7 ms·

Ötzi’s last supper: mummified hunter's final meal revealed

72 points by diodorus 8y ago

rpvnwnkl 8y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13962441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13962441 ?
- acqq 8y ago
  It’s certainly not! The research paper now is from 12th of July this year, the brand new result: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30703-6 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)...
- vanattab 8y ago
  Wow! why is everyone down voting this guys comment? He never said this previous discussion was about the contents of his stomach he just said here is a thread about the same ancient dead guy. I for one am glad he posted it so I could learn more about the same topic. I find it disgusting that one guy lays out an unjustified criticism and you all jump on the band wagon and downvote him to oblivion. Rpvnwnki6 thanks for linking to the old thread about otzi I appreciated reading the related thread.
curtis 8y ago
It's kind of amazing to me that we are still learning stuff from Ötzi's remains since they were discovered back in 1991.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  Not to forget: He's the only person from his period, for thousands of years in either direction, who has a homepage on the Internet! http://www.iceman.it/en/ http://www.iceman.it/en/
mahesh_rm 8y ago
How is bacon of a clearly delicious animal - I am from the Alps, but never tasted the specific animal due to it being protected, and rightly so - considered of "horrible taste"? I guess they - maybe - didn't have salt, but they still had smoke, and - you know - sun.
- Semirhage 8y ago
  Bacon is cured belly meat, whereas this was apparently pure fat. Fat tends to concentrate flavors, good or bad, and in this case it would have probably be very very gamey. Edit: I think we have to see a difference between domesticated pigs, bred and raised for purpose, and their cured, seasoned, fat... and some fat hacked off a wild ibex. If you’ve ever had wild game you’ll know what I mean about gamey flavors. I can only imagine that some ice age ibex would be an acquired taste at best. Pig fat is also some of the most delicious, mild fat around, which is why it’s pigs used in that article.
  - mahesh_rm 8y ago
    You mean, like this? http://www.emikodavies.com/blog/italian-table-talk-lardo-di-colonnata/ http://www.emikodavies.com/blog/italian-table-talk-lardo-di-... What is called "Lardo" is considered gourmet in most Italian / European traditional cuisines, and I can clearly see people in 2018 easily paying hundreds of dollars for a kilo of Ibex lard. I understand curing it might optimize the taste, but I would not call dried/smoked lard horrible.
    - optimuspaul 8y ago
      I was going to say something like this. I have encountered "lard" in Europe quite a lot, but lard in the US is a little different. Anyway, "pure" fat is definitely an acquired taste and I agree with the GP that fat does concentrate all sorts of flavors good and bad and can be quite nasty.
      - pvaldes 8y ago
        And we are talking of flavours, but fat can concentrate also dangerous substances like lipophilic pesticides and venoms.
noetic_techy 8y ago
The keto and zerocarb (carnivore diet) communities on reddit are all pointing out the fact that 46% by volume of the sample was fat, indicating he gained 60%+ by calorie macro of energy from fat (and a large percentage of proteins). There is a compelling argument being made now that humans are more carnivore than omnivore for most of our history (10,000 of agriculture is blip on the radar for our species) and that we ate the whole animal. Yes, we can eat anything, but did we. And which food sources are we most adapted for? Hence The Omnivores Dilemma ... (good book)
- nkrisc 8y ago
  It's not mentioned in The Guardian article but is mentioned in this one from Ars Technica that he also had atherosclerosis, something his high fat diet likely contributed to. I'm not 100% sold on trying to replicate the diet and lifestyle of people who probably did not live past what we now consider middle age. Particularly if I'm not living in the high reaches of the Alps. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/otzi-the-icemans-last-meal-shows-how-copper-age-people-ate-on-the-run/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/otzi-the-icemans-las...
  - cgh 8y ago
    As has been pointed out elsewhere[1], atherosclerosis is largely a genetic condition and is not necessarily related to a high-fat diet. "In the new study, Zink and his colleagues found that Ötzi had several gene variants associated with cardiovascular disease, including one on the ninth chromosome that is strongly tied to heart troubles, the researchers reported today (July 30) in the journal Global Heart."[2] Fun fact: Otzi also had Lyme disease. Also, there is no evidence that Otzi's people died young because of their diets. He was 45, so approaching middle age, and died while making a high mountain traverse with an arrow in his back. I would bet anything he was physically sturdier and, with modern medical care, healthier than nearly everyone posting here. [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/02/iceman-was-medical-mess http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/02/iceman-was-medical-me... 2] https://www.livescience.com/47114-otzi-had-heart-disease-genes.html https://www.livescience.com/47114-otzi-had-heart-disease-gen...
  - 8y ago
dbcurtis 8y ago
I followed the 1986 Will Steger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Steger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Steger expedition to the North Pole quite closely at the time. I recall they spent a lot of time developing and preparing foods for the journey, in particular a high-fat pemmican. They also ate huge amounts of butter -- as much as they could stand. It is interesting that in Otzi's time the necessity for a high fat diet in extreme cold conditions was understood -- or perhaps that is just how they came to live.
scotty79 8y ago
> “The taste is really, well, it’s horrible,” Ötzi probably liked it very much. Body of a hungry person learns to like tastes that give it the calories. When I was starting to feed myself I was cooking rice. Forgot salt. It was dreadful. Forgot few times. Began to like the taste of overcooked unsalted rice after I satiated my hunger few times with it.
glitcher 8y ago
> "He clearly knew that fat is a high-energy source and he really composed his diet to survive at high altitude." Perhaps there is more evidence behind this statement left out in the article? How do we know what he "clearly knew", did his diet differ greatly from others of the same region and time period?
- foobar1962 8y ago
  > How do we know what he "clearly knew" His stomach contained a lot of fat, but little mention of meat. The animal he ate had both fat and meat (probably more meat). The fat has been stated as not tasting nice, so he mush have preferentially eaten the fat.
skookumchuck 8y ago
During WW2, some british flyers went to the Soviet Union to fly for them. The first day the weather turned cold, the women brought out pots of boiling fat for them to eat. The airmen were disgusted. But after flying at high altitude in the bitter cold, they came to relish the breakfast of fat.
- patient_zero 8y ago
  That sounds like an interesting read. I couldn't find anything in my brief google search. Do you have a lead I can follow? Thanks
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    I wish I had a source. I learned it from talking to a WW2 pilot.
    - emmelaich 8y ago
      My Dad used to compete with his brothers and sisters for the lard to make a sandwich of. The lard was left over from cooking meat.
bcheung 8y ago
Little did Ötzi know, that thousands of years from now people would be so concerned with what he ate. In fact they even went so far as to invent social networks so people could see what others recently ate.

72 points by diodorus 8y ago

rpvnwnkl 8y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13962441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13962441 ?

acqq 8y ago
It’s certainly not! The research paper now is from 12th of July this year, the brand new result: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30703-6 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)...
vanattab 8y ago
Wow! why is everyone down voting this guys comment? He never said this previous discussion was about the contents of his stomach he just said here is a thread about the same ancient dead guy. I for one am glad he posted it so I could learn more about the same topic. I find it disgusting that one guy lays out an unjustified criticism and you all jump on the band wagon and downvote him to oblivion. Rpvnwnki6 thanks for linking to the old thread about otzi I appreciated reading the related thread.

curtis 8y ago

It's kind of amazing to me that we are still learning stuff from Ötzi's remains since they were discovered back in 1991.

ItsMe000001 8y ago
Not to forget: He's the only person from his period, for thousands of years in either direction, who has a homepage on the Internet! http://www.iceman.it/en/ http://www.iceman.it/en/

mahesh_rm 8y ago

How is bacon of a clearly delicious animal - I am from the Alps, but never tasted the specific animal due to it being protected, and rightly so - considered of "horrible taste"? I guess they - maybe - didn't have salt, but they still had smoke, and - you know - sun.

Semirhage 8y ago
Bacon is cured belly meat, whereas this was apparently pure fat. Fat tends to concentrate flavors, good or bad, and in this case it would have probably be very very gamey. Edit: I think we have to see a difference between domesticated pigs, bred and raised for purpose, and their cured, seasoned, fat... and some fat hacked off a wild ibex. If you’ve ever had wild game you’ll know what I mean about gamey flavors. I can only imagine that some ice age ibex would be an acquired taste at best. Pig fat is also some of the most delicious, mild fat around, which is why it’s pigs used in that article.
- mahesh_rm 8y ago
  You mean, like this? http://www.emikodavies.com/blog/italian-table-talk-lardo-di-colonnata/ http://www.emikodavies.com/blog/italian-table-talk-lardo-di-... What is called "Lardo" is considered gourmet in most Italian / European traditional cuisines, and I can clearly see people in 2018 easily paying hundreds of dollars for a kilo of Ibex lard. I understand curing it might optimize the taste, but I would not call dried/smoked lard horrible.
  - optimuspaul 8y ago
    I was going to say something like this. I have encountered "lard" in Europe quite a lot, but lard in the US is a little different. Anyway, "pure" fat is definitely an acquired taste and I agree with the GP that fat does concentrate all sorts of flavors good and bad and can be quite nasty.
    - pvaldes 8y ago
      And we are talking of flavours, but fat can concentrate also dangerous substances like lipophilic pesticides and venoms.

noetic_techy 8y ago

The keto and zerocarb (carnivore diet) communities on reddit are all pointing out the fact that 46% by volume of the sample was fat, indicating he gained 60%+ by calorie macro of energy from fat (and a large percentage of proteins). There is a compelling argument being made now that humans are more carnivore than omnivore for most of our history (10,000 of agriculture is blip on the radar for our species) and that we ate the whole animal. Yes, we can eat anything, but did we. And which food sources are we most adapted for? Hence The Omnivores Dilemma ... (good book)

nkrisc 8y ago
It's not mentioned in The Guardian article but is mentioned in this one from Ars Technica that he also had atherosclerosis, something his high fat diet likely contributed to. I'm not 100% sold on trying to replicate the diet and lifestyle of people who probably did not live past what we now consider middle age. Particularly if I'm not living in the high reaches of the Alps. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/otzi-the-icemans-last-meal-shows-how-copper-age-people-ate-on-the-run/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/otzi-the-icemans-las...
- cgh 8y ago
  As has been pointed out elsewhere[1], atherosclerosis is largely a genetic condition and is not necessarily related to a high-fat diet. "In the new study, Zink and his colleagues found that Ötzi had several gene variants associated with cardiovascular disease, including one on the ninth chromosome that is strongly tied to heart troubles, the researchers reported today (July 30) in the journal Global Heart."[2] Fun fact: Otzi also had Lyme disease. Also, there is no evidence that Otzi's people died young because of their diets. He was 45, so approaching middle age, and died while making a high mountain traverse with an arrow in his back. I would bet anything he was physically sturdier and, with modern medical care, healthier than nearly everyone posting here. [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/02/iceman-was-medical-mess http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/02/iceman-was-medical-me... 2] https://www.livescience.com/47114-otzi-had-heart-disease-genes.html https://www.livescience.com/47114-otzi-had-heart-disease-gen...
- 8y ago

dbcurtis 8y ago

I followed the 1986 Will Steger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Steger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Steger expedition to the North Pole quite closely at the time. I recall they spent a lot of time developing and preparing foods for the journey, in particular a high-fat pemmican. They also ate huge amounts of butter -- as much as they could stand. It is interesting that in Otzi's time the necessity for a high fat diet in extreme cold conditions was understood -- or perhaps that is just how they came to live.

scotty79 8y ago

> “The taste is really, well, it’s horrible,” Ötzi probably liked it very much. Body of a hungry person learns to like tastes that give it the calories. When I was starting to feed myself I was cooking rice. Forgot salt. It was dreadful. Forgot few times. Began to like the taste of overcooked unsalted rice after I satiated my hunger few times with it.

glitcher 8y ago

> "He clearly knew that fat is a high-energy source and he really composed his diet to survive at high altitude." Perhaps there is more evidence behind this statement left out in the article? How do we know what he "clearly knew", did his diet differ greatly from others of the same region and time period?

foobar1962 8y ago
> How do we know what he "clearly knew" His stomach contained a lot of fat, but little mention of meat. The animal he ate had both fat and meat (probably more meat). The fat has been stated as not tasting nice, so he mush have preferentially eaten the fat.

skookumchuck 8y ago

During WW2, some british flyers went to the Soviet Union to fly for them. The first day the weather turned cold, the women brought out pots of boiling fat for them to eat. The airmen were disgusted. But after flying at high altitude in the bitter cold, they came to relish the breakfast of fat.

patient_zero 8y ago
That sounds like an interesting read. I couldn't find anything in my brief google search. Do you have a lead I can follow? Thanks
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  I wish I had a source. I learned it from talking to a WW2 pilot.
  - emmelaich 8y ago
    My Dad used to compete with his brothers and sisters for the lard to make a sandwich of. The lard was left over from cooking meat.

bcheung 8y ago

Little did Ötzi know, that thousands of years from now people would be so concerned with what he ate. In fact they even went so far as to invent social networks so people could see what others recently ate.