NativeFoodSystems.org

NativeFoodSystems.org Launches Today, Reconnects Natives to Traditional Foods, Cultural PracticesToday First Nations Development Institute unveiled its new website geared at helping Natives reconnect with traditional foods and reinforcing cultural practices and customs.

By providing a valuable resource to a wide audience—Native American food producers, processors and consumers including Native families and growers—NativeFoodSystems.org aims to promote food sovereignty while improving Native health and nutrition.

The website serves as a unique portal for agricultural and gardening information. Videos cover a variety of topics, such as hunting and food gathering as a spiritual experience, creating local economies around agriculture, and reducing food expenses with community gardens. Other short films spotlight organizations like the Northwest Indian Treatment Center, which is using traditional foods and medicines to reintroduce Natives to working with the land and their culture. The process plays a role in their recovery from alcohol and drug addictions.

NativeFoodSystems.org additionally provides up-to-date news on food sovereignty conferences and more. It spotlights positive food movements by tribes and Native organizations. And it hits on historical trauma and the need to reverse a tide of unhealthy eating resulting from the loss of land, nutritious foods and traditional lifeways. Other resources range from farms and markets, to youth programs and farm-to-school efforts, to seed saving, to traditional plants and medicine, to food marketing and handling, to home gardening, canning and healthy family eating.Comment:  For more on Indians and the Internet, see Internet Library on Pine Ridge and Google Street View in Nunavut.