Skip to content

Indigenous foods

Indigenous Food Reciprocity As A Model For Mutual Aid

March 10, 2025 Kate Nelson, Civil Eats. , , ,
In the Arctic and Far North, where a successful hunt can mean the difference between feeding the village or scrounging to make ends meet, one might assume a scarcity mindset would take hold. Instead, reciprocity prevails. Examples of this sharing-focused approach abound. A recent documentary, One With the Whale, follows the hunting practices of an island community in the Bering Sea. In one scene, after a long period without finding game, a hunting crew harpoons a seal, which will allow them to feed some of the community. “It’s always a blessing to receive any animal that you catch,” Siberian Yupik hunter Daniel Apassingok tells the filmmakers. “As small as the game is, the game is dispersed with four or five other boats."

Reviving Native Food Sovereignty

March 1, 2025 Dahr Jamail, Resilience. , , ,
The Tongass is one of the most ecologically important places on Earth, and plays a critical role in the climate crisis by sequestering one billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The towering old growth forests of the Tongass store the carbon equivalent of six million cars a year, while producing a quarter of all the salmon in the Pacific Northwest. This intact and abundant rainforest are the homelands of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Peoples, who care for, steward, and honor the lands and waters that sustain all Southeast Alaskans. Communities in this region practice a way-of-life that is rapidly disappearing across the globe.

A Coastal Revolution In Hospital Food

July 14, 2024 Tim Lydon, The Tyee. , , ,
As executive chef and director of traditional foods at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Amy Foote brightens patient menus with healthy Indigenous foods, including moose, salmon, fiddleheads and more. “Traditional foods connect patients to their land and culture, which can help with healing,” says Foote amid the clattering pans and hissing pipes of the hospital’s large kitchen. Incorporating traditional foods is no small task for a hospital serving over 5,000 meals daily to patients and their visiting families. But the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which runs the hospital, is investing in the cause. As part of that, says Foote, its food service recently went “self-op,” meaning it no longer contracts out.

Community-Focused Gardening Takes Root In Alaska

June 18, 2020 Meghan Sullivan, Indian Country Today. , , ,
Alaska is cold. With temperatures below freezing from October to April, it has some of the longest winters in the country. And the terrain can be challenging: rocky islands with scant soil. Tundra — soggy on top and frozen a foot down. On the other hand, summer days are long. In the land of the midnight sun, the sun doesn’t set for weeks, making gardening in Alaska a unique experience. With greenhouses to get an early start and raised beds to warm the soil, Alaskans are able to plant flourishing gardens and raise record-breaking vegetables despite the obstacles. At the start of the growing season in May, the Alaska Native Media Group launched the Garden and Gather initiative, to encourage Alaska Natives to practice local gardening, and to empower them to share their planting stories.

140 Food Communities Celebrate Indigenous Food Systems & Worldview

January 3, 2016 Rucha Chitnis, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com , ,
By Rucha Chitnis for Indian Country Today. The walk in the sacred grove was part of Indigenous Terra Madre(ITM) that brought together 140 indigenous food communities from 58 countries in November. A collaboration of the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty, Slow Food International and North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society(NESFAS), ITM celebrated the rich food cultures of Indigenous Peoples and showcased their resilient food systems and sustainable practices. “Indigenous Peoples have a lesson for all of us as we search for a way forward to overcome the crises we face today,” said Phrang Roy, founder of NESFAS and an advocate of indigenous food systems from the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya. “Today there is growing awareness that indigenous knowledge that had been ignored and marginalized as a primitive knowledge system is something we need to look to to build a sustainable, fairer system where food security, nutrition and well being of people is held together.”