Superintendent’s Chat

Richard McClements, Shonto Preparatory School

This “Chat” talks about the food that Navajos eat and the impact on their health. It is becoming a well known fact that most Navajos of today do not consume the healthy foods of their forefathers. My research of various Internet sources provides the basis for the following. The website for each theme area is listed before the discussion topic.

http://waltonfeed.net/peoples/navajo/recipes/

The modern Navajo eats about the same kind of thing the rest of the inhabitants of the United States eat. In times past, however, they grew just about everything they ate, except for wild game. Aside from the traditional wild fare such as deer and rabbit, they also ate bear, gophers and prairie dogs. They didn't eat snakes as this would give them bad dreams and require a medicine man for a cure.

http://navajo-arts.com/food-navajo.html

In the basic four Navajo food groups, there is the Navajo corn and wheat category. That's bread and cereals to the mainstream. It includes kneeldown bread, Navajo cake, Navajo pancakes, blue dumplings, blue bread, hominy, steam corn, roast corn, wheat sprouts and squash blossoms stuffed with blue corn mush.

Wild foods are in the list of fruits and vegetables. There's corn silk, wild celery, wild onion, Navajo spinach (Beeweed and Pigweed), wolfberry, wax currant, sumac berry, juniper berry, yucca bananas, squash, melons and Navajo tea (Telesperma.)

Protein comes from mutton and nearly all parts of the sheep are eaten. These include organ meats, head and blood sausage, wild game such as deer and rabbit, pinon nuts, squash seeds, tumble mustard seeds and pinto beans. Corn was an improved source of protein when combined with beans or nuts.

In the milk and cheese group, there's goat milk and goat cheese. Wild edible clay was added to some foods, such as wild potatoes and some berries, which increased the calcium. Another source of calcium was the juniper ash in blue corn meal mush dishes.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jun01/food0601.htm

An unusual phenomenon draws the attention of ARS nutritionist Judith G. Hallfrisch. A recent study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found Native Americans have denser bones than Caucasians, yet they don't eat a lot of dairy foods. Hip and other bone fractures are often the result of weak bones, caused by osteoporosis, a degenerative bone disease. Nearly 10 million Americans suffer from osteoporosis, which is responsible for 1.5 million fractures annually, according to the National Institutes of Health.

"Osteoporosis is usually prevented by a combination of things, including eating foods—particularly dairy foods—high in calcium and vitamin D," says Hallfrisch, who is with the ARS Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, in Beltsville, Maryland. Genetic differences have been cited as an explanation for low fracture rates among the largest group of North American Indians, the Navajo. "Environmental and cultural practices may also play a role in the sturdy bone structure of Navajo people," says Hallfrisch. "We think there's something in their drinking water or food that's contributing to this unusual occurrence. So, we're collaborating on a study with investigators at Utah State University to assess how overall mineral intake is related to bone health and other conditions in Navajos."

On the reservation, Navajos get their water from wells, springs, and taps, and store it in barrels. After several trips to Navajo reservations in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, Hallfrisch analyzed more than 100 water samples for minerals. She found the average water intake of 2 liters a day can provide up to 212 milligrams of calcium, 150 milligrams of magnesium, and 8 milligrams of zinc.

"The water is high in minerals because the ground is alkaline and has lots of minerals. Although the Navajos don't eat much dairy, they are still getting good nutrient amounts from their water," she says.

In addition, a colleague of Hallfrisch's at Utah State University analyzed the contribution of juniper ash—a gray, finely ground powder traditionally added to native dishes—to overall mineral intakes in Navajo people. Navajos burn juniper branches and grind them into a powder, which they add to breads and traditional corn dishes.

"Juniper ash is rich in minerals that may also contribute to decreased bone-related injuries," Hallfrisch says. "Total intake of these minerals, which strengthen bones, including the amounts in water and juniper ash, are much closer to dietary recommendations than diet surveys suggest, and may partially explain low fracture rates."

As part of this study, Hallfrisch has been collecting samples of Native American foods to evaluate their nutrient content. Unfortunately, she says, intakes of younger Navajos are becoming closer to average U.S. diets, with high soda intakes and few traditional dishes or dairy products.

http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/127/10/2085S

Our survey indicates that the current diet of the Navajo exceeded the recommended fat content of 30% of energy and saturated fat content of 10% of energy, even with the likely underestimate of saturated fat (National Research Council 1989a). Although median cholesterol intakes were consistently less than the recommended 300 mg/d, cholesterol intakes may have been underestimated in this analysis, as was saturated fat.

Some segments of the Navajo population continue to be at risk of inadequate intakes of several key nutrients, including those that have been found to be inadequate among the Navajo in the recent past, namely, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium and iron (Butte et al. 1981, Sandstead et al. 1956, Stockell et al. 1956, University of Pittsburgh 1969). Although intakes of vitamin C among teenagers and of iron among women of reproductive age appear to be higher than they once were (Butte et al. 1981, University of Pittsburgh 1969), intake of vitamin C is still inadequate among most Navajo and intake of iron is inadequate among women under age 60. Participants age 60 and older in our sample had diets particularly low in vitamin A, vitamin C, folate and calcium. The elderly may eat different foods than younger adults because they consume less total energy, but their diets are denser in protein, fat, iron and some other nutrients, although less dense in vitamin C and calcium. This is consistent with the observations of IHS dietitians that many elderly Navajo report diets of limited variety.

There are many ways to enhance the intakes of key nutrients, but dietary interventions must be feasible and consistent with existing food preferences. Three major limitations affect dietary choice among the Navajo: cost, availability and shelf life. Most Navajo families have limited cash resources and purchase food on the Reservation where selection is limited (Ford and Harris 1988). Many families shop infrequently and do not have refrigeration; thus perishable items must be consumed quickly. Because fortified ready-to-eat cereals supply many nutrients, require no refrigeration, and have a long shelf-life, they could be a valuable addition to Navajo diets. Cereals were reported very infrequently in this survey, perhaps because they are relatively expensive. Fruits and vegetables are also dense sources of many micronutrients but they were consumed, on the average, less than twice a day. Although some kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables are available and affordable on the Reservation, many fresh produce items may be unavailable, very expensive or too perishable for families who shop infrequently and lack refrigerators. Canned fruits and vegetables are available and adaptable to Reservation shopping and storage patterns.

Dairy products are not widely consumed among the Navajo, in part because lactose intolerance is common and in part because dairy products are perishable. The survey participants reported using canned and powdered milk more frequently than fresh milk. A few participants reported preparing Navajo tortillas and fry bread with nonfat dry milk, thus increasing the calcium content from 40 to 144 mg per tortilla, but even this use of milk may be problematic for those who are lactose intolerant. Traditional blue corn meal foods with ash provided substantial amounts of calcium for the few participants who ate them. In spite of the low reported calcium intakes of the participants, IHS diagnoses of hip fracture and other sequelae of osteoporosis are rare (Indian Health Service unpublished data for Navajo Area, 1992-1994).

The median folate intake among Navajo women was consistently below the current RDA, and the median folate intake of Navajo women under age 40 was less than half of the most recent recommendation by the U.S. Public Health Service (1992) that women of reproductive age who are capable of becoming pregnant consume 400 µg folic acid/d to reduce the risk of neural tube birth defects. The low folate intake among Navajo women of reproductive age is of special concern because of the Navajo's high average fertility (Navajo Nation 1993) and the relatively high prevalence of neural tube defects among Native American populations (Wilcox and Marks 1994). Folate intake could be increased by greater consumption of fortified ready-to-eat cereals, oranges and orange juice. Canned and boxed juices with extended shelf-life could be adaptable to the shopping and consumption patterns of the Reservation. These beverages contain more nutrients than soft drinks, which contribute calories but few nutrients to the diet.

Until about the middle of the twentieth century, the Navajo lived an active lifestyle and ate a wide variety of gathered and cultivated foods in addition to the staple mutton. An increasingly sedentary lifestyle and erosion of traditional dietary patterns, with increasing dependence on relatively few refined, processed and nutrient-poor foods may be major factors in the increases in obesity and chronic diseases documented among the Navajo in the past half century. Diet is an important behavioral risk factor for all chronic diseases and is susceptible to intervention within the limits of the resources available to a population.