We focused on consumption of caribou, beluga whale, and ringed seal because of their importance in the
Inuit diet. Only data from consumers, defined as individuals who reported consuming more than 0 g/day of a particular country food, were included in the analysis.
The Inuit from Nunavik (Arctic Quebec, Canada) are heavily exposed to PCBs and methylmercury (MeHg) because of the long-range transport of these chemicals via atmospheric and ocean currents and their bioaccumulation in fish and sea mammals that are staples of the traditional
Inuit diet. Boucher et al.
Watt-Cloutier, who was instrumental in helping to push through the 2001 Stockholm Convention banning so-called persistent organic pollutants, which were turning up in the flesh of marine mammals that are a critical part of the
Inuit diet, is unflinching before world leaders and international forums.
* DHA is an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid found abundantly in fatty fish that is a staple of the
Inuit diet.
According to Gerd Mulvad and Henning Sloth Pedersen, two Greenlandic doctors, "A seventy-year old who has lived on the traditional
Inuit diet of seal and whale has coronary arteries that are just as elastic as those of a twenty-year old Dane."
