Decolonizing the Diet


Book Description

Decolonizing the Diet challenges the common claim that Native American communities were decimated after 1492 because they lived in “Virgin Soils” that were biologically distinct from those in the Old World. Comparing the European transition from Paleolithic hunting and gathering with Native American subsistence strategies before and after 1492, the book offers a new way of understanding the link between biology, ecology and history. Synthesizing the latest work in the science of nutrition, immunity and evolutionary genetics with cutting-edge scholarship on the history of indigenous North America, Decolonizing the Diet highlights a fundamental model of human demographic destruction: human populations have been able to recover from mass epidemics within a century, whatever their genetic heritage. They fail to recover from epidemics when their ability to hunt, gather and farm nutritionally dense plants and animals is diminished by war, colonization and cultural destruction. The history of Native America before and after 1492 clearly shows that biological immunity is contingent on historical context, not least in relation to the protection or destruction of long-evolved nutritional building blocks that underlie human immunity.




Decolonize Your Diet


Book Description

International Latino Book Award winner, Best Cookbook More than just a cookbook, Decolonize Your Diet redefines what is meant by "traditional" Mexican food by reaching back through hundreds of years of history to reclaim heritage crops as a source of protection from modern diseases of development. Authors Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel are life partners; when Luz was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, they both radically changed their diets and began seeking out recipes featuring healthy, vegetarian Mexican foods. They promote a diet that is rich in plants indigenous to the Americas (corn, beans, squash, greens, herbs, and seeds), and are passionate about the idea that Latinos in America, specifically Mexicans, need to ditch the fast food and return to their own culture's food roots for both physical health and spiritual fulfillment. This vegetarian cookbook features over 100 colorful, recipes based on Mesoamerican cuisine and also includes contributions from indigenous cultures throughout the Americas, such as Kabocha Squash in Green Pipian, Aguachile de Quinoa, Mesquite Corn Tortillas, Tepary Bean Salad, and Amaranth Chocolate Cake. Steeped in history but very much rooted in the contemporary world, Decolonize Your Diet will introduce readers to the the energizing, healing properties of a plant-based Mexican American diet. Full-color throughout. Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel are professors at California State East Bay and San Francisco State University, respectively. They grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs on their small urban farm. This is their first book.




Decolonizing Wellness


Book Description

"The author offers an empowering perspective for people whose identities are often marginalized in the health and wellness industry." —Manhattan Book Review Become the healthiest and happiest version of yourself using wellness tools designed specifically for BIPOC and LGBTQ folks. The lack of BIPOC and LGBTQ representation in the fields of health and nutrition has led to repeated racist and unscientific biases that negatively impact the very people they purport to help. Many representatives of the increasingly popular body positivity movement actually add to the body image concerns of queer people of color by emphasizing cisgender, heteronormative, and Eurocentric standards of beauty. Few mainstream body positivity resources address the intersectional challenges of anti-Blackness, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, and generational trauma that are at the root of our struggles with wellness and self-care. In Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation, registered dietitian and nutritionist Dalia Kinsey will help readers to improve their health without restriction, eliminate stress around food and eating, and turn food into a source of pleasure instead of shame. A road map to body acceptance and self-care for queer people of color, Decolonizing Wellness is filled with practical eating practices, journal prompts, affirmations, and mindfulness tools. Ultimately, decolonizing nutrition is essential not only to our personal well-being but to our community’s well-being and to the possibility of greater social transformation. This is a body positivity and food freedom book for marginalized folks. It’s a guide to throwing out food rules in exchange for internal cues and adopting a self-love-based approach to eating. It’s about learning to trust our bodies and turning mealtime into a time for celebration and healing. It’s also a love letter to those of us who struggle with our bodies and a gentle plea for us to do the work it takes to accept, trust, and love ourselves.




Decolonizing Diet Project Cookbook


Book Description

"'This unique cookbook offers easy-to-follow instructions to create nutritious and tasty dishes using only pre-contact ingredients from the Great Lakes Region. Break out your kitchen gear and enjoy the satisfaction that comes from connecting with foods that have sustained Indigenous peoples for millennia"--Devon Mihesuah (Choctaw/Chickasaw)"--Back cover.




Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens


Book Description

2020 Gourmand World Cookbook Award Winner of the Gourmand International World Cookbook Award, Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens is back! Featuring an expanded array of tempting recipes of indigenous ingredients and practical advice about health, fitness, and becoming involved in the burgeoning indigenous food sovereignty movement, the acclaimed Choctaw author and scholar Devon A. Mihesuah draws on the rich indigenous heritages of this continent to offer a helpful guide to a healthier life. Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens features pointed discussions about the causes of the generally poor state of indigenous health today. Diminished health, Mihesuah contends, is a pervasive consequence of colonialism, but by advocating for political, social, economic, and environmental changes, traditional food systems and activities can be reclaimed and made relevant for a healthier lifestyle today. New recipes feature pawpaw sorbet, dandelion salad, lima bean hummus, cranberry pie with cornmeal crust, grape dumplings, green chile and turkey posole, and blue corn pancakes, among other dishes. Savory, natural, and steeped in the Native traditions of this land, these recipes are sure to delight and satisfy. This new edition is revised, updated, and contains new information, new chapters, and an extensive curriculum guide that includes objectives, resources, study questions, assignments, and activities for teachers, librarians, food sovereignty activists, and anyone wanting to know more about indigenous foodways.




Indigenous Food Systems


Book Description

Indigenous Food Systems addresses the disproportionate levels of food-related health disparities among First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people in Canada, seeking solutions to food insecurity and promoting well-being for current and future generations of Indigenous people. Through research and case studies, Indigenous and non-Indigenous food scholars and community practitioners explore salient features, practices, and contemporary challenges of Indigenous food systems across Canada. Highlighting Indigenous communities’ voices, the contributing authors document collaborative initiatives between Indigenous communities, organizations, and non-Indigenous allies to counteract the colonial and ecologically destructive monopolization of food systems. This timely and engaging collection celebrates strategies to revitalize Indigenous food systems, such as achieving cultural resurgence and food sovereignty; sharing and mobilizing diverse knowledges and voices; and reviewing and reformulating existing policies, research, and programs to improve the health, well-being, and food security of Indigenous and Canadian populations. Indigenous Food Systems is a critical resource for students in Indigenous studies, public health, anthropology, and the social sciences as well as a vital reader for policymakers, researchers, and community practitioners.




For Indigenous Eyes Only


Book Description

Recognizing an urgent need for Indigenous liberation strategies, Indigenous intellectuals met to create a book with hands-on suggestions and activities to enable Indigenous communities to decolonize themselves. The authors begin with the belief that Indigenous Peoples have the power, strength, and intelligence to develop culturally specific decolonization strategies for their own communities and thereby systematically pursue their own liberation. These scholars and writers demystify the language of colonization and decolonization to help Indigenous communities identify useful concepts, terms, and intellectual frameworks in their struggles toward liberation and self-determination. This handbook covers a wide range of topics, including Indigenous governance, education, language, oral tradition, repatriation, images and stereotypes, and truth-telling. It aims to facilitate critical thinking while offering recommendations for fostering community discussions and plans for meaningful community action.




Eating the Landscape


Book Description

Examines historical and cultural knowledge of traditional Indigenous foodways that are rooted in an understanding of environmental stewardship.




The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook


Book Description

Tramp art describes a particular type of wood carving practiced in the United States and Europe between the 1880s and 1940s in which discarded cigar boxes and fruit crates were notched and layered to make a variety of domestic objects.




Anti-Diet


Book Description

Reclaim your time, money, health, and happiness from our toxic diet culture with groundbreaking strategies from a registered dietitian, journalist, and host of the Food Psych podcast. 68 percent of Americans have dieted at some point in their lives. But upwards of 90% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it back within five years. And as many as 66% of people who embark on weight-loss efforts end up gaining more weight than they lost. If dieting is so clearly ineffective, why are we so obsessed with it? The culprit is diet culture, a system of beliefs that equates thinness to health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others. It's sexist, racist, and classist, yet this way of thinking about food and bodies is so embedded in the fabric of our society that it can be hard to recognize. It masquerades as health, wellness, and fitness, and for some, it is all-consuming. In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison takes on diet culture and the multi-billion-dollar industries that profit from it, exposing all the ways it robs people of their time, money, health, and happiness. It will turn what you think you know about health and wellness upside down, as Harrison explores the history of diet culture, how it's infiltrated the health and wellness world, how to recognize it in all its sneaky forms, and how letting go of efforts to lose weight or eat "perfectly" actually helps to improve people's health—no matter their size. Drawing on scientific research, personal experience, and stories from patients and colleagues, Anti-Diet provides a radical alternative to diet culture, and helps readers reclaim their bodies, minds, and lives so they can focus on the things that truly matter.




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