussed the importance of pemmican in the diets of the people who inhabited the Great Plains of North America prior to, and for some time after, the arrival of European settlers. Pemmican is produced by pounding or grinding dried lean meat and combining it with rendered fat. It is equal parts, by weight, of dried meat and fat. Pemmican kept indefinitely without refrigeration, had a greater nutrient density than any other food, and as such, was the ideal “trail-food”. It sustained the Plains people in extraordinary health for centuries, and fueled the European exploration of North America and beyond. And then the modern nutritionists decided it needed to be “improved.” Convinced that this meat and fat...