DDP at first might sound like a new insecticide we have to watch our for, or a type of yoga (so that one is true see: ddpyoga.com ), however, DDP for our sake stands for Decolonizing Diet Project. The Diet Project was researched by Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies. For one year, Martin Reinhardt and a group of 25 volunteers ate foods that were indigenous to the area of the Great Lakes region. Reinhardt is an Anishinaabe Ojibway citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
Curious about the foods they were allowed to eat? They have a “Master List” available for all to see on their webpage. This Master List is not limiting, at quick glance there are 10 pages within this excel document. It is beautifully divided, starting with the scientific, common, and Anishinaabe name, then the sorting changes slightly depending on what list you are on. In the plants list, for example, following the nomenclature there is data relevant to the USDA, such as, is it palatable, native, threatened or endangered in Great Lakes Region.
Participants of the study exclaimed they were nervous about starting a new diet, but not all went in 100%; most were in the 50-75% range. Reinhardt exclaimed it helped him reconnect with his ancestors in a way of “pre-colonial sovereignty”; he was able to forage for food on United States Forest Service Land by invoking his treaty rights. What a great example to be setting, Harriet Kuhnlein [the director of Center of Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE)], stated it simply, “Traditional food systems need to be documented so that policymakers know what is at stake by ruining an ecosystem, not only for the indigenous peoples living there, but for everyone.”
When the land is managed properly, as it was done with indigenous societies, it can be seen as wealthy. With healthy lands come successful crops and healthy people of the land. The indigenous knowledge should have been gifted and used for ‘the greater good,’ instead we took their land and their societies away from them. Racism and cultural genocide provided the environmental decline we see as normal today. Colonization has changed the landscape and the way indigenous people get their food.
One goal of the DDP study was to bring awareness to the ‘old way of life’ that occurred prior to colonization. The participants of the study also learned new ways of preserving food, similar to that of the tribes in the Great Lakes region. Imagine if you got 100 people to eat locally for an entire year? Imagine if you ate nothing but locally grown food for the entire year. Unless you planned ahead you wouldn’t be able to put that tomato sauce on your pizza that you usually do. Your diet would change with the seasons, and unless you have your own garden (and a lot of time/ skillset) you would depend on the year-round farmer’s market options for fresh local produce. Alternatively, there are places you could sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), visit the farm directly, or buy local produce/grains at the grocery store or bulk. As Reinhardt said, “There is a deep historical interconnectedness, or spiritual kinship, between indigenous peoples and their traditional homelands that makes the act of eating indigenous plants and animals much more personal.”
Take a stand with indigenous people and fight with them for their culture; create a new way of thinking about our civilization. If they can obtain all of their diet locally, why shouldn’t we be able to? The Decolonization Diet Project was also able to avoid ingesting genetically modified organisms. Would you be willing to take that plunge, and swear off genetically engineered food for a year? How about starting small and agreeing to one week?
Works Cited
NAM News Network. (2014, January 25). Analysis: Turning To Ancient Diets To Alleviate Modern Ills. Retrieved October 14, 2014 from
http://www.namnewsnetwork.org/v3/read.php?id=MjU3MDAx
Northern Michigan University. (2012, October 24). Native American ancestors’ diet part of study and challenge. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 14, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024093000.htm
Northern Michigan University. Course: Decolonizing Diet Project. Retrieved October 14, 2014 from https://share.nmu.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=33
I think that a similar approach to DDP could be used anywhere in the world- especially here in the Willamette Valley. I honestly do not know if I would be able to go a week without ingesting GMOs. I feel like I would accidentally eat some by buying a cheap snack between classes- like a granola bar- or by accidentally putting some non- organic milk in my coffee. I do think a project like DDP could bring awareness to foods available in a local setting- we could relearn how to eat/ incorporate acorns/camas into our diets! I think your suggestion of signing up for a CSA is a good step towards moving away from our conventional food system- aka our colonized food system.
Really appreciate your position in this response, and although I may not agree with it completely, I think its takes courage to take a stand and encouraging others to think critically is very important. The outside research you did on the study definitely makes your argument stronger. One aspect of your response that I had difficulty with was your statement about indigenous groups using proper land management. This is a touchy topic but I think it is important to understand that not all native people managed land with the sole purpose of benefitting nature, for many groups it was just the opposite. For example, here in the Willamette Valley the Kalapuya routinely burned the landscape so that animals couldn’t hide in the understory, making hunting easier. Although this wasn’t exactly detrimental to the natural environment and trees such a oaks often benefitted from this practice, we still can’t say that this was “proper” land management or that the landscape at that time was “natural”. Over all I agree that as humans we need to rethink how we relate to food and I think becoming more locally sustainable is a great solution to multiple issues this article raised.