Blackbear

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FROM: INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY NEWSPAPER

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410896

Mohawk: Traditional Nutrition Can Prevent Disease

Posted: May 05, 2005
by: John Mohawk / Indian Country Today


It has been apparent for well over a decade that when indigenous peoples
shift from their traditional diet to a ''modern'' highly refined carbohydrate diet
they become exposed to a range of degenerative diseases. The most pervasive
is diabetes mellitus.

This disease is epidemic among all indigenous peoples in North America (and
many other parts of the world) and seems especially destructive among desert
populations. A population which is introduced to a radical food - a food that
either does not appear in nature or is probably not intended for human
consumption - can require long periods of exposure before becoming physically adapted
to it. No one knows for certain how long this might take, but it is clear that
not enough time has passed to render these foods safe for indigenous
consumption.

This is the case throughout indigenous America. In Mexico, some 3.8 million
suffer from the disease. A range of groups such as Native Seed Search (which
has a group, Desert Foods for Diabetes) and Tohono O'odham Community Action have
mobilized to promote nutrition education among the people.

The ''cure'' for the malady has been with them all along. It lies in their
own traditional foods which include, for desert people, such traditional
favorites as cacti and prickly pear and an impressive list of foods gathered from the
desert.

Diabetes is so prevalent in some communities that up to 65 percent of the
adult population has it. Given that a pathway to health is known, one might
expect it would be easy to make changes that could reverse the unhealthy trend, but
the problem can be daunting. Of the most powerful garden products, tepary
beans are known to provide dramatic results. People who include such high-fiber
beans have been known to reverse their symptoms, but knowing what to do isn't
the same as being able to do it. Young people, raised on a diet of fast-food
restaurants, complain they don't like tepary (or any other) beans.

This situation provides a problem familiar to anthropologists. How do you get
people to change their food habits? No one knows, but one thing is certain:
it's not easy to change people's eating patterns. The list of related health
issues is daunting: circulatory ailments, stroke, kidney failure, obesity and so
forth. The preferred lifestyle changes that would help reverse the trends are
predictable: traditional foods, increased exercise and avoidance of harmful
foods and habits.

Traditional foods have qualities that are somewhat rare in a contemporary
grocery store. All foods that are gathered from the natural world, such as cacti
and wild berries, are what have been designated ''slow foods.'' They have not
been cultivated. Cultivated foods rely on human activity to protect them from
enemies such as weeds and even drought. They reward the agriculturalist with
high yields, but they differ from their wild relatives.

One way in which they are different is they are generally easier to digest
and to cook. For people who are in a hurry this seems to be a good thing, but
for people who are sensitive to rapidly absorbed carbohydrates, they produce a
higher level of blood sugar than did the wild foods. As a rule, the more a
plant is hybridized, and the more its fruit is refined by machinery or chemistry,
the more rapidly its carbohydrates are likely to be absorbed in the
bloodstream. Some indigenous peoples have survived on the wild foods growing in their
homelands for centuries. Those foods once saved them from hunger. Today they can
help save them from degenerative diseases.

I once heard that culture is what one does without thinking about it. This
was in regard to the foods people eat as well as the customs they follow. In the
days before the epidemic Indian people didn't need to think about what they
needed to do. It was a given that people would get exercise because there
wasn't much choice. There were no cars and, in most cases, few horses, so unless
one was going to just lie around, they had to walk. And since no one was raising
food for them and food stamps were unknown, people who wanted to eat had to
do something: hunt, fish, garden - all good exercise.

A healthy diet was pretty easy to come by, as well. Indeed, there were few
alternatives to healthy foods. If you wanted to eat junk food, you were out of
luck.

In the contemporary world, doing things without thinking about them is not
working out. This is true of all people because the same issues are impacting
all populations worldwide. We are seeing an unprecedented growth of the same
diseases even among affluent suburban populations. The antidote may require some
organizing.

The first step is nutrition education, but simply telling people about the
problem is not enough. Something like a mini cultural revolution needs to happen
along the line of the Red Road or the Weight Watchers culture. People are
going to need alternatives to unhealthy diets and lifestyles, and they will need
to support one another and share ideas and, in this case, recipes.

They need to share experiences about which foods available are ''slow foods''
or like slow foods. They are mostly found in the fresh fruits and vegetables
section, but people can't live on fruits and vegetables alone. OK, they can,
but they won't. They want variety and things that are treats and comforting and
all the things that the dangerous foods can be.

It would help if people could organize themselves into support groups to help
each other. This is actually consistent with indigenous cultures that often
created ''societies'' of people who committed to helping one another. In this
case, the help might come in the form of shared recipes and information about
how some foods are beneficial and others are dangerous. Regular meetings could
offer information about the traditional culture, and provide information about
sourcing traditional slow foods. There might even be a way to share success
stories.

Such a movement should not only be open to and focused on children and young
adults. Exercise is important, food is important, self-esteem and a long list
of things are important; and sharing a path toward healing is the most
important of all. The ancient Indians knew that, and contemporary Indians need to
learn it and practice it. There can be a way to cultural as well as physical
health.

John C. Mohawk Ph.D., columnist for Indian Country Today, is associate
professor of American Studies and director of Indigenous Studies at the State
University of New York at Buffalo.

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