Should Fry Bread be Phased out of Native American Cultures?

Food Police Make for Sour Dough, National Post 31 August 2005, p A8
By Steven Edwards

NEW YORK - There's a growing backlash against the "nanny state" edicts about what we should and shouldn't eat, and it's being led -- of all places -- from American Indian reservations.

Many Native Americans are outraged that they're being told to give up fry bread, a pancake mix of flour, dried milk and lard, all fried in grease. Fry bread is the one food American Indians consider "theirs" -- just as bangers and mash are typically British, and croissants and cheese French. The dish is so ubiquitous in Indian culture that asking "Where's the fry bread?" has become a way to break the ice at a social gathering.

Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture says fry bread, which packs at least 700 calories and 27 grams of fat per serving, is plain unhealthy. Health experts also warn it could also be a leading cause of diabetes. Ironically, it was the U.S. government that introduced fry bread to the country's Native population. As soldiers forced Indians from their ancestral homes in the 19th century to make way for white settlers, opportunities to hunt for traditional foods were lost.

Instead, Indians had to make do with government-issued food rations, which included flour and lard. Even today, the federal government's Food and Nutrition Service continues to distribute "commodity foods" to low-income Indian families, including several fry bread ingredients.

Anti-fry bread campaigners are emphasizing the "foreign" origins of fry bread in the hopes of weaning diners off the dish. "Fry bread was a gift of Western civilization from the days when Native people were removed from buffalo, elk, deer, salmon, turkey, corn, beans, squash, acorns, fruit, wild rice and other real food," writes activist Suzan Shown Harjo in Indian Country Today, a leading Native American newspaper. "Fry bread is emblematic of the long trails from home and freedom to confinement and rations. It's the connecting dot between healthy children and obesity, hypertension, diabetes, dialysis, blindness, amputations and slow death."

Ms. Shown Harjo, who is Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, also argues that Indian heritage offers far better breads and other dishes. "Traditional Native breads and foods stack up against any of the world's greatest. Hopi piki, Muscogee sofkee and everyone's cornbread and tamales remind us why most Native people consider corn one of the highest gifts of creation."

Her column and the government's advice have provoked often bitter debate in the Indian community. While Indian Country Today has received letters to the editor about the topic, fry-bread advocates have contacted the national radio show Native America Calling. Some fry-bread advocates have begun wearing T-shirts blazoned with slogans such as "FBI -- Fry Bread Inspector" and "Fry Bread Power."

There is also a Web site, frybreadlove.org, extolling the joys of eating the food. Its creator, Gayle Weigle, an Anishinabe Indian, says she is even collecting recipes for a book. Despite all the taxpayers' money spent to stop people eating "unhealthy" foods, a recent study shows North Americans continue to put on weight. That should already indicate that consumers don't want to be told what to do. The study also said spreading suburbia is as much to blame for wider girths because people are travelling in cars more often.

The Native Americans' reaction to the attack on one of their favourite foods is perhaps a harbinger of what we can expect from the wider community. Some candy manufacturers have sensed some customers want to defy the food police. The makers of M&Ms have already brought out a "mega" version of the chocolate that is 55% bigger than the button- sized variety.

In New York, there have been numerous editorials against the recent decision by Mayor Mike Bloomberg to call for restaurants to stop using trans fats for frying. But one restaurateur pointed out that people don't eat french fries for their health so why change?

In Canada, Pat Martin, an NDP MP, won parliamentary backing for a motion giving Ottawa a year to come up with a plan that "effectively eliminates" trans fats from food. Whether that will make for trimmer, healthier Canadians remains to be seen.