NUTRITION AMONG NORTH
AMERICAN INDIANS
This blog is to break your
stereotypic view of what the North American Indians consume.
When I was preparing to
write this blog, I thought about the common nature of the philosophies of
American Indians and Yogic and Buddhist philosophies. When I saw this quote
from Swami Sivananda, I thought what the Black Elk had said on a similar theme.
Prepare the soil of your heart. The Guru
will appear before you and sow the spiritual seed.
Sri
Swami Sivananda
No other
people in recent memory had to adjust to an uninvited group of people into
their country as much as the American Indians had to. The food changed, the
residence changed, the way of procuring a living changed and other belief
systems were imposed.
One hundred
years after the loss of freedom of the American Indians, I as a foreigner to
their land in every sense of the world am confronted with the problems of their
history and collaborate with them to find an answer.
I was
recently visiting a Youth Diabetes Prevention Programme among the Lakota
Indians. I am always glad to visit them because they are one of the successful
programmes and the workers are very enthusiastic about their mission.
Taking a
page from the Indian Philosophy about Sharing, Food as Medicine and Relationship,
we made the best use of our lunchtimes to take turns to prepare fresh food for
us all that we then shared over conversations and other pleasantries. There was
a cementing of the relationships between all of us, and food was the symbol.
We are
humbled about our work, the social nature of it and the success we have and most
of all the relationships we have built with young and old members of the
various communities in this vast reservation of Indians.
So Bon
Apetite!
