Native Foods: Why it's so important

Native foods are foods that are indigenous the land in which you live.

They are foods grown local to the geographic area over a long period of time and have developed adaptive traits that creates a dynamic relationship with the land and environment.

As plants,and foods sources adapt the become responsive to their environment and create mechanisms that help preserve resources and strengthening vitality and reproductive strength.
Survival of the species.

So to make things really simple first of all most native foods, or indigenous plant species usually require very little maintenance and they typically have little to no extra for water.


The terms xeriscaping or xerogardening, zeroscaping, smart scaping and drought-tolerant are pretty much synonymous with the use of native plants. Often these concepts are thought of in terms of landscaping rather than of gardening, but regardless of the purpose of planting the process is the same.

Native plants/foods are often disease resistant and tolerant of harsher environments, and are resistant to pests. Again, its a response to the environment. Dynamic relationships that for the most part have gone unnoticed by western agricultural practices.

So that means less water, less pesticides, less fertilizers, less chemicals going into the soil, helpful insects increase, stronger/healthier plants/fruits/seeds because they are now becoming more responsive.

As crops and food sources become more self adapting, typically the crops will grow with larger and more consistently with subsequent plantings.

So what's to loose?

As in all changes, working with native foods requires a little more preparation and learning.

It typically means that fruits, vegetables are not as uniform or "perfect" as we are accustomed to. And usually to the first year or so the crops are fairly sparse and awkward, but again this will get better is the dynamic relationships grow between the land, farmers and the environment.

It also means waiting. Typically heirloom varieties require more growing time,although this is not always true.

In the same process that makes native foods good the land,the food develops attributes that can help humans and animals respond to that environment as well.

I know it's difficult to understand these subtleties but I'm hoping that you'll hang in there with me. So here's a story.



Out in the Sonoran desert, there are cactuses that were eaten traditionally by the native people in those areas. Often roasted and peeled, the cactuses were included in soups, made into jams, etc. These desert foods over hundreds of years of being passed down had become part of their lives. Food in the desert is difficult, not much water to waste and find out if the plant will survive - so the survival of the plant/food source and the people become interdependent.

Let's fast forward a few hundred years. So now there's a Burger King or Mickey D's out in the desert, and that's what people eat because it's inexpensive and easy. And the Native people, Tohono O'odham people in particular were dying of diabetes and heart disease at alarming rates.

A few traditional thinkers started growing and reintroducing their native foods in their diets and the diabetes rates lowered. Although the elders had told them it was their native food, they still could not believe what was happening.

It was the results, that drove researchers and scientists to their labs to discover why. What they found was that cactus, and many desert plants, have a large amount of "mucilagen" or "mucilagenous substance - that gooey, slimy stuff inside the cactus. Mucilagen helps distribute glucose evenly through out the blood stream and regulates it's flow.

The same mechanism that cactus species had used to survive in the desert helped Native peoples of the desert survive as diabetes. The answer was there for generations but we did not understand the importance of these dynamic relationships.

And this return to traditional diets and restoring native plants isn't isolated to the southwest. It's happening all over.