“That Was Our Candy!”: Sweet Foods in Indigenous Peoples' Traditional Diets in Northwestern North America

Abstract

At least 50 different plant foods in Indigenous Peoples' traditional diets in northwestern North America—including berries, root vegetables, greens, and tree sap and inner bark—are known for their sweet taste. Some were, and are, appreciated as confections themselves and others were used to sweeten foods and medicinal preparations. These sweet foods were remembered fondly by many elders from childhood times. However, many of these original sweet foods are no longer widely consumed, having been largely replaced by imported molasses, brown sugar, white sugar, syrup, and honey, which were readily incorporated into Indigenous Peoples' food systems following their introduction by Europeans in the past couple of centuries. This shift in use of sweeteners—as well as the adoption of wheat flour, and other introduced and refined carbohydrate foods—has had both positive and negative implications for First Nations' health and well-being. Today, Indigenous cultural revitalization movements in northwestern North America are drawing on the elders' knowledge and memories of their healthy, time-honored foods to recreate and celebrate ancestral dishes, especially those fondl remembered for their sweetness

“The Old Foods Are the New Foods!”: Erosion and Revitalization of Indigenous Food Systems in Northwestern North America

“…Some of the new foods that were brought in by Europeans, including potatoes (originally from South America), carrots, turnips, rhubarb, apples, pears, currants, and other fruits, not to mention molasses, sugar, coffee, tea, rice, beans were, indeed, tasty and were easily adopted into Indigenous diets and lifeways. Nevertheless, these foods have tended to replace many of the original root vegetables, greens, and berries that were the mainstay of the original diets (Kuhnlein et al, 2009(Kuhnlein et al, , 2013Turner, 2014Turner, , 2020b.…”

Biocultural Calendars Across Four Ethnolinguistic Communities in Southwestern South America

“…Tsimshian people watch the stalks of the stinging nettle mature and elongate; as they grow in the coastal habitats, so do the seaweed fronds grow in the intertidal zone. The red laver is harvested in late spring, generally in May, so much that in the Tsimshian language this month is called ‘‘the month of the seaweed’’ (Turner, 2016 ). Today, as in the past, the seaweed is an important component of Tsimishians' diets and traditional life ways, because harvesting and processing bring families and communities together, thus providing opportunities for learning and teaching stories, songs, language, and knowledge about weather patterns, tides and currents as well as of the growth and usable life stages of the seaweed; and optimum drying locations and techniques to achieve the best flavors and greatest nutritional value (Turner & Turner, 2008 ).…”

An ethnobotanical meta-analysis of North American medicinal Asteraceae

“…The apparent aversion to Eupatorieae, and to a lesser degree Senecioneae, may reflect the prevalence of toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids and sesquiterpenes produced by these taxa (Liu et al 2015;Schrenk et al 2020). In contrast, over-selection of Cardueae, Cichorieae, and Heliantheae for food was based, respectively, on the widespread consumption of edible Cirsium (e.g., thistle), Taraxacum (dandelion), and Lactuca (lettuce), as well as Helianthus (sunflower) and Balsamorhiza (balsamroot) species (Turner et al 2011;Turner 2020).…”