Documents recently discovered by historians at Stanford University reveal that members of the famed Donner Party did not eat their friends and family members out of desperation, as has been the belief, but rather because they were on a high-protein diet.
The Donner Party became hopelessly lost in 1846 on their way out west and had to camp in the snow and wilderness with, it has previously been claimed, no food or water. Forced to fend for themselves, it has been believed, they ate their own in order to survive the harsh winter.
“In fact,” says historian David Grimly-Smith of Stanford’s American history department, “we have discovered that the Donner Party had with them four hundred pounds of rice, one hundred pounds of macaroni and three hundred and fifty loaves of fresh baked cinnamon bread.”
However, Grimly-Smith says, documents uncovered — including letters and diaries — in the woods of California “positively indicate that the Donner family and the people they were traveling with were actually on a 19th century version of the Atkins diet.
They simply did not want to carbo-load.
This changes our view of American history entirely. Here we had thought the high-protein craze started in the 1970s and was most popular among celebrities and the wealthy. Now we see it was around in the mid 19th century and was even in vogue among the general populace. A lot of textbooks are going to have to be rewritten, let me tell you.”
