National Nutrition Month: Food Connects Us
The Connection Between Food and Culture
Each year in March, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics celebrates National Nutrition Month®, a national nutrition education and information campaign. It invites everyone to learn about, and implement, healthy food choices and physical activity habits. This year’s theme is Food Connects Us. The theme invites us to think about how food connects all of us – it connects us to our families, to our friends, to our community and our culture. Sharing a meal is integral to many of our family gatherings, celebrations and life milestones. Food, and eating with others, is so important, not just for physical nourishment, but spiritual and emotional nourishment as well.
One way we can connect with our own culture and food is to learn the history and traditions behind what we are eating. For example, it is the season to make maple syrup, when the days get above freezing during the day, but below freezing at night. Indigenous people worked very hard to gather sap, chop wood, and heat the sap to boil it down to the right sweetness. While maple syrup is a type of sugar, much physical activity went into the creation of it, and it was savored and used sparingly for special events. This example provides a good lesson for us even today in how sugar was used. And still today, many people honor this tradition and work together to make this precious maple syrup (nąą taanįžu in Ho-Chunk language).
Another way we can explore the connection between food and culture is to enjoy our meals with family and friends whenever possible. Food is more enjoyable when shared! To take that a step further, we might even be able to obtain some of food with family and friends! We might be able to plant gardens (even container gardens), gather wild berries, or go hunting or fishing with others. Many families and cultures have these traditions or did in the past. What foods in your own culture were grown, gathered, fished or hunted? Who in your family or community has the knowledge of how to do this? How could this knowledge be passed on? And of course, we can prepare food with others, such as the younger generations, to teach them the skills they will need in the future. Then, when we enjoy our meals together, they will taste even better, because of all the connections the food holds for us.
How do you plan to explore the connection between food and culture this year?
Submitted by Ho-Chunk Nation Health & Wellness Division