Feast or Famine

Yesterday I awoke feeling energetic, free to be a fatty and ready to giverrr. Then the hunger pains set in while I was brushing my teef. That toothpaste tasted sooo goot too. I fought off the hunger pains and had a banana and scoop of peanut butter, along with my Tim Hortons coffee to wash it all down. That was glorious by the way.

Lunch I did good, better than I usually do. Ate about 2/3 of what I usually do and thats still a lot. But during that meal I started to think about the olden days. You know, the good ol' days, many moons ago, back when there were trees and buffalo as far as the eyes could see.

Turtle Islands golden era.

Wifey and I have talked about this before, how Native Peoples are relatively new to Western foods. Processed garbage, salt, bleached flour and sugar. Not to mention the unpronouncable crap on the ingredients labels. Also how it takes 200yrs or so for a peoples to adjust their bodies and regulate their health to new diets.

This leads me to the feast or famine bit. We were all once lean mean Native Machines, be it if you were from Europe, Africa, Asia or here in the Americas. Although some may have "advanced" earlier than others, science says we all were once living off the land. Somewhere. Somehow. Tribal people are strong willful individuals, and even stronger family units. The hunting high season was great and bountiful, some of us harvested also to sustain ourselves for scarce times. We were happy, healthy, fit and STRONG. Then, well you know what happened.

First contact and all that it brought with it, good but 98% all bad. Depends on how you wanna see it. Could we go back to the old ways? Sure. Will we? probably not. It's just the way it is, or will be. We are more disconnected with old ways. Traditional food especially. For example, people still associate Frybread as a "traditional" food to native peoples. Huh? Don't get me wrong, it's fucking delish! But it's not what we ate. It's what we were "given". If frybread is anything to us, its a testiment to our "injunuity". It's a symbol of no matter what wehave forced upon or are left with, we will always be here. Maybe 3 times the size of our ancesters in the gut, but we still here damnit!

traditionally, in the highs and lows of our hunting and gathering, we had that "eat what you can while you can cause you never know when that next really good meal will be." mentality. And in some ways we still do. We eat and laugh, and eat again. the last 100+ yrs has been our feasting season! There is no famine. No having to track animals and do our own field dressing. No making a deer or buffalo last among 30-100 tribal members for days. Hungry? Get a double cheeseburg, it don't run. It won't trample you. You won't even have to dress it, only thing you gotta do is decide on extra cheese, bacon or supersizing that.

It's not only us, the entire North American population is getting fat. Dying. Slowly. I now live within and work for the Pima/Maricopa people who have the worlds highest rate of type II diabetes per capita. A Native people who were once the greatest farmers this side of the Mississippi. Their water ducts and planting systems were so advanced they could sustain themselves on planting alone. In the frickin desert! Plants. Green. Healthy as a muthafugga. Now, they are a case study of the world medical community. How does that happen? Food and diet. Simple.

Thats an extreme case. Is it? You can look at your own tribe/nation, rez or family and see the effects of food and diet. The bad eyes, cancer, diabetes, obesity, low self-esteem, suicide rates, hyper-tension, bad cholesterol, heart failure, kidney failure...on and on and on. All of that is simply manifestations of what we have put into ourselves. Thats what comes out of us because our bodies are NOT ready for these foods, pesticides and processing. Sure we can point the finger and say "they did this to us!" We'd be half right because WE continue to do it to ourselves. Happily. With a smile on our faces as we bite into that oh so good double cheeseburg, with extra cheese, bacon, supersized and diet coke.