During my research, I found an interview about a First Nations woman who decided to try going back to traditional foods in order to avoid developing diabetes. I didn’t end up using the interview in my final paper, but I found it interesting nonetheless. The woman, K.C. Adams, “calls it the reclamation of well-being diet.”[1] Adams says that before starting the diet, she recognized the pre-diabetic stages “tired after eating, feeling lethargic all the time, [her] stomach was very large.”[2] Adams is of Cree, Ojibway and British ancestry, and her mother is diabetic.[3] Her diet consisted of food available in North America, sticking to Manitoban local was too difficult.[4] As diabetes was not an issue or Aboriginal people before European contact, Adams and a few of her friends decided to turn to a diet of their ancestors, pre-European contact.[5] I find it interesting that she recognized pre-Diabetes symptoms and decided to turn to more tradition Aboriginal foods to try and prevent Diabetes from developing. Looking back at the interview now, I recognize a few things that I found during my research such as the non-existence of diabetes in First Nations people before the introduction of non-traditional foods.
[1] Kim Wheeler, “First Nations artist goes back to traditional diet to beat Diabetes,” CBC News, Nov. 22, 2014, par. 1
[2] Wheeler, par. 8.
[3] Wheeler, par. 4, 6.
[4] Wheeler, par. 5.
[5] Wheeler, par. 2, 3.