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Native America Calling: Federal food guidelines, seals and treaty rights, and buffalo for city dwellers
Thursday, January 29, 2026
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The Menu: Federal food guidelines, seals and treaty rights, and buffalo for city dwellers
Do Native Americans need more encouragement to consume saturated fats?

Native nutritionists are wondering how the new federal dietary guidelines just unveiled by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. intersects with decades of scientific research urging the population with the highest rates of heart disease to limit their saturated fat intake. The new federal food pyramid shows up in recommendations for programs like Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Head Start, Indian Health Service, and the National School Lunch Program.

Meanwhile, tribes in the Pacific Northwest are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to seals taking a bite out of the salmon populations they worked decades to preserve. The seals are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The seals feast on fish that on which the tribes rely. Tune in to take a look at how this situation affects tribal treaty rights and what tribes are doing in response.

Also, a handful of organizations are working to strengthen traditional connections between urban Native residents and buffalo. Organizers in Chicago and Denver are among those working to put the animals closer to Native people who might not otherwise have exposure to a significant traditional source of food.

Guests on Native America Calling
Dr. Tara Maudrie (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), assistant professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Social Work

Ceclia Gobin (Tulalip), conservation policy analyst with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Dnisa Oocumma (Eastern Band of Cherokee), community engagement coordinator for the American Indian Center in Chicago, Illinois

Lewis TallBull (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma), co-founder and president of Sacred Return

Dr. Valarie Jernigan (Choctaw), professor of medicine and director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy at Oklahoma State University’s Center for Health Sciences

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