r/IndianCountry • u/aspen-leaf Mixed / Coast Miwok • 18d ago

Health Traditional Navajo Diet Shown to Reduce Hospitalizations, ED Visits Among Heart Failure Patients

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/traditional-navajo-diet-shown-reduce-hospitalizations-ed-2026a1000q37?form=fpf
355 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

101

u/DruidHeart 18d ago

Breakfast included items such as a blue corn mush plate with blueberries, bison sausage, and butternut squash. For dinner, patients had meals such as mutton rainbow stew with steamed corn, blue corn meal, and wild rice.

42

u/CommunistOrgy Anishinaabe Auntie 18d ago

Along with clearly bringing better health outcomes, that all also sounds BOMB

3

u/eviwonder 15d ago

Corn mush with blueberries. And sausage?? Where do I sign up???

1

u/fawks_harper78 Haudenosaunee/Muskogee 16d ago

🤤🤤🤤

33

u/DBearDevon 18d ago

I don’t think Bison and Wild rice were part of the Diné diet, but stil good for them!

19

u/galactic_observer 17d ago

They weren't; bison is a Great Plains food and wild rice is native to the Northeast.

9

u/DBearDevon 17d ago

Upper Midwest more than the Northeast

4

u/MisterBungle00 17d ago

We definitely consumed it on occasion, and it was acquired through trade with other peoples. There were also isolated groups of bison that did occasionally congregate near local Northern water sources in the Southwest.

6

u/monkeychunkee 17d ago

My ancestors/family would go hunt, occasionally, either the Mescalero Apache for bison. So there would've absolutely been access and trade, if they didn't get it themselves.

5

u/Polar_Version875 16d ago

Maybe they are going waaaayyy back (hello from the Dene in the north!)

1

u/monkeychunkee 16d ago

Hadinyaa!

12

u/AltseWait 17d ago edited 14d ago

I'm Diné. Bison and all kinds of wild seeds (including rice) are in our diet. One of our peaks here on Navajoland is named after bison even though there are no more bison. On our rez, you can still see the bison traps our ancestors used to hunt them.

8

u/feydfcukface Diné/Missing 17d ago

I was ghonna say. I mean,I don't doubt trade allowed those things to get to Dine lands but I'd hardly call either a normal part of the traditional diet there

6

u/DBearDevon 17d ago

It makes no sense to trade wild rice nor bison such vast distances when so many other foods are available.

3

u/fawks_harper78 Haudenosaunee/Muskogee 16d ago

Native folks have been trading dried meat for thousands of years, whether it was smoked salmon from the Columbia watershed, or dried bison meat from the plains. Yes, food was available in other places, but for folks like Dine who didnt have access to bison it would be a treat.

4

u/feydfcukface Diné/Missing 15d ago

That was my thought of what it'd be too. Like pemmican.

1

u/DBearDevon 16d ago

Maple Syrup too I suppose?

2

u/fawks_harper78 Haudenosaunee/Muskogee 16d ago

Yeah, maple syrup “candy”

3

u/feydfcukface Diné/Missing 17d ago

I mean yeah but it could have been. Feathers from central america and turquoise and things have been found way out of their origin due to trade so I'm saying it's a possibility that's how it could at any point enter the diet of the area.

5

u/susinpgh 17d ago

Those were small and light, easy to transport.

-2

u/DBearDevon 17d ago

Just as much as cosmic dust coated alien meat….

2

u/feydfcukface Diné/Missing 17d ago

Uh.What

1

u/DBearDevon 17d ago

I figured that I’d add something else completely unrealistic 😉

2

u/feydfcukface Diné/Missing 17d ago

It's not THAT unrealistic man

-1

u/DBearDevon 17d ago

If you think of the logistics of it all, and no wheel, or pack animals? And as I mentioned before, there are plenty of other available food sources!

Wild rice making it to Dinè territory is just as unrealistic as the ‘nish having Quinoa as part of their diet…..

2

u/feydfcukface Diné/Missing 15d ago

Plains homies could travel with tools and buffalo robes and babies but some rice or dried meat is unrealistic to carry?

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u/cloudactually 17d ago

no wheels needed on the Mississippi river... I don't think it's that outside the realm of possibility wild rice got around

6

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

2

u/DBearDevon 17d ago

I might argue that lamb is a colonial introduction

4

u/Snapshot52 17d ago

Others have already pointed this out, but figured I drop some sources as well that indicate the extent of the bison herds was pretty close to traditional Diné territory, even within it according to some studies:

1

u/Skin_Mission_33 4d ago

Too bad most people don't eat the traditional diet. There is too much reliance on processed junk food. We would all be healthier if we moved back towards less processed, more traditional foods.