For many of us, the term “American Indian” brings to mind
stories of Indians’ mastery of agriculture, and how they gave
the earliest European settlers a few pointers that may have kept
them alive. American Indians’ connection to the land—land they
worked and harvested before anyone else—is ingrained in their
identity. But sadly, over the last century or so, many Indian
traditions—including their practices of agriculture and
cooking—became diluted or disappeared completely. Sustainable
economic development became hard to come by, and poverty
skyrocketed. As a result, nutrition—followed by overall
health—deteriorated among native peoples. Without indigenous
sources of food, junk food consumption became the norm. Today,
American Indians and Alaska Natives are almost twice as likely
(39.4 percent) as white Americans (24.3 percent) to be obese,
meaning they have a body-mass index of 30 or greater. Perhaps
most startling of all, American Indians have the highest
prevalence of diabetes in the nation, 16.1 percent, c