Russian Bears Go on Atkin's Diet

via Flickr Alan Vernon

Mr. Bear brings home take-out.

​Bears in Russia have joined the likes of Hollywood A-listers by going on a diet. They're eating mostly protein in order to, you know, shed those unwanted extra pounds. These ursine giants -- usually content with feasting on complex carbohydrates such as forest berries and mushrooms -- have begun consuming corpses, much to the dismay of locals.

Locals in the Koma region near the Arctic Circle, of course, take issue with the bears' lack of respect for cemeteries. Owing to a dirth of dining options, bears have resorted to raiding local cemeteries and digging up graves in order to fulfill their dietary needs. Bears can be messy eaters and tend to leave gravesites in terrible disarray, much to the dismay of local residents. A spokesman for the bear community went on record saying that if locals had not engaged in rampant fish poaching, the bears would have had more dining options available. 

A good source of protein, corpses are made up almost entirely of flesh, fat, and muscle tissue. Less fatty selections are more popular among the bears, which prefer a light marbling of fat throughout the corpse as opposed to a thick outer layer.

WebMD states that eating high-protein foods such as beef, pork, fish, chicken, tofu, nuts, beans, and eggs speeds up our metabolism, allowing us to burn more fat. Although corpse meat was not specifically mentioned in the article, we can only assume it was left off the list because of space issues. One full corpse makes a nutritional meal for a family of four bears, while domestic pets and goats make good options for between-meal snacks.

In unrelated news, locals in record numbers have been erecting fences around their property.