Toxic Contamination Undermining Indigenous Food Systems and Indigenous Sovereignty

Abstract

As an Anishinaabekwe I have heard our old people, our experts, talk over and over again about the importance of eating in a traditional way in order to maintain individual and community health and well-being. Our traditional foods are of higher nutritious value than processed foods and the process of gathering, gardening, fishing, trapping and hunting bring about a cultural, emotional and spiritual wellness a trip to the local grocery store cannot.

Harvesting of Traditional Foods was a significant part of our traditional economies in pre-conquest times. Self-sufficiency, sharing and trading all flowed from ones ability to feed their extended family and contribute to the workings of our Nations. Even in contemporary times, Traditional Foods make substantial contributions to traditional economies. Many Indigenous Peoples living around the Great Lakes as well as other areas of North American continue to hunt, fish, pick rice, fruit and berries, harvest plants and participate in traditional forms of agriculture in order to meet their needs. But traditional Foods are important for more than just economic reasons. Elders and western scientists agree that Traditional Foods are often of higher nutritional value than commercially produced food items (MacDonald 1997; Kuhnlein 1993)