But they did not understand why, and in Arctic conditions where no citrus fruits existed, they could not apply the solution.

Iñupiat communities had no citrus fruits.

They had almost no plant foods at all for most of the year.

And yet traditional Iñupiat populations did not suffer from scurvy — a fact that puzzled European observers for decades.

The solution was in how fresh meat was handled.

Fresh raw or lightly cooked seal, walrus, caribou, and particularly muktuk — the skin and blubber of beluga and bowhead whales — contain substantial vitamin C.

Vitamin C is destroyed by prolonged cooking.