The Joys and Pains of Sampling and Analysis of Traditional Food of Indigenous Peoples

✍ Scribed by Harriet V. Kuhnlein

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 117 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0889-1575
• DOI: 10.1006/jfca.1999.0857

✦ Synopsis

&&Traditional food of Indigenous Peoples' is de"ned as food that comes from the local environment and is culturally accepted. Usually, this food is part of the subsistence base of a speci"c cultural group, and may be wild animals, plants and/or insects, earth elements, or subsistence agricultural crops and animals. Since this food is often unfamiliar to the researcher, identi"cation and sampling requires close collaboration with Indigenous People, and working with them in harvest, perhaps in local preservation techniques, and preparation for consumption. The many pleasures and bene"ts of this research include encountering unique food species, learning about &&new'' cultural food practices, uncovering new knowledge about nutrient composition, and potentially identifying excellent nutrient sources. Di$culties include the frustrations of making scienti"c collections in the human "eld setting (often in developing areas), getting replicate samples when food resources may be scarce, securing su$cient sample size, making judgements on simplifying preparation techniques, and ensuring adequate storage, transportation and shipping to avoid spoilage. Examples of these principles are represented from traditional food research with the Hopi Nation, Nuxalk Nation, James Bay Cree of Quebec, and the Canadian Inuit.