Return to Indigenous Food as Medicine
By: Olivia Whatley
In recent years, people have been incorporating integrative and traditional food as medicine more and more. According to the World Health Organization, 88% of countries use indigenous and traditional medicines and practices for their health and wellness in addition to modern medicines. In the West, there has been a rising trend of treating health issues with traditional medicines in tandem with or instead of modern medicine. These practices focus on the treatment of the whole body and are integrated into lifestyle. Some of these practices include, “Ayurveda, Yoga, traditional Chinese medicine, other traditional systems of medicine, meditation, herbal medicines, nutritional supplements, movement therapies, and other mind-body practices.” These are a set of practices that the WHO refers to as Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine or TCIM. There may be a new trend in the West of these practices becoming more popular, but these are traditional medicines that have been practiced since time Immemorial.
Westerners have relied primarily on modern medicine, forgoing their ancestral medicines since the beginning of the modern pharmaceutical industry in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution. Since then, traditional and indigenous medicines and practices have been seen as “pre-science” or not as effective as modern medicine. So why have people returned to traditional medicinal practices? The WHO states that this can be attributed to the increase in chronic diseases that require holistic approaches and lifestyle changes to be healed rather than pharmaceuticals alone. High rates of chronic diseases are on the rise globally and cannot be prevented or treated adequately by modern medicine. The average American citizen spends nearly 20% of their life chronically ill, usually in their later years. Another reason for this change according to the WHO is the high rates of adverse side effects to pharmaceuticals, especially for older people who are on multiple medications at once. The cost of modern healthcare is another significant reason why people of all ages have started returning to holistic medicines. “Estimates have been given that up to 75% of all US health costs can be saved by these methods, particularly if applied preventatively.”
Using traditional medicine to prevent chronic disease later in life can save people thousands of dollars in healthcare costs while retaining a health and wellness oriented life. Additionally, “Clean eating” has been a trend over the past few years. Consumers are caring more and more about the ingredients in their food and how those ingredients affect their health. People are understanding now that processed chemicals in food are contributing to our health issues. Mainstream wellness culture incorporates diet as a way to treat things like inflammation, gut issues, and chronic illness. Holistic, integrative, and traditional medicine does not need to be complicated. The lion share of which can be practiced in diet and exercise.
Food as Traditional Medicine
Food is one of the most important components of traditional medicine. Diet is a major contributor to chronic diseases like “obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, some cancers, and perhaps some neurological diseases.” Mindful eating is a traditional practice across many cultures, such as Indigenous traditions and Buddhism. Some traditional mindful eating practices involve intuitive eating, eating seasonally, and eating with the community. Intuitive eating traditionally involved eating foods that were seasonally available as there were no concepts of “good” or “bad” foods as we have with our diet cultures in the West today. People across all cultures have traditionally had their meals together. Eating meals with others has been linked to health benefits such as preventing obesity and diabetes. Food that is prepared for a shared meal together at home is lower in processed foods that cause health issues. Eating with others also helps us to slow down our eating which improves digestion, and leaves us feeling fuller with less food.
Apart from how we eat, what we eat is important in traditional medicine practices. Herbs and spices have been used to treat ailments across all cultures. Popular superfoods such as goji berries are used for their potent antioxidants, while immunity-boosting reishi mushrooms are traditional Chinese medicines. Turmeric, a spice in most people’s cabinets, is a traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine used to treat inflammation, swelling, and skin issues. Green tea is another readily available traditional Chinese medicine that has been used as a diuretic, an astringent, for heart health, as a source of caffeine, and even as an aid for metabolic health. Superfoods and herbs like these are an easy way to integrate traditional medicines into your diet. However, across most cultures, the most important aspects of a traditional medicinal diet are a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and lean proteins.
Traditional Food as Medicine: A Case Study
Native American communities face high risks of food insecurity and chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and kidney disease due in part to a lack of access to their traditional foods. This is due to native communities being located in rural food deserts where access to healthy food is limited. The loss of biodiversity results in higher consumption of calorically dense and highly processed foods that cause long-term health issues . Exacerbating the situation, government agencies have made it illegal for native peoples to hunt or forage outside of their reservations in areas where they once had access to their traditional foods. The compounding effect of the loss of food security, loss of access to healthy food, loss of land, loss of economic opportunity, and colonization trauma have caused widespread chronic disease in native communities. Traditional medicine for Native Americans is a way of life, it stretches beyond treating an ailment and it is not compartmentalized like we see medicine in the global West. Medicine is integrated into their traditional lifestyles. The specific medicinal practices are diverse across the different peoples native to the Americas, but there is a common thread of medicine treating not only the body, but the spirit, the heart, and the mind as well.
Food is not separate from medicine in many native cultures. For example, juniper berries are eaten for vitamin C and used to treat urinary tract infection. Salmon is rich in vitamins and minerals and is considered sacred to many tribes. Cedar can be used to cleanse the spiritual body, used topically as an antifungal, and drank as a tea to fight infections . As with these examples, in many First Nations cultures, food is not just food, but medicine and tradition.
Conclusion
People have used food as medicine since time immemorial. Eating a diverse plant-based diet is traditional to many cultures. Eating in this way prevented chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease from overwhelming communities before processed and calorie-dense foods became the only available foods. Using food as medicine to prevent or treat ailments and disease can be empowering to communities to take their health into their own hands. It is a lifestyle different from the pharmaceutical medicine in the Global West that commonly treats the side effects, not the root problems. Eating in a traditional medicine way can prevent thousands of dollars of healthcare issues later in life. Using traditional food as medicine can also be a way for people to connect with their cultures. The trend towards using food as medicine benefits everyone as it makes the knowledge of how to use the earth around you as making medicine accessible to everyone.
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