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

Pine needle tea carries a respectable amount of vitamin C. Not as much as fresh fruit, but it will get you by.