Effects of preparation on nutrient and environmental contaminant levels in Arctic beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) traditional foods.

For Canadian Arctic indigenous populations, marine mammal (MM) traditional foods (TFs) represent sources of both important nutrients and hazardous environmental contaminants. Food preparation is known to impact the nutrient and environmental contaminant content of processed items, yet the impacts of preparation on indigenous Arctic MM TFs remain poorly characterized. In order to determine how the various processes involved in preparing beluga blubber TFs affect their levels of nutrients and environmental contaminants, we collected blubber samples from 2 male beluga whales, aged 24 and 37 years, captured during the 2014 summer hunting season in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, and processed them according to local TF preparation methods.