The Importance of Food Sovereignty

I grew up from an area where we once cultivated the land and cultivated our own medicines, and then being pushed to the reservation and having to live off of government resources that really did our people in in terms of health care because they were giving us government subsidies. And these foods are the most horrible foods you can imagine. Yeah. And they had no nutrients. They were not nutrient dense. And of course, they did impact our community in so many ways to where we have chronic illnesses, from left to right that are still plaguing our society today. And it's now become a generational chronic illness, and of course from cancers to diabetes. And that's why, you know, for us and for myself, you know, I want to make sure that, you know, we're taking action when it comes down to nutritional health and including this as a supplemental strategy for health care and health care going into the future. So we got to look into soil quality and the nutrients we put into our foods and make sure our foods are quality. But again, all to sustainable use. We want to make sure that people can afford these foods. And of course, I'm looking at practical solutions when it comes to primary care.

You unpack so many important things. You talked about social determinants of health. You talked about food sovereignty. You talked about the commodity program on the reservations that has made those populations so sick. And, you know, looking historically what happened, not only were the lands taken in a way, but food sovereignty, meaning their ability to control and gather and hunt their own foods, their traditional foods, was impacted. And in order for them to be fed, they received large amounts of government surplus foods, white flour, white sugar, and white fat known as Crisco or shortening. And these became the staple foods.