Delphine Red Shirt. Photo by Rich Luhr / Flickr
Woyute, Food & Diet
By Delphine Red Shirt
Lakota Country Times Columnist
www.lakotacountrytimes.com Every morning, ina mita kin he, for as long as I could remember my mother, drank Lipton tea with white sugar. Her favorite treats were cookies with cheese, raisin bread, and full breakfasts of eggs, bacon and toast. Health experts on food and diet tell us that 4 of the top 10 causes of death in the US today are disease linked to diet: diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. The problem seems to be "the Western diet" filled with processed foods and meat, a lot of added fat and sugar and not enough vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. A diet that makes people fat and sick. In the early 1900's doctors and medical workers stationed in different parts of the world found that whenever people gave up their traditional diet and ate a Western diet, these four diseases appeared. When I think of my mother's diet, I understand what lead to her diabetes and heart disease. As humans we can adapt to any kind of diet, and we have, as Lakota people, but what if we go back to our native diet? Our Lakota diet was vastly different from what was introduced to us. Fruits for us were common, these were mixed with dried meats. Fish, duck, and other game were common. The one thing that is not common are grains like wheat and flour (no fry bread); no milk (bone marrow for calcium). The disturbing trend now is to say, these things like obesity are in our DNA, along with alcoholism. We are far stronger than that.
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We each have a choice: by changing our diet, drinking more water, eating less or no bread, eat nothing that comes in a box or package that has ingredients you can't pronounce. Each of us can reverse these trends. Woyute was simple and nourishing for us: simple soups (talo na timpsila), cherries and plums (dried fruit), and tea (unsweetened). What we put into our mouths, yute/a was a personal choice to build a strong body. For us, returning to this simple diet could help us stay healthier. (Delphine Red Shirt can be reached at redshirtphd@gmail.com) Find the award-winning Lakota Country Times on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter and download the new Lakota Country Times app today.
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