Ancient Food In The Ancient Southern Land
– Over 70% of the foods we eat today did not exist before the industrial revolution. From an evolutionary perspective, there is simply no way for our bodies to know what to do with these “foods” (which, as we all know, aren’t real food at all).
– Broken down by nutrient ratios, what we feed cattle to “fatten them up” is almost identical to the government-sanctioned food pyramid for a “healthy” diet. Is it any wonder we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic?
– It was only when we started eating animal foods that our brains doubled in size, allowing for the modern human and all our advances. Interesting irony that the very capacity for making an argument for a plant-based diet comes from our ancestors’ move away from a plant-based diet.
– An Australian study was done with a group of First Nations people who had grown up in a traditional hunter gatherer environments, and then moved into urban environments where they adopted modern diets, lifestyles and (unsurprisingly) health concerns such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. They returned to the outback and their hunter gatherer ways for a seven week period.
In just seven weeks (!!), they lost weight and all their health markers (insulin resistance, blood pressure, cholesterol levels) normalized.
Interestingly, they were less active than in their urban environments, so exercise was NOT a factor.– Very simply, as Prof. Mike Richards, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology says, “What we are adapted to [evolutionarily] is not what we are living [or eating] right now.”I do wish the film spent a little more time diving into the issue of quality. Clearly our Paleolithic ancestors were eating exclusively wild game, and wild fruits and vegetables grown in nutrient-rich soil. There was no such thing as a feedlot or chemical pesticide.Ultimately, what we choose to eat is a very personal decision. But what we are designed to eat is evolutionarily and genetically wired. I highly encourage you to take the time to watch this thought-provoking film. http://www.eatnakednow.com/in-search-of-the-perfect-human-diet/
COLONISATION:
So that the full impact of what I want to say is understood in its context, let me begin with a short lesson on colonialism. This is necessary, because colonisation is seen in western minds as something in the past, that should stay there, and be for-gotten about. While the impact of the process on the colonised is recognised, there is a reluctance on the part of the colonisers to recognise how they, too, have lost something of their humanity.
So many in this land still see the difference between Murris and those boat people who began coming here 216 years ago, as being one of race, rather than the difference between coloniser and colonised. That difference, and the historical legacy of colonisation, is at the root of much of the conflict throughout the world today. Re-solving it can contribute insights into there solution of other conflicts, globally and locally.
The top ten most shocking health stats for Aboriginal People
- Prevalence of rheumatic heart disease is 36 times higher for males and 28 times higher for females for Aboriginals living in the Top End, when compared to non-Indigenous people.
- Overall, diabetes is around four times more common among Indigenous people than among other Australians. Diabetes was more common for Indigenous people living in remote areas than for those living in nonremote areas
- Chronic disease is responsible for 80% of the mortality gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, with diabetes accounting for 12%
- Cardio Vascular Disease was the leading cause of death of Indigenous people in 2012. It was responsible for 25% of the deaths of Indigenous people living in NSW, Qld, WA, SA and the NT. After age adjustment, the death rate for Indigenous people was almost twice as high as that for nonIndigenous people.
- Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes contribute to mortality rates for chronic disease over 100 times higher in the Indigenous population than the non-Indigenous population.
- Overall mortality rates for chronic diseases are 10-15 times higher in Indigenous than non-Indigenous Australians.
- According to ABS statistics, in 2012-13, 41% of Indigenous people aged 15 years and over reported smoking on a daily basis. Indigenous people aged 15 years and over were 2.6 times as likely as non-Indigenous people to be current daily smokers.
- Indicators of psychogenic stress were found in greater concentrations for Indigenous than for non-Indigenous groups. Stress is known to adversely affect health. Social changes, low control, and living conditions associated with westernisation may be inherently stressful at the biological level for indigenous populations in westernised countries.
- It has been found that Indigenous people aged 18 years and over were more likely than non-Indigenous people to have recorded a high blood pressure reading at a rate of 1.2 times the reading.
- Last but not least – Life expectancy gaps of 10-12 years persist between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians! While Australia is ranked in the top ten nations in the world for overall life expectancy, life expectancies for Indigenous Australians are comparable to less developed nations life Bangladesh and Indonesia.
https://chuffed.org/project/ourhopeforhealth
Books & Films referenced:
The Oldest Foods on Earth, John Newton
https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-oldest-foods-on-earth-john-newton/prod9781742234373.html
The Biggest Estate on Earth- How Aborigines made Australia. Bill Gammage
Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? Bruce Pascoe
https://www.bookdepository.com/Dark-Emu-Bruce-Pascoe/9781489380371
Exploring Cultural Determinants of Health and Wellbeing Dr Ngaire Brown
https://www.lowitja.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/Ngaire-Brown.pdf
Professor Gregory Phillips interview by the late Tiga Bayles
http://989fm.com.au/podcasts/lets-talk/gregory-phillips/
Bushtucker Success Story, Thelma Lander
http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/05/18/4237619.htm
Where to buy bushfood, Outback Pride Fresh: http://www.outbackpridefresh.com.au/where-to-buy/distributors/
The Perfect Human Diet, C.J. Hunt – movie
https://itunes.apple.com/au/movie/the-perfect-human-diet/id582517097
Murri Elder, Aunty Lilla Watson.
Did you know Australia Has the Oldest and Most Nutritious Foods on Earth?
So why aren’t we eating them? Before the British invaded, The First People of Australia were thriving on a vast diet of more than 6000 plants, grains and meats. There is a native strain of rice; grass seeds used for bread and native birds with meat comparable to the best poultry in our restaurants. John Newton, author of Oldest Foods On Earth.
With European settlement “a majestic achievement ended”, now “we have a continent to learn”. Says author of “The Biggest Estate on Earth” Bill Gammage. His challenge to us all: a revelation of what will be required if we are to one day “understand our country” and “become Australian”. If you want to hear more from authors Bruce Pascoe, John Newton and Bill Gammage, join us for our upcoming series as we take a journey discovering the oldest super foods and the genius knowledge systems of our First People of this country we all call home now.
“Before the British invaded, Aboriginal Australians were thriving on a vast diet of more than 6000 plants, grains and meats. There is a native strain of rice; grass seeds used for bread and native birds with meat comparable to the best poultry in our restaurants. Yet in those same restaurants we have an insignificant sample of our country’s produce, just a few garnishes or maybe a kangaroo tail. Our supermarkets barely stock a single Indigenous spice, herb or dried fruit, let alone anything fresh.”
“There are about 30 varieties of Kakadu plum trees,” Newton says. “How many have we tried? Hardly any. There’s so much still to be explored.”
This produce not only sustained Australia’s first peoples but formed part of their life and culture. It wasn’t simply nomadically picked, it was cared for and controlled. Newton writes that pre-colonial Aboriginal communities reared possums, emus and cassowaries; penned young pelican chicks; they used fishing nets, duck traps and terraced farming. “The entire country was carefully and thoroughly farmed in a manner that left the land and its bounty in balance and abundance.”
Until colonisation. “By bringing our own food and farming, which were totally unsuitable for the country, we obliterated the mercantile and nutritional life of the Indigenous community. We wiped it out.” Newton writes that food was an essential part of Aboriginal life. Without the land to source it, its nutritional value, and the cultural meaning behind its harvesting and procurement, the Aboriginal way of life was forcefully degraded.
Newton claims one of the most important parts of his book is the account of food rationing. Among the countless crimes against Aboriginal people this was one of the most subtle but significant. The book quotes historian and sociologist Tim Rowse who says, “From the 1980s rationing began to replace violence as a mode of government.” Although the rations were meagre, it was an easy source of food and brought Aboriginal communities away from their land and into the settlements. The degradation of Aboriginal culture and diet, combined with the colonial disregard and distaste for Australia’s produce, led to a history of illiteracy and ignorance regarding native foods.
The ration diet largely consisting of flour, sugar, fat and tea and the effect it still has in First Nation Communities has created the cycles of ill health we still see today. The introduced food and lifestyle has kept communities in a state of despair, this can be seen with the latest statistics.
Traditional foods have had a significant and beneficial role in the diets and way of life of Aboriginal people for thousands of years. Before European settlement in Australia the diets of Aboriginal people safeguarded them against diabetes and obesity. The benefits of traditional foods and their procurement are well established and compelling. The indirect benefits of traditional foods on the wider social determinants of health are as equally important. Traditional foods and associated resources can be the foundations of improved education, employment and commercial opportunities. These foods must be protected from contaminants from mining or other practices that are increasingly widespread among regions where Aboriginal communities exist. Promoting and protection of traditional foods will improve food security and this will ultimately be dependent on the continued access and preference for these foods by Aboriginal people.
Did you know that Aboriginal people were the first people in the world to make bread, 15,000 years in advance of the Egyptians? Or that we have the oldest art in the world, the oldest tool manufacture in the world? These are important facts – we should all share in our pride that this country was a leader in human development.
At her heaviest, Bubsy, as she is affectionately known around her hometown of Quilpie in south-west Queensland, weighed in at 136 kilograms. “It was just exhausting to go anywhere because I was fat and my enlarged heart and my lungs … it was a real effort to walk around,” she said. “There were many fences I used to lean on, on the way downtown and back.” The great grandmother says alcohol and junk food were her biggest weaknesses. “I used to hook into the booze a bit, being an alcoholic I’d get the munchies,” she said. “I’d come home and cook up a storm, eat up big and not do exercise but … I realised what I was doing to me own life. “[So instead of] thinking ‘why me lord?’ I got off me backside to do something about it.” Several years ago a friend advised Bubsy that if she wanted to lose weight she should try cooked kangaroo tail and emu meat. Bubsy says she quickly developed a taste for the traditional Aboriginal food and before too long her weight began to reduce.
While previously she fit into size 26 clothes, she can now fit into size 18 and 20 clothes. “Now I can walk downtown no problem,” she said. She says the kangaroo tail she cooks is particularly delicious.
“It’s beautiful, it’s a bit dry if you just have it ordinary, but nice if you do it in the alfoil and cook it in the ashes,” she said. “I like it just on the coals and brush the ashes off and eat it.” Aside from her weight loss, in recent years Bubsy has also completed studies in theology and social work. “I feel really blessed, that’s what I tell the kids now, if I can do it, you fellas get off your backsides and go and do something,” she said.
“I really feel proud of what I’ve achieved and now I can help people … a lot of people come around here, Aboriginal and white people and I just give them some advice … just for them to do the best they can and turn their lives around.” http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/05/18/4237619.htm
Uncle Jason Brown is a Darriebrllum elder from the Bundaberg region in Queensland. He lives on Patty Island just outside the city and helped save his Doctor from cancer using bush medicine. Keep an eye out for him on NITV, he’d doing great things too.
The Bringing Them Home Report exposed the extent to which trauma has impacted on Indigenous Australians and concluded that most families have been affected by the forcible removal of one or more children. The need to address the legacy of forced removal, by considering special investment in Indigenous healing, was a strongly supported recommendation at the 2020 Summit held in Canberra in April 2008. Reference was made by summit participants to the medical anthropologist Gregory Phillips proposal that healing is fundamentally about therapeutic change and cultural renewal. A holistic view of healing approaches was elegantly outlined by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) in their National Inquiry into the Separation of 3 of 25 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Children from their Families. HREOC supported measures of restitution of language, culture, and records of harm done; be combined with measures of rehabilitation such as offering therapeutic services.
The Outback Pride Project is promoting the Australian native food industry by developing a network of production sites within traditional Aboriginal communities.
The cultivation of Australian native food provides indigenous Australians with jobs and training in horticulture and the food industry. The project also acknowledges the intellectual property of the traditional uses of bush foods.
Mike and Gayle felt that their combined skills could provide a platform for a unique development in the bush food industry. The focus of the project is their vision of “Jobs and Training for Indigenous Australians”. Mike Quarmby has had a lifetime of experience in the commercial horticultural industry. During that time he was particularly involved in the development of arid zone horticultural practices. Mike’s talent for innovation in species development, plant propagation, cultivation and new product development was always an integral part of this project. Gayle’s family involvement with traditional communities goes back to 1932, when her father Rex Battarbee travelled in a model T Ford to the central Australian desert. While at Hermannsburg Rex met a young camel team worker called Albert Namatjira. They developed a strong friendship, which resulted in Rex training Albert as a landscape artist.
Mike and Gayle, saw that the bush food industry should be operated as a parallel to the aboriginal art industry. Both these industries have a unique cultural and commercial ownership by Indigenous Australians. The journey, beginning in 2001, has taken Mike and Gayle on a complex and interesting path. Initially they spent time in the outback with aboriginal people researching the bush food species. While mapping the best types relative to their commercial potential, invaluable support was received from their good friend and botanist Peter Latz. The next step was to create the systems of propagation and cultivation for up to 64 bush food species. This process continues to be ongoing and consumes a large amount of Mike’s time. The systems developed at this time were then put into practice on numerous trial sites in across South Australia and Northern Territory.
http://www.outbackpridefresh.com.au/about/our-story/
Conclusion – From Early Years to the Elderly
By the recommended age of up to 6 months, only 7% of First Nation infants were exclusively breastfed compared with 16% of non First Nation infants. The Infant Feeding Survey found that almost a third (31%) of First Nation infants had received soft, semisolid or solid food by the age of 3 months, compared with 9% of non-First Nation infants of the same age.
Traditional foods have had a significant and beneficial role in the diets and way of life of First Nation people for thousands of years. Before European settlement in Australia the diets of First Nation people safeguarded them against diabetes and obesity.
The benefits of traditional foods and their procurement are well established and compelling. The indirect benefits of traditional foods on the wider social determinants of health are as equally important.
Traditional foods and associated resources can be the foundations of improved education, employment and commercial opportunities. These foods must be protected from contaminants from mining or other practices that are increasingly widespread among regions where First Nation communities exist.
Promoting and protection of traditional foods will improve food security and this will ultimately be dependent on the continued access and preference for these foods by First Nation people.
Altman suggests that the geographically dispersed First Nation communities throughout Australia must become commercially, economically and culturally viable to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals. The absence of commercial opportunity has been dissolved by mainstreaming First Nation people that are unique and diverse.
Altman believes there are exceptional opportunities for First Nation people to create their own hybrid economies within their region and support their traditional cultures. Enterprises that can be explored can include art, craft and other artefact trade, hunting and fishing and land and wildlife management and customary land exploration, expeditions and wildlife and adventure treks.
First Nation people can develop and assist in land and water management practices, improving food security through the protection and management of traditional foods. First Nation people are living on some of the most bio-diverse land in Australia and First Nation people themselves have the potential to create unique opportunities towards greater self-determination.
The economic value of traditional foods was calculated using the replacement goods methods developed by Altman (Altman 1987). The evidence illustrates the replacement value of traditional foods would be excessive and unaffordable. For instance the store costs of the equivalent market foods with the same socio-economic value of selected traditional food would render foods unaffordable and that the availability and access to traditional food sources is highly valued by First Nation people.
It is clear from the available research and current information, A First Nation Health & Wellbeing Framework from Cradle to Grave, needs to be redefined on First Nations Terms of Reference.
The Ancient Human Story – Australia, The Missing Link
https://thrivalinternational.com/the-ancient-human-story-australia-the-missing-link/
Traditional Food Growing Can Alleviate Food Insecurity In Ancient Tribal Communities
Decolonising agriculture: Bruce Pascoe’s ‘Dark Emu’
https://www.foreground.com.au/environment/decolonising-agriculture-bruce-pascoes-dark-emu/
Is Australia Hiding Aboriginal Achievement, was this hiding so they didn’t have to justify was taken from the first people? Are Australians really of the view that our First People were incompetent, that the First People were’nt using the land, so there for it didn’t matter to the First People that it was taken away?https://www.facebook.com/kaiyumoura/posts/10155966241008713
Were Aborigines the first AMERICANS? Native tribes in the Amazon found to be most closely related to indigenous Australians
Bone DNA reveals humanity’s trek into South America
We Need to Be Humbled Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Bigotry against indigenous people means we’re missing a trick on climate change
It has been proven that all Songbirds originate from Australia (which pissed off European scientists) and I bet it’s more than just songbirds that originate from this land.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4194557.htm
Oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found shake foundations of the human story https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/07/oldest-homo-sapiens-bones-ever-found-shake-foundations-of-the-human-story
Rock shelters reveal secrets of ancient human movement through the Pilbara to archaeologists http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-16/newman-archaeology-rock-shelters-discovery/9152752?pfmredir=sm
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