On February 17, Nourish Indigenous Program Mangaer Mair Greenfield spoke with clinicians and students at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine.
Saskatchewan Health Authority Commitment to Truth and Reconciliation
Source: Saskatchewan Health Authority
Year: 2019
"The Saskatchewan Health Authority acknowledges Saskatchewan as the traditional territory of First Nations and Métis people, which includes Treaties 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10.
We commit to fostering and maintaining respectful relations with all First Nations and Métis people. The Saskatchewan Health Authority acknowledges the pain, loss, and dislocation caused by the residential school system on individuals, families, communities and nations."
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in Canada: Policy Paper 2019
Source: Stephen Penner, Kathleen Kevany, Sheri Longboat
Year: 2019
“Indigenous Nations in Canada have and continue to deal with a colonial food system that leaves many of these nations located in, what can be best described, as food wastelands, and at worst, imposes a lifetime sentence to a food prison (Finley, 2014). As we walk toward a path of reconciliation, it would be wise to acknowledge that Indigenous people had a well-developed, complex and thriving social-economic systems prior to colonial contact. Recognizing the depth of their intra-generational knowledge and deep understanding of the land can facilitate the development of a meaningful national and Indigenous food policy. One that recognizes mino-pimatwisin (Anishinaabe for good life) and maligit (balance) in Quajimajatuqangit (Inuktitut for Inuit Traditional Knowledge) nidiawemaginidog (Anishinaabe for “all my relatives”). Resulting in a robust and meaningful Indigenous food production system.”
Growing Resilience and Equity
Source: Food Secure Canada
Year: 2020
“Food Secure Canada (FSC) published a policy action plan for renewing the country’s food system in response to Covid-19. The pandemic is magnifying the structural inequalities in our food systems, the insufficiencies of our social protection programs, and the challenges with the dominant food supply chains.
This moment clearly calls for visionary and bold structural change rather than piecemeal approaches based on the status quo. Food Secure Canada’s Growing Resilience And Equity: A Food Policy Action Plan in the Context of Covid-19 charts a way forward, grounded in proposals developed through a process of information gathering, listening, consultation and convening with individuals and organizations involved in ‘food movements’ (social movements advancing food-system transformation).”
Indigenous Food Responses to COVID-19 in Health Care
Source: Nourish
Year: 2020
In June 2020, Nourish hosted two conversations about food responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in health care by/for Indigenous communities. The purpose of the calls was to share learning focused on health care led interventions and document ongoing activities across the country responding to the particular needs in Indigenous communities. The hope is to identify strategies working well and document gaps that exist.
Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous Peoples An Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance
Author: Kyle Whyte
Year: 2017
Indigenous peoples often claim that colonial powers, such as settler states, violate Indigenous peoples' collective self-determination over their food systems, or food sovereignty. Violations of food sovereignty are often food injustices. Yet Indigenous peoples claim that one of the solutions to protecting food sovereignty involves the conservation of particular foods, from salmon to wild rice. This essay advances an argument that claims of this kind set forth particular theories of food sovereignty and food injustice that are not actually grounded in a static conception of Indigenous culture; instead, such claims offer important contributions to how settler colonial domination is understood as a form of injustice affecting key relationships that support Indigenous collective self-determination through food sovereignty. The essay describes some of the significant qualities of reciprocal relationships that support food sovereignty, referring widely to the work of Indigenous leaders and scholars and Tribal staff on salmon conservation in North America.
Growing Up Healthy: A resource booklet about providing for a healthy family based on Inunnguiniq teachings
Revitalizing Native Foodways
Source: Kaylena Bray, Melissa K Nelson
Year: 2015
“At a time when food has become better known as a commodity rather than a life source, it is more pressing than ever to remember that food, in its deepest, truest essence, is a gift. It’s a gift that connects us to the land, plants, animals, and waters, that nourishes us, feeds our minds and our bodies, and guides us in our original roles as human members of our sacred ecosystems. As Indigenous peoples, we have a sacred responsibility to take care of our foods and of all the elements of life – soil, water, air, seeds, fire, prayers – that create it.”
Indigenous Food Systems Network Website
Source: Indigenous Food Systems Network
Year: n.d.
“The Indigenous Food Systems Network Website was developed by the WGIFS and is designed to allow individuals and groups involved with Indigenous food related action, research, and policy reform to network and share relevant resources and information.”
Valerie Segrest at TEDxRainier
Source: Valerie Segrest at TEDxRainier
Year: 2014
“The Indian tribes around the Puget Sound have practiced sustainable balance with its foods for thousands of years, but now the prairie lands and mountain berry meadows are disappearing and salmons runs are dwindling. Valerie Segrest, a member of Muckleshoot tribe and native foods educator tells us to listen to the salmon and cedar tree, who teach us a life of love, generosity and abundance, and to remember when we take better care of our land, we are taking better care of ourselves.”
A Conversation on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (Part 2)
Source: Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin and guests
Year: 2020
“This discussion includes the importance of dismantling structural racism in the food system, how Covid-19 speaks to the inequities of our broken food system, and how intertwined the social and environmental implications of food are for Indigenous peoples.”
Indigenous Food Sovereignty
Source: Food Secure Canada
Year: 2011
"We are a group of community-based activists, scholars and storytellers who work on issues of food sovereignty. We come from diverse regions of Turtle Island and share fundamental beliefs towards the land and all she stands for. We represent fishing, hunting, and gathering peoples and bring an understanding of the impact of colonialism on our regions. Indigenous food systems include all of the land, soil, water, and air, as well as culturally important plant, fungi, and animal species that have sustained Indigenous peoples over thousands of years of participating in the natural world. "
Traditional Foods & Recipes on the Wild Side
Source: Native Women’s Association of Canada
Year: 2012
“This booklet is intended to provide some cultural context, as well as information about traditional foods. You’ll also find a few recipes on the wild side!”
Gifts from Our Relations: Indigenous Original Foods Guide
Source: National Indigenous Diabetes Association
Year: 2020
“The National Indigenous Diabetes Association (NIDA) presents this resource booklet entitled “Gifts from our Relations”, which consists of commonly consumed traditional foods (plants/animals) that are Indigenous to our lands. Colonization, the reserve system, and residential schools have had significant negative impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ land bases, territories, and connections to the land. Regular harvesting and consumption of original foods has been largely replaced with a commercial supply of western, processed, non-nutritive foods. As noted by the Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “...original foods were viewed by missionaries, educators and doctors as being diseased and inferior; in residential schools, teachers taught children to dislike their own foods and inculcated them with the poor eating habits of a non-Indigenous institution.”"
Pathways to the revitalization of Indigenous food systems: Decolonizing diets through Indigenous-focused food guides
Source: Taylor Wilson, Shailesh Shukla
Year: 2020
“The 2019 Canadian Food Guide (CFG) was launched in January 2019 with a promise to be inclusive of multicultural diets and diverse perspectives on food, including the food systems of Indigenous communities. Some scholars argue that federally designed standard food guides often fail to address the myriad and complex issues of food security, well-being, and nutritional needs of Canadian Indigenous communities while imposing a dominant and westernized worldview of food and nutrition. In a parallel development, Indigenous food systems and associated knowledges and perspectives are being rediscovered as a hope and ways to improve current and future food security. Based on a review of relevant literature and our long-term collaborative learning and community based research engagements with Indigenous communities from Manitoba, we propose that Indigenous communities should develop their food guides considering their contexts, needs, and preferences.”
Reconciling Ways of Knowing Webinar Series
Source: Reconciling Ways of Knowing
Year: 2020
“In our first dialogue in this series, Why Do We Need to Reconcile Ways of Knowing? leaders working at the confluence of Indigenous and scientific knowledge and decision making discussed the events, issues and relationships that made it clear that a national-scale dialogue to facilitate just reconciliation between the ways of knowing and ways of being of Indigenous Peoples and Canadians, and their respective governments, is needed.”
Cooking Wild Game for an Event? Resource folder
Source: Understanding Our Food Systems Project (Thunder Bay District Health Unit and the Indigenous Food Circle)
Year: 2020
The Understanding Our Food Systems Project from the Thunder Bay District Health Unit and the Indigenous Food Circle share a series of resources, including info sheets, guidelines, application forms, and other materials for serving wild game at events.
Community Champions for Safe, Sustainable, Traditional Food Systems
Source: Kathleen Yung, Casey Neathway
Year: 2019
“This study will describe how the First Nations Health Authority supported increasing access to the processing and sharing of safely preserved traditional foods through the facilitation of a Community Champion model and the development of accompanying resource materials. Engaging Community Champions recognized the positive social impacts of sharing foods and traditional food systems, including access to nutrient-rich harvested foods, while the curriculum development and engagement of environmental health professionals ensured advice given would lead to decreased risks of foodborne illness.”
Assembly of First Nations Report: Traditional Foods: Are they Safe for First Nations Consumption?
Source: Assembly of First Nations
Year: 2007
“This paper focuses on the critical issue of First Nations exposure to environmental contaminants through the consumption of traditional foods. It discusses the potential health risks and benefits to First Nation communities, as well as, other issues of concern with respect to the economic and socio-cultural aspects of traditional food systems. The Environmental Stewardship Unit (ESU) of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) has reviewed relevant research on this subject and will provide an overview of the current situation in this paper.”
Increasing Indigenous Children’s Access to Traditional Foods in Early Childhood Programs
Source: Provincial Health Services Authority, British Columbia
Year: 2016
"Traditional Indigenous foods are part of a healthy diet. Moreover, traditional foods also have cultural and spiritual value and can contribute to the health of young First Nations and Métis children, many of whom experience food insecurity. Early childhood programs are ideal settings to introduce, explore and share traditional foods. However, in licensed childcare settings, the current food regulatory system effectively excludes the type, frequency and/or where traditional foods can be served."