How did Indigenous peoples of the Americas avoid scurvy when Citrus trees didn’t arrive in the Americas until after colonization began?

Question

I know there were a wide variety of indigenous populations with a wide variety of diets based on where they lived. I was wondering what kinds of foods different people from the Americas would eat to get their required dose of vitamin C? I imagine the answer would be different depending on if we are talking about indigenous peoples of the Amazon vs Central America vs Appalacia, vs the Rocky mountains, vs the Caribbeans, vs the far north of modern day Canada, ect…

Were there vitamin C rich food common to all these areas? If not what were some of the different sources available to different regions? I saw an answer from 8 years ago about Eskimos specifically ([https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t3m1c/eli5\_why\_did\_pirates\_get\_scurvy\_but\_eskimos\_dont/](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t3m1c/eli5_why_did_pirates_get_scurvy_but_eskimos_dont/)), but I was wondering how different the answer would be in other regions.

In: 1

Answer 1

The importance of citrus fruit as a cure or preventative for scurvy has as much to do with how long they keep as their vitamin C content. Most vegetables and fruits have plenty of vitamin C but they go off earlier. Sauerkraut was also used because it’s pickled therefore keeps. Indigenous Americans had fresh fruit and veg around them most of the time.