The fox meat she caught went primarily to Knight.

Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency, and fresh meat — especially organ meat — provides the vitamin C that prevents and partly reverses scurvy’s progression.

Iñupiat hunters had understood for generations that fresh meat kept a person alive through Arctic winters when no plant foods were available.

Modern nutritional science later confirmed that fresh seal meat, for example, contains substantial vitamin C, which is why traditional Iñupiat diets based on fresh marine mammal protein were sufficient to prevent scurvy.

Ada was implementing, through necessity, the same nutritional logic.