3 Decolonize Your Diet!

Originally published on Mujeres Talk on September 10, 2012

We have a passion for Mexican food. We have a passion for gardens, for healthy food, for food justice, and for people of color reclaiming our histories. All of this has led us to our current project, Decolonize Your Diet. This is a project to reclaim the heritage foods of greater Mexico and Central America as a way improving the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of US Latinos/as.

SOME BACKGROUND

In the US, a person’s health is almost pre-determined by their socio-economic status. For the most part, upper and middle class people, who have access to health care, higher education, healthy foods, and safe spaces to exercise, have significantly better health than poor folks who lack health insurance, education, access to grocery stores, and who live in poor and often dangerous neighborhoods. Public health scholars evaluate the health of demographic groups by looking at mortality, infant mortality, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer rates. Poor people have worse health on all these measures. This is not surprising: Social inequality affects people’s health and lifespan.

However, there is one notable exception to the equation of poverty = poor health—public health scholars have found that recent immigrants from Mexico have very low rates of mortality, infant mortality, and illness compared to other groups. Public health scholars have dubbed this phenomenon “The Latino/a Paradox.”(1) Recent Latino/a immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Central America, have better health than Latinos and Latinas who were born in the US. The health of recent immigrants rivals the health of the [w]healthiest Americans! This fact is somewhat astounding given that Latino/a immigrants face so many challenges: in general, Latino/a immigrants arrive to this country with very few economic resources. They don’t have access to preventative health care and are often afraid to seek care when they are sick. They work in difficult and dangerous jobs and they are under extremely high levels of social, spiritual, and economic stress. One would expect their health to suffer under these circumstances.

Public health scholars have not been able to explain Latino/a immigrants’ health; but there is significant evidence supporting the health benefits of traditional diets of Mexico and Central America. We believe that these food traditions protect Latino/a immigrants from disease, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and some cancers. Unfortunately, the health of immigrants declines over time. The longer immigrants stay in the US and the more they assimilate into US culture, the worse their health becomes. By the second generation, Latinos/as face the same issues as other poor folks in the US, with skyrocketing rates of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Cancer rates also start to increase.

DECOLONIZE YOUR DIET

We feel it is imperative that Chicano/a Studies engage food justice in research and teaching. We call to our comrades, colleagues, and students to look at their personal food choices as political acts. Resist cultural imperialism by reclaiming ancestral foods. Honor our ancestors and their wisdom by learning how to cook beans, make corn tortillas, and grow food. Above all, share your knowledge!

The following chart outlines some of the differences between what we think is a Colonized Standard American Diet (¡Qué SAD!) and a decolonized approach:

As part of our project, we are collecting and sharing knowledge and recipes. We are inspired by Native food activists like Winona LaDuke (2,3,4), Devon Abbott Mihesuah (5) and the Tohono O’odham Nation (6). We’re very excited by the significant health benefits to be gained from eating cooked dried beans (7,8,9), nopales (10,11), chia (10), quelites (12), and verdolagas (13, 14, 15).

JOIN US AND LEARN MORE!

We invite you to join us in the reclamation of Mexican heritage foods: join “Luz’s Decolonial Cooking Club” on Facebook or follow our blog at decolonizeyourdiet.blogspot.com

CITATIONS

1. Viruell-Fuentes, Edna A. 2007. Beyond acculturation: immigration, discrimination, and health research among Mexicans in the United States. Social science & medicine (1982) 65 (7): 1524–35.
2. LaDuke, Winona. 1999. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Cambridge, MA; Minneapolis, MN: South End Press; Honor the Earth.
3. LaDuke, Winona. 2005. Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
4. LaDuke, Winona, and Sarah Alexander. n.d. Food is Medicine: Recovering Traditional Foods to Heal the People. Honor the Earth/White Earth Land Recovery Project.
5. Mihesuah, Devon Abbot. 2005. Recovering Our Ancestor’s Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness. University of Nebraska Press.
6. Tohono O’odham Community Action with Mary Pagnelli Votto and Frances Manuel. 2010. From I’Itoi’s Garden: Tohono O’Odham Food Traditions.Blurb.com.
7. Reynoso, Camacho, R. 2007. El consumo de frijol común (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) y su efecto sobre el cáncer de colon en ratas Sprague-Dawley. Agricultura técnica en México 33 (1): 43–52.
8. Guevara, Lara, F. 2006. Phenolics, Flavonoids and Other Nutraceuticals in Mexican Wild Common Beans {(Phaseolus} Vulgaris).
9. Serrano, José, and Isabel Goñi. 2004. [Role of black bean Phaseolus vulgaris on the nutritional status of Guatemalan population]. Archivos latinoamericanos de nutrición 54 (1): 36–44.
10. Guevara-Cruz, Martha et al. 2012. A dietary pattern including nopal, chia seed, soy protein, and oat reduces serum triglycerides and glucose intolerance in patients with metabolic syndrome. The Journal of nutrition 142 (1): 64–69
11. Gutierrez, Miguel Angel. 1998. Medicinal Use of the Latin Food Staple Nopales: The Prickly Pear Cactus. Nutrition Bytes 4
12. Barakat, Lamiaa A A, and Rasha Hamed Mahmoud. 2011. The antiatherogenic, renal protective and immunomodulatory effects of purslane, pumpkin and flax seeds on hypercholesterolemic rats. North American journal of medical sciences 3 (9): 411–17.
13. Huang, Yun, and Lei Dong. 2011. Protective effect of purslane in a rat model of ulcerative colitis. Zhongguo Zhong yao za zhi = Zhongguo zhongyao zazhi = China journal of Chinese materia medica 36 (19): 2727–30.
14. Huang, Zhiliang, et al. 2009. Total phenolics and antioxidant capacity of indigenous vegetables in the southeast United States: Alabama Collaboration for Cardiovascular Equality Project. International journal of food sciences and nutrition 60 (2): 100–08.
15. Shobeiri, S F, et al. 2009. Portulaca oleracea L. in the treatment of patients with abnormal uterine bleeding: a pilot clinical trial. Phytotherapy research: {PTR} 23 (10): 1411–14.

Luz Calvo is a professor of Ethnic Studies at Cal State East Bay. After their breast cancer diagnosis in 2006, Calvo became interested in food justice activism.

Catriona R. Esquibel is Associate Dean in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. Esquibel started writing about ancestral foods after she and Calvo ate verdolagas at her father’s morada on Good Friday in Holman, New Mexico.