NAHC Mission Statement
Native American Health Center's mission is to assist American Indians and Alaska Natives to improve and maintain their physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual well-being with respect for cultural traditions, and to advocate for the needs of all Indian people, especially the most vulnerable members of our community.
What do we mean by Native Foods?
When we say 'Native Foods' we mean more than food in its usual sense. We mean nourishment. Sacred Nourishment. We mean the foods that sustained us before we were introduced to white flour on reservations. The foods that are indigenous to the land we are also indigenous to. The nourishment that our ancestors formed deep relationships with and still remain embedded in our genetic and spiritual memory. These foods unlock this memory. They are the best foods for our health as indigenous people.
Our bodies, over thousands of years, were made to eat the foods naturally found on the land we live with. Corn, potatoes, pine nuts, squashes, cactus fruit, etc. were the foods our bodies adapted to, not white flour or alcohol. White flour has been of the greatest detriment to our physical health in the past five hundred years: it has led to obesity and diabetes.
Alcohol has been of immense detriment to our spiritual, psychological, and communal health since its introduction was made (many 'treaties' were skewed with alcohol by forcing chiefs to drink it as if it carried cultural importance in meetings and then in their intoxicated state, they would be taken advantage of and land would be stolen) and has resulted in crippling alcoholism and a devastating death toll in DUI's on reservations.
To be in balance with the earth, we must be balanced within ourselves first. And nutrition is the first step.
Many times, our traditional, healthier foods are more expensive, and therefore less accessible while unhealthy floury sugar products are more convenient in price.
So at the NAHC, we thought there had to be a way to combat this obstacle. If we could reach out and find Native owned companies that sell Native grown and cultivated foods, we would not only promote our own health, but the health of the community, and in buying from these businesses we would be supporting the health of the communities of growers and sellers of indigenous foods across the Americas. In this way, we hope to feed our surrounding community the foods they should be eating with their overall health in mind at the events we have in the future.
In addition to this, we wanted to spread the awareness of the foods that are native to North and South America in some sort of widely accessed way...
So we created a Pinterest where we are actively posting pictures of the native foods and recipes both traditional and new. In this way, we hope to raise a generation aware of the roots our ancestors left behind for us to cultivate. Now it is time to harvest and plant them anew.
-Kelatztli Mendoza, NAHC, Community Wellness Department Intern
Our bodies, over thousands of years, were made to eat the foods naturally found on the land we live with. Corn, potatoes, pine nuts, squashes, cactus fruit, etc. were the foods our bodies adapted to, not white flour or alcohol. White flour has been of the greatest detriment to our physical health in the past five hundred years: it has led to obesity and diabetes.
Alcohol has been of immense detriment to our spiritual, psychological, and communal health since its introduction was made (many 'treaties' were skewed with alcohol by forcing chiefs to drink it as if it carried cultural importance in meetings and then in their intoxicated state, they would be taken advantage of and land would be stolen) and has resulted in crippling alcoholism and a devastating death toll in DUI's on reservations.
To be in balance with the earth, we must be balanced within ourselves first. And nutrition is the first step.
Many times, our traditional, healthier foods are more expensive, and therefore less accessible while unhealthy floury sugar products are more convenient in price.
So at the NAHC, we thought there had to be a way to combat this obstacle. If we could reach out and find Native owned companies that sell Native grown and cultivated foods, we would not only promote our own health, but the health of the community, and in buying from these businesses we would be supporting the health of the communities of growers and sellers of indigenous foods across the Americas. In this way, we hope to feed our surrounding community the foods they should be eating with their overall health in mind at the events we have in the future.
In addition to this, we wanted to spread the awareness of the foods that are native to North and South America in some sort of widely accessed way...
So we created a Pinterest where we are actively posting pictures of the native foods and recipes both traditional and new. In this way, we hope to raise a generation aware of the roots our ancestors left behind for us to cultivate. Now it is time to harvest and plant them anew.
-Kelatztli Mendoza, NAHC, Community Wellness Department Intern