Challenge: Eat healthy food in communities
Many Aboriginal meals are unhealthy because remote community stores charge up to 3 times the price of food in cities.
Solutions include licensing stores, making sure children eat their healthy food—or setting up a pool.
Everyone knows about Indigenous dance, art and the didgeridoo, but not about our food. —Dale Chapman, owner-operator of Coolamon Food Creations [7]
Healthy food
Many Aboriginal people struggle with their weight. Poor diets, out of habit or due to high food prices, are to blame.
Cartoon: Danny Eastwood, Koori Mail [1]
Food prices in remote communities can be more than triple the price of food in cities. Aboriginal Australians' income is also well below that of non-Aboriginal people.
Consequently, Aboriginal households either buy cheap (and unhealthy) food or run out of food before the next pay day. From October 2009 to October 2010, 15% of Victorian Aboriginal people had run out of food at some time [2].
Community gardens, food shares and hunting and gathering of traditional foods are some things that can contribute to better health [2]. Other options include community cooking classes where participants take home the meals they prepared, so that families sit together to eat them.
Bush tucker food
You might have heard about 'bush tucker', an Australian expression for food from the bush. Often associated with Aboriginal culture prior to invasion, bush tucker is increasingly seeing a comeback.
It is recognised for its healthy properties that help fight modern illnesses such as heart disease or diabetes, which is at crisis levels in Aboriginal communities.
A sample Aboriginal-owned business offering bush food is Coolamon Food Creations.
Store licensing helps improve food quality
An independent report in 2011 found stores licensing in the Northern Territory has helped Aboriginal people in remote communities get better access to healthy, affordable food [3].
During the second half of 2010, 86% of stores were selling at least 13 varieties of fresh vegetables and 91% sold at least 7 varieties of fresh fruit, the report found. In urban areas, the average grocery store carries 200 different kinds of fruits and vegetables [4].
Store management had also improved, including financial management. Many customers appreciated that 'book-up' had been abolished and that there was now more consistent pricing and labeling of goods on shelves.
Helping kids stay healthy
A stunningly simple recipe improved the children's health at Baryulgil Public School, 80km from Grafton, NSW [5]. Health officers discovered that all children were deficient in iron and vitamin C and had developed ear (50%) or skin (25%) infections as a consequence.
The simple remedy was fresh fruit and vegetables and a strict regimen to ensure they were eaten. Six months later the skin infections were gone and the hearing loss caused by the infection was drastically reduced.
Under a Shared Responsibility Agreement families contribute some dollars to the food packages which are now delivered to their communities. "Health problems are way down. The savings in health costs far outweigh the outlay for the scheme," says a campaign leader.
Fact You can only eat two of the more than 100 wattles, the black and green wattle seeds.
Another way to alleviate several common medical conditions is setting up a swimming pool. "Swimming pools are one of the simplest and most beneficial infrastructure initiatives that can be provided to Aboriginal communities," says Jay Weatherill when he was South Australian Affairs and Reconciliation Minister [6].
People who use the pool avoid bronchial, skin and ear infections, the latter often leading to hearing and learning difficulties. Pools are also a positive, fun and physical outlet for young people, taking them off the streets where they might be vulnerable to substance abuse and crime.
Some communities implement a 'no school, no pool' policy [6] and have seen significant improvements in school attendance.
A song about healthy traditional food
This is a song written by the students of Galiwink'u community school on Elcho Island, about 550 kms north-east of Darwin in north Australia, about the importance of eating traditional bush foods, hunting and living off the land.
Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
[1] Koori Mail 498 p.20
[2] 'Traditional returns to the menu', Koori Mail 487 p.41
[3] 'NT stores regime 'working'', Koori Mail 502 p.62
[4] wiki.answers.com
[5] Koori Mail 385, p.36
[6] 'More power to APY people', Koori Mail 404 p.56
[7] 'Passionate about slow bush foods', Koori Mail 514 p.21