In the modern world, maintaining a healthy diet can be challenging. Fast food and prepackaged meals provide quick, inexpensive alternatives to healthier options and home-cooked meals. Even in remote areas, snacks like burgers, chips, candies, and sodas are readily available. However, diet and nutrition are essential to overall health, and a poor diet can significantly affect the well-being of elders. American Indians and Alaska Natives, in particular, are predisposed to obesity and diabetes. Historically, Native people did not face these health disparities. Research indicates that the "modern" Western diet is detrimental to the health of all consumers, especially elders.
Health Disparities Among Native Elders
American Indian and Alaska Native elders face disproportionately high rates of obesity, with nearly 40% of men and over 46% of women being obese. The rates of diabetes are even more striking, with over 16% of Native people having the disease, more than twice the rate of the general U.S. population. Among Native elders, almost one in three (30%) have diabetes. Some Native communities, such as the Pima of Arizona, have even higher rates, reaching as high as 60%. Untreated diabetes can lead to severe consequences, including amputations, blindness, and death.
Several factors contribute to these high rates of diabetes and obesity among Native elders. Besides a genetic predisposition, diet, exercise, and other lifestyle factors play significant roles. Since the introduction of European foods, Native diets have changed dramatically.
Traditional Navajo Diet: A Healthier Past
The diets of Native ancestors were rich in complex carbohydrates like whole grains, peas, beans, and potatoes, and lower in fats from meats, dairy products, and oils. Harvested foods typically included seeds, nuts, corn, beans, chile, squash, wild fruits and greens, herbs, fish, and game, utilizing all parts of the animal, including meat, organs, and oils. Foods were preserved through drying and smoking for later use. Indigenous agricultural practices demonstrated environmental cooperation, as seen in the "three sisters" method of planting corn, beans, and squash together. Corn draws nitrogen from the soil, while beans replenish it.
The Diné, commonly known as the Navajo, are an Indigenous tribe located in the southwestern United States, specifically in the four corners region of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Traditionally, the Navajo diet heavily relied on maize, like other Native tribes. Their diet was also shaped by available regional foods such as pumpkins, yucca, elk, cottontail rabbits, mutton, and acorns.
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The Impact of European Contact and Government Policies
In the 15th century, European settlers introduced sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, melons, watermelon, apples, grapes, and wheat to the Americas. Spanish sheep, particularly the Navajo Churro sheep, significantly changed the lifeways of the Navajo (Diné).
The shift in the diets of American Indians and Alaska Natives was exacerbated by forced removal from their homelands and relocation to reservations. The Federal Indian Removal Act of 1830 led to the forced removal of over 100,000 American Indians to Oklahoma Territory. In 1864, the Diné endured the Long Walk, a forced relocation from Arizona to New Mexico. The Trail of Tears in 1868 forced the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Nations to Oklahoma.
These forced removals and the destruction of traditional food sources were deliberate governmental efforts to subjugate Native peoples. The Army encouraged the killing of buffalo, a crucial food source. This destructive effort continued into the 20th century with Native children being removed from their families and communities and placed in boarding schools, where they experienced forced assimilation, neglect, abuse, oppression, and intergenerational trauma.
The federal government discouraged traditional hunting and gathering practices and provided food rations known as commodity foods, including lard, flour, coffee, sugar, and canned meat (spam). These foods were entirely foreign to the traditional Native diet, causing dramatic dietary changes and contributing to poor health outcomes, including diabetes. The government never provided enough food, leading to food insecurity.
Modern Challenges: Food Deserts and Food Insecurity
Today, Native people face lower life expectancy, more chronic health conditions, disease, violence, poverty, and an overall lower quality of life, along with food insecurity. Elders who cannot drive or lack transportation struggle to access healthy food choices. Many Native people face food insecurity, defined as the inability to access sufficient, affordable, nutritious food due to a lack of money or resources. Almost one in four Native households experience food insecurity.
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Elders living on reservations or in rural areas often have limited options for purchasing food and face difficulties accessing those places. Many live in "food deserts," areas with limited or no access to affordable healthy food choices like fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole foods. This means that many elders may only have access to fast food or convenience stores rather than healthy foods. Contemporary Western diets are high in processed foods containing simple carbohydrates (refined sugar), salts, and fats. Frybread, a common food in Indian Country, exemplifies this shift from traditional foods to government-issued commodities.
Revitalizing Traditional Food Systems
Tribal Nations are working to restore traditional food systems and rebuild relationships with the land, water, plants, and animals. Native communities can conduct food sovereignty assessments to understand their current food system and plan how to regain control of their local food systems. The First Nations Development Institute offers a Food Sovereignty Assessment Tool that can be adapted to local communities, including information on participation, data collection, survey questions, asset mapping, and developing and implementing local plans.
The Sicangu Food Sovereignty Initiative (SFSI), developed by the Rosebud of South Dakota with input from community elders, local producers, and partner organizations, aims to use regenerative agriculture for all food production within the boundaries of Rosebud. It also seeks to establish infrastructure to facilitate equitable access to nutritious food for all communities. For example, a Tribal food code will be created to account for traditional harvesting and food preparation techniques, which are not addressed in state and federal food codes. Another effort involves organizing small local farmers to collectively sell their produce to meet the supply demands of Rosebud’s institutional food market (schools, stores, etc.). Additionally, SFSI provides a mobile grocery market sourcing from local producers. This initiative aims to restore the understanding of food as medicine that heals the body, mind, and spirit of the Oyate, and deepens Lakota identity. The food system will foster and support sustainable business ventures, making food production and entrepreneurship a viable pathway for job creation and income generation, empowering youth to lead their families back to self-determination by knowing how to grow, harvest, and prepare foods of their choice, and empowering tribal citizens to make highly informed consumption decisions.
Some activists, in partnership with Tribal Nations and universities, are advocating for a return to traditional Native diets. One such movement is the "Decolonizing Diet Project," started by Professor Marty Reinhardt at Northern Michigan University. This project views the change in dietary practices resulting from the colonization of North America as a form of oppression. These projects share common objectives: engaging elders to build and share knowledge among the community, educating communities about traditional diets, reviving traditional practices, and increasing physical activity through hunting, gathering, gardening, and traditional food preparation. Many Native cultures teach that "Food is medicine."
Traditional Navajo Foods
The principal foods of the Navajo are mutton, boiled, and corn prepared in many ways. Wild plants gathered for food in early times included greens from beeweed, seeds from hedge mustard, pigweed and mountain grass, tubers of wild onions and wild potatoes, and fruits like yucca, prickly pear, grapes, and wild berries such as currants, chokecherries, sumac, rose, and raspberries. Women would gather acorns, pinyon nuts, and walnuts in the mountains each year. In times of drought, pinyon nuts were a major food source. Wild potatoes, once abundant around Fort Defiance, served as fresh vegetables from April to June. Yucca was used as a relish and to add variety to meals, dried, baked, ground, roasted, and made into cakes for storage.
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Today, the Navajo have largely conformed to American society, which is reflected in their eating habits. However, some restaurants now specialize in serving Native American food. The Navajo Nation faces significant poverty, and the region is considered a food desert. A 2014 study found that while supermarkets offered healthier options than convenience stores, healthier foods were more expensive in both types of stores.
Addressing Health Problems
Studies have shown diabetes to be a major health problem in the Navajo Nation. A 1997 study found that 22.9% of Navajo people aged 20 or over had Diabetes Mellitus, with the figure rising to 40% for those aged 45 and older. A 2010 study found that Native Americans and Alaska Natives were three to four times more likely to have diabetes and three to five and a half times more likely to have type II diabetes compared to the average American. Native individuals with diabetes were also more likely to suffer from hypertension, renal failure, neuropathy, mental disorders, and liver disease, with a strong correlation between diabetes and substance abuse and amputations. A 2013 study found that programs promoting healthy eating at the seller level had a slight impact on weight problems in the Navajo Nation.
Fry Bread: A Complex Symbol
Navajo fry bread is a significant cultural staple with a complex history. It was created in 1864 when the Navajo were forced to make the Long Walk from Arizona to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico and were given flour, sugar, salt, lard, and baking powder by the government. Despite its origins in hardship, fry bread and Indian tacos are now popular at Native American gatherings in the Navajo region and have even made it into restaurants.
Taking Steps Toward a Healthier Diet
Eating a healthy diet can be a challenge due to food deserts, the unhealthy nature of commodities, the convenience of fast foods, and limited resources. However, individuals can start slowly by preparing healthy traditional recipes with traditional ingredients to preserve and promote their culture. All elders can benefit from a healthier diet, making one change at a time. Changing diets is not easy, and habits can be hard to break, but making small, incremental changes can lead to successful habit changes.
Cooking methods such as sautéing, baking, broiling, roasting, boiling, and steaming are recommended. Healthy traditional oils, such as seal oil (if available) or avocado, olive, and expeller-expressed sesame oils, should be used. Drinking several glasses of water each day and avoiding sugary drinks and processed foods is also important. Trying traditional recipes and ingredients can help preserve culture and promote health.
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