Blackbear
10-14-2004, 08:24 PM
************************************************** *************
This message is reprinted under the Fair Use
Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
************************************************** *************
FROM: INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY NEWSPAPER
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096409679
Native Super Foods And Healing Ways
Posted: October 12, 2004
by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today
Click to Enlarge
Illustration by Robert W. Hines/courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - A new book on ''superfoods'' encourages eating 14 foods
to revolutionize a person's health, including traditional Native foods
including beans, pumpkin and salmon.
Native healers, however, say food is only one ingredient on the path to good
health, which depends on the balance and harmony of body, mind and spirit. For
instance, research scientists have proven that the beat of a drum in a
traditional Native ceremony leads the brain to deeper alpha waves and makes more
profound thinking and learning possible.
Recently, author and physician Dr. Steven Pratt released ''Superfoods Rx:
Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life.'' The book recommends a diet packed
with beans, blueberries, broccoli, oats, oranges, pumpkin, wild salmon, soy,
spinach, tea, tomatoes, turkey, walnuts and yogurt.
Pratt points out that the foods actually represent categories. For instance,
salmon, rich in omega-3 fatty acids to lower blood pressure, is in the group
with tuna and trout. Blueberries and strawberries share the same health-giving
nutrients.
In the Navajo way, however, food alone does not produce health, which depends
on harmony and balance of body, mind and spirit.
Hualapai medical doctor Frank Clarke pioneered scientific research showing
the healing benefits of traditional healing ways of Navajos and other Indian
tribes, including sweats, herbs, running and even a plunge in the snow at dawn.
Dr. Clarke said holistic health is nothing new to Indian people. Din? singers
(medicine men) have long known what modern science only recently discovered,
it is impossible to heal a person without treating the entire human being -
body, mind and spirit.
Clarke said science confirms that sweats are among the most beneficial
practices for good health. Sweats rid the body of salt and also of hormones such as
adrenalin, which results in the ''flight or fight'' and fear response.
Adrenalin makes the heart beat faster and blood sugar rise. When the body is
cleansed during the sweat, body processes normally decline, such as blood
pressure, pulse rate and breathing. When the body is cleansed, the mind can think
clearly and profoundly.
''It allows individuals to tap into their inner core and make contact with
the Supreme Being,'' Clarke said, during his research in the 1980s. ''The mind
does the thinking and reasoning, the spirit is our claim to immortality.''
While most people are aware of the body's need for oxygen and food, fewer
people realize the spirit's need for meditation, he said. Unless the needs of the
body, mind and spirit are met - there is an imbalance. The mind needs
discipline, knowledge, freedom and security. The spirit needs self-worth, belonging,
faith and fun.
Clarke said modern medicine has finally discovered the concept of faith.
Research concludes that patients must have faith in the healer, the procedure and
themselves to be healed. Among the most profound scientific proof of the
healing force of traditional ways, is the effect of the chant, drum and rattle.
Clarke said the rhythmic beat of a rattle or drum affects the body. The heart
rate, speed of circulation and brain waves are actually changed by the
rhythmic beat that accompanies chants. The beats slow the inner rhythms of the body
and make clear thinking or meditation possible.
Research scientists have proven that drum beat or rhythm leads the brain to
deeper alpha waves and makes more profound thought possible for thinking and
learning. A medicine man is a true practitioner of holistic health, because he
treats the body, mind and spirit, he said.
Clarke said modern medical doctors are usually only the equivalent of a
traditional herbalist, a person who treats only the body.
The late Dan Deschinny of Oak Springs, spokesman for the Dineh Spiritual and
Cultural Society, said medicine men are actually singers. The singer leads the
patient to heal himself by singing the songs, with chants the singer has
spent lifetime learning.
Clarke said Navajos and Hopis have a practice of rolling in the snow early in
the morning. Canadian Natives, too, often throw cold water on themselves in
mornings.
Once again, modern science confirmed that providing the body with sudden cold
actually causes an increase in the white blood cell count. Those white blood
cells come to the rescue when the body's alarm signals a need for increased
resistance due to infection.
Navajos, too, remember the foods that gave them health before the U.S.
Calvary arrived with white flour and lard for fry bread, before trading posts sold
red soda pops and potato chips and long before U.S. commodity foods brought
fatty canned meats and depleted white starchy foods.
Rose Wauneka of Black Mountain remembered when there was plenty of goat's
milk to drink with bread made from ground corn. Blue corn was grown in the fields
for blue bread, dumplings and mush. Prairie dogs and rabbits were roasted,
and deer was hunted with prayer.
Katherine Arviso, department director for Navajo Foods and Nutrition in the
1970s, proved the dense nutritional content of traditional Navajo foods using
scientific analysis conducted by the University of Arizona.
Tumble mustard, Zuni Lake salt and corn silk were among 92 foods collected by
Arviso's program. Among the amazing findings was the calcium content of the
juniper wood ash added to blue corn meal mush; calcium was increased by 800
percent. The ash was made by burning juniper branches and passing the ashes
through a sieve.
Calcium was also found in good supply in dleesh (white clay) eaten ground
with wild potatoes or wolfberries. Calcium was abundant in wild greens, fresh
beeweed and Navajo spinach. Fresh squash blossoms stuffed with blue corn meal was
packed with nutrition, along with wild celery and onion soup and roasted
mutton.
The late Howard McKinley, nearly 100 years old when he passed to the spirit
world, remembered gathering wild yucca bananas from the hills and digging wild
potatoes in Tse Ho Tso (Fort Defiance.)
Marie Allen, too, remembered the stories of her grandmother, born in the fall
of 1868. She gathered wild foods in spring and early summer - mariposa
lilies, parsley, spinach, onion, wolfberries, currants, chokecherries and sumac
berries.
Meanwhile in the north, traditional Ojibwe tea has amazed Canadian
researchers who say it will slow and reverse the biological aging process. The herbal
tea became popular in the mainstream during the 1930s when Renee Caisse, a
nurse, used handpicked herbs and administered the tea to terminally ill patients
with amazing results.
The herbs used in the brewed tea are burdock root, sheep sorrell, slippery
elm bark, Turkish rhubarb, red clover herb, blessed thistle, kelp and
watercress.
In a study by the Russian Ministry of Health, Ojibwe tea was found to reduce
pain and increase immune cell production in Chernobyl victims suffering from
ulcers, chronic Hepatitis B and virus-induced cirrhosis of the liver.
In Washington state, David Wikenheiser, naturopathic doctor who researches
aging, said his study showed daily consumption of four ounces of the eight-herb
tea formula reduced the biological age of volunteers in a 15-person test group
by an average of 5.1 years.
''The combination of herbs in the tea formula produced a powerful
anti-oxidative effect,'' Wikenheiser said. ''Controlling oxidation and free radical
production within the body is the key to slowing and reversing the biological aging
process.''
This message is reprinted under the Fair Use
Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
************************************************** *************
FROM: INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY NEWSPAPER
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096409679
Native Super Foods And Healing Ways
Posted: October 12, 2004
by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today
Click to Enlarge
Illustration by Robert W. Hines/courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - A new book on ''superfoods'' encourages eating 14 foods
to revolutionize a person's health, including traditional Native foods
including beans, pumpkin and salmon.
Native healers, however, say food is only one ingredient on the path to good
health, which depends on the balance and harmony of body, mind and spirit. For
instance, research scientists have proven that the beat of a drum in a
traditional Native ceremony leads the brain to deeper alpha waves and makes more
profound thinking and learning possible.
Recently, author and physician Dr. Steven Pratt released ''Superfoods Rx:
Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life.'' The book recommends a diet packed
with beans, blueberries, broccoli, oats, oranges, pumpkin, wild salmon, soy,
spinach, tea, tomatoes, turkey, walnuts and yogurt.
Pratt points out that the foods actually represent categories. For instance,
salmon, rich in omega-3 fatty acids to lower blood pressure, is in the group
with tuna and trout. Blueberries and strawberries share the same health-giving
nutrients.
In the Navajo way, however, food alone does not produce health, which depends
on harmony and balance of body, mind and spirit.
Hualapai medical doctor Frank Clarke pioneered scientific research showing
the healing benefits of traditional healing ways of Navajos and other Indian
tribes, including sweats, herbs, running and even a plunge in the snow at dawn.
Dr. Clarke said holistic health is nothing new to Indian people. Din? singers
(medicine men) have long known what modern science only recently discovered,
it is impossible to heal a person without treating the entire human being -
body, mind and spirit.
Clarke said science confirms that sweats are among the most beneficial
practices for good health. Sweats rid the body of salt and also of hormones such as
adrenalin, which results in the ''flight or fight'' and fear response.
Adrenalin makes the heart beat faster and blood sugar rise. When the body is
cleansed during the sweat, body processes normally decline, such as blood
pressure, pulse rate and breathing. When the body is cleansed, the mind can think
clearly and profoundly.
''It allows individuals to tap into their inner core and make contact with
the Supreme Being,'' Clarke said, during his research in the 1980s. ''The mind
does the thinking and reasoning, the spirit is our claim to immortality.''
While most people are aware of the body's need for oxygen and food, fewer
people realize the spirit's need for meditation, he said. Unless the needs of the
body, mind and spirit are met - there is an imbalance. The mind needs
discipline, knowledge, freedom and security. The spirit needs self-worth, belonging,
faith and fun.
Clarke said modern medicine has finally discovered the concept of faith.
Research concludes that patients must have faith in the healer, the procedure and
themselves to be healed. Among the most profound scientific proof of the
healing force of traditional ways, is the effect of the chant, drum and rattle.
Clarke said the rhythmic beat of a rattle or drum affects the body. The heart
rate, speed of circulation and brain waves are actually changed by the
rhythmic beat that accompanies chants. The beats slow the inner rhythms of the body
and make clear thinking or meditation possible.
Research scientists have proven that drum beat or rhythm leads the brain to
deeper alpha waves and makes more profound thought possible for thinking and
learning. A medicine man is a true practitioner of holistic health, because he
treats the body, mind and spirit, he said.
Clarke said modern medical doctors are usually only the equivalent of a
traditional herbalist, a person who treats only the body.
The late Dan Deschinny of Oak Springs, spokesman for the Dineh Spiritual and
Cultural Society, said medicine men are actually singers. The singer leads the
patient to heal himself by singing the songs, with chants the singer has
spent lifetime learning.
Clarke said Navajos and Hopis have a practice of rolling in the snow early in
the morning. Canadian Natives, too, often throw cold water on themselves in
mornings.
Once again, modern science confirmed that providing the body with sudden cold
actually causes an increase in the white blood cell count. Those white blood
cells come to the rescue when the body's alarm signals a need for increased
resistance due to infection.
Navajos, too, remember the foods that gave them health before the U.S.
Calvary arrived with white flour and lard for fry bread, before trading posts sold
red soda pops and potato chips and long before U.S. commodity foods brought
fatty canned meats and depleted white starchy foods.
Rose Wauneka of Black Mountain remembered when there was plenty of goat's
milk to drink with bread made from ground corn. Blue corn was grown in the fields
for blue bread, dumplings and mush. Prairie dogs and rabbits were roasted,
and deer was hunted with prayer.
Katherine Arviso, department director for Navajo Foods and Nutrition in the
1970s, proved the dense nutritional content of traditional Navajo foods using
scientific analysis conducted by the University of Arizona.
Tumble mustard, Zuni Lake salt and corn silk were among 92 foods collected by
Arviso's program. Among the amazing findings was the calcium content of the
juniper wood ash added to blue corn meal mush; calcium was increased by 800
percent. The ash was made by burning juniper branches and passing the ashes
through a sieve.
Calcium was also found in good supply in dleesh (white clay) eaten ground
with wild potatoes or wolfberries. Calcium was abundant in wild greens, fresh
beeweed and Navajo spinach. Fresh squash blossoms stuffed with blue corn meal was
packed with nutrition, along with wild celery and onion soup and roasted
mutton.
The late Howard McKinley, nearly 100 years old when he passed to the spirit
world, remembered gathering wild yucca bananas from the hills and digging wild
potatoes in Tse Ho Tso (Fort Defiance.)
Marie Allen, too, remembered the stories of her grandmother, born in the fall
of 1868. She gathered wild foods in spring and early summer - mariposa
lilies, parsley, spinach, onion, wolfberries, currants, chokecherries and sumac
berries.
Meanwhile in the north, traditional Ojibwe tea has amazed Canadian
researchers who say it will slow and reverse the biological aging process. The herbal
tea became popular in the mainstream during the 1930s when Renee Caisse, a
nurse, used handpicked herbs and administered the tea to terminally ill patients
with amazing results.
The herbs used in the brewed tea are burdock root, sheep sorrell, slippery
elm bark, Turkish rhubarb, red clover herb, blessed thistle, kelp and
watercress.
In a study by the Russian Ministry of Health, Ojibwe tea was found to reduce
pain and increase immune cell production in Chernobyl victims suffering from
ulcers, chronic Hepatitis B and virus-induced cirrhosis of the liver.
In Washington state, David Wikenheiser, naturopathic doctor who researches
aging, said his study showed daily consumption of four ounces of the eight-herb
tea formula reduced the biological age of volunteers in a 15-person test group
by an average of 5.1 years.
''The combination of herbs in the tea formula produced a powerful
anti-oxidative effect,'' Wikenheiser said. ''Controlling oxidation and free radical
production within the body is the key to slowing and reversing the biological aging
process.''