April USDA distribution dates, recipe
Siletz
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
April 3
April 4
April 5
April 6
April 7
9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Salem
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
April 17 1:30 – 6:30 p.m.
April 18 9 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
April 19 9 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
April 20
9 – 11 a.m.
I threw this recipe together at the Siletz
warehouse in March. It is so fast and easy.
I hope you can try it out with your family.
Chicken Corn Chowder
Chrisman part of state champion team
With love from Auntie Sarge and the rest of your huge, humongous family
Congratulations to Ella Chrisman and the Pendleton Truth seventh-grade
basketball team on your state championship.
Ella, we are all so proud of you and your teammates.
1 stick butter*
1 pound bacon, sliced
2 onions, diced*
1 head celery, diced*
½ cup flour*
3 cans kernel corn, drained*
2 cans sliced potatoes, drained*
2 cans chicken meat*
1 can skim evaporated milk*
1 box 1% milk*
Salt and pepper to taste
Place butter, bacon, onion and celery
in a large pot on medium heat. Cook until
onion is soft and bacon is getting brown.
Add a little kosher salt and pepper to this
to draw the moisture out of the veggies.
Add the flour to make rue. Cook for
about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the corn, potatoes and chicken
along with the evaporated milk and the
1% milk.
Add more salt and pepper and taste.
Let this simmer for about 30 minutes
to heat through.
This makes a pretty big pot of soup.
Cut it in half or to suit your needs. Very
quick and easy soup that is so delicious.
*Indicates product in the food package
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Siletz Tribal FDPIR.
Joyce Retherford, FDP Director
541-444-8393
Lisa Paul, FDP Clerk/Warehouseman
541-444-8279
How can we experience benefits of traditional nutrition in a modern world?
By Nancy Ludwig, MS, RD, LD, Siletz
Tribal Head Start Nutrition
blood. Insulin is a key part of this imbal-
ance. It acts as a messenger to coordinate
food energy.
As part of my role as a consultant
nutritionist to Siletz Tribal Head Start, I
offer information for families. This seg-
ment reviews the loss of traditional foods,
the introduction of commodity foods and
its impact on chronic disease such as diabe-
tes and obesity. A key recommendation in a
modern world is to eat less sugar and starch
as a step to restore traditional practices.
In pre-diabetes (or insulin resis-
tance), the cells become less responsive.
Traditional medicine includes knowledge
of medicinal plants, animals, foods, the
elements, rituals, spirit ways and touch
that have been acquired over thousands of
generations. Integrative medicine recog-
nizes the wisdom and knowledge of both
traditional and conventional methods with
a holistic approach.
As Native people lost access to land
for deer, fish and other traditional foods,
they were introduced to pig fat, wheat
and rye flour, milk and sugar in the forms
of commodity foods. These changes in
cultural practices appear to be at the foun-
dation of the rapidly growing epidemic
of diabetes, as well as heart disease, sub-
stance abuse, violence, cancer, attention
deficit disorder and depression.
Indigenous people all over are restoring
their traditions and I believe this is essential
to preventing and reversing diabetes.
Tribal communities that still have
access to traditional foods and practice
methods of traditional preparation rarely
see diabetes. Two essential strategies to
prevent diabetes and maintain good health
are to gather traditional foods (and/or their
nutritional equivalents) and to prepare
these foods (versus buying convenience
or processed foods).
Foods from the environment in which
we live provide physical, emotional, men-
tal and spiritual nourishment. Where there
is imbalance, there are wounds in the spirit
that ultimately manifest as a chronic dis-
ease condition, such as diabetes.
Diabetes is an imbalance of the dif-
ferent organ systems in the body that
normally work together to maintain a
certain level of glucose (sugar) in the
4
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Siletz News
•
Authentic foods, diet and nutrition
are critical in reversing chronic disease
and maintaining health. It is important
to note that the current USDA nutrition
recommendations do not represent the
composition of the foods that were indig-
enous to this Northwest region.
The Salish Food Mound, described by
Drs. Leslie E. Korn and Rudolph C. Ryser,
is composed of 33 percent leafy greens,
berries and fruits; 45 percent meat, fish
and fowl; 20 percent fats and fish oils;
and 2 percent roots and sweets. I believe
that transitioning back toward this diet,
along with a holistic approach, will be
instrumental in preventing and treating
diabetes and other chronic disease.
Let’s focus on the composition of the
Salish Food Mound to consider the prin-
ciples of traditional nutrition and contrast
it with our current intake.
No grains are even mentioned. In
other words, not only are there no whole
grains, but also no flour, no cereal and
no bread. Dairy foods are not mentioned
either. This means no milk, no cheese, no
yogurt, sour cream or ice cream.
The mention of 2 percent roots and
sweets means very few starchy vegetables.
I’m certain that the term “sweets” did not
include refined sugars. Fruit is mentioned
April 2017
and is generally eaten “in season” versus
year-around.
Grains, dairy, fruit and roots are rich
in carbohydrates. These are broken down
in our body to produce sugar. This means
that carbohydrates have the potential to
raise our blood sugar. Additionally, car-
bohydrates, particularly refined ones, have
the potential to become addictive.
Sugar cravings can be difficult to
control. When sugar is combined with
the stress of busy schedules, it can be used
as a “pick me up” or a “happy time.” This
is eerily similar to other addictions such
as alcohol. Often when alcoholics stop
drinking, they replace alcohol with sugar
(swapping addictions).
Does sugar really bring the happiness
you seek? Often it provides a temporary
high followed by low mood, irritability
and a feeling of emptiness.
Unfortunately, overuse of sugar
can rob us of health by decreasing our
immunity, displacing important nutrients,
promoting weight gain and tooth decay as
well as keeping us in an unhealthy cycle of
cravings. Because sugary foods are often
nutrient-poor, they don’t really satisfy your
body – which leaves you looking for more
food and/or sugar.
Giving up sugar isn’t easy, especially
when we see it everywhere we look. A few
ideas can help shift us in a healthier direc-
tion, such as a gradual decrease in sweet
foods to make the change less noticeable.
The use of sour foods can help to cut
sweet cravings. Adding protein to each
meal or snack can stabilize blood sugar,
thereby reducing cravings.
Other ideas include avoiding processed
foods (with added sugars and starch),
boosting serotonin (the happiness hor-
mone) through exercise and sleep, drink-
ing plenty of water, eating several small
meals throughout the day to avoid dips in
blood sugar, eating plenty of greens on the
plate and in green drinks, eating more sea
vegetables and eating cultured vegetables.
We all have to start where we are now
and decide what changes are manageable.
It is difficult – and unrealistic – to change
everything at once.
Remember, when our habits say “I
love you” with sugar, it is even harder to
break the cycle. How can you say, “I love
you” in a more healthy way? There are
many everyday non-food ways to commu-
nicate love through gifts of time and atten-
tion, such as playing games, taking walks,
coloring and doing puzzles together.
Siletz Tribal Head Start offers my
time at no cost to you to support family
nutrition over the telephone. Please con-
tact me if you have nutrition concerns
about your Head Start child. Healthy
children make for healthy communities.
We are in this together.
Resources
Preventing & Treating Diabetes Natu-
rally the Native Way by Leslie E. Korn,
Ph.D., MPH, and Rudolph C. Ryser, Ph.D.,
2009, DayKeeper Press, Olympia, Wash.
Feeding the People Feeding the Spirit
– Revitalizing Northwest Coastal Indian
Food Culture, by Elise Krohn, Valerie
Segrest and the Northwest Indian Col-
lege, 2010
Insulin Resistance & Chronic Disease
Prevention Symposium, April 18, 2013, at
the Squaxin Island Museum, sponsored by
Northwest Indian College
Content from previously submitted
articles – Can Traditional Foods Pre-
vent Diabetes, January 2014, and The
Sweetness of Life is not Found in Sugar,
December 2014, Nancy Ludwig, Consult-
ing Nutritionist, Siletz Tribal Head Start