Posted on 08/21/2017 9:30:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Daniel Begay, who is Navajo, had always been told growing up that traditional American Indian foods were good for him.
But because most American Indians are lactose intolerant, "they aren't getting that same source of calcium from dairy products," Begay says.
Turns out that it's a traditional cooking method that is key to his bone health. The Navajo burn juniper branches, collect the ash and stir it into traditional dishes. The most popular: blue corn mush.
Begay, a graduate student at Northern Arizona University, analyzed the amount of calcium in 27 samples of juniper from all over the reservation. But first he had to ash the juniper outside his apartment in Flagstaff. Not quite the same as the rural reservation.
"I let my landlord know beforehand. I said, 'Hey, I'm going to be building a fire in our yard, just so you know,'" Begay says. "I burned up a picnic table a little bit."
His analytical chemistry professor, Jani Ingram, oversaw much of the work Begay did in the lab.
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"You have to get it to the point where you can dissolve it in acid and then dilute it down and then do the analysis that way," says Ingram.
It was there that Begay found that the calcium level was fairly high.
"For every gram of ash that I was able to sample, I was getting roughly 280-300 milligrams of calcium," Begay says.
He says that's about the same as a glass of milk. But he says the body seems to absorb the calcium from the juniper ash easier.
To see how the Navajo cook with ash, I drive to the tiny Navajo Nation community of Jeddito to Lillie Pete's home. Pete teaches classes on how to cook traditional Navajo food.
She shows me where she picks the juniper from behind her house.
"Some of them will be all brown, you can see it has brown spots on it," Pete says, holding a juniper branch. She says the spots tell her it's time to trim the branches to burn and make the ash.
However, this day is too windy to burn the ash. Fortunately, Pete has a large jar of juniper ash ready to go. We begin making blue corn mush in her kitchen.
Pete says she already knew juniper ash was good for her, along with many other traditional Navajo foods.
"We were warned when the Anglo people came out with the trading posts, 'Stick with your own food,' " Pete says. "Our body wasn't built to consume the kind of food that came with the Anglo. And now we have so many health problems with our people."
Pete says many Navajos tell her they forgot traditional ways when they were forced to go to government-run boarding schools. But now, with the known health benefits, there's an incentive to learn.
Pete boils water and pours it onto the ash. Then she measures the cornmeal and stirs the mixture with several long sticks tied together. She says she always stirs in a clockwise direction to keep her mind calm.
After several minutes, the corn mush produces thick volcanic bubbles, which tells us it's ready. Pete gives thanks to mother earth for the corn as she cleans each stick.
Then we sit down to a hot bowl of delicious blue corn mush. It reminds me a bit of cream of wheat.
As for Begay, he says he wants to get the word out to the Navajo people that juniper ash is a good source of calcium. "Every chance I get when someone asks about my research I say, 'you gotta eat more blue corn mush.'"
Bfl
The Grocery store sells Lactose -free milk.
Ashes are a pretty good seasoning.
It’s why bread cooked in a wood fired oven is so good, and anything cooked over an open fire is so darn tasty.
There is always supplementation. And it takes more than calcium to keep bones healthy. Using soup bones helps increase collagen in your bone broths or soups.
They raise hosts on the Rez..goat milk usually is very degistble
Interesting. Had no clue. (Info from the web)
Although goat milk, like cow’s milk and human milk, contains lactose, many people with lactose intolerance can drink goat milk. Why? It has been hypothesized that the reason lies in goat milk’s superior digestibility. Goat milk is more completely and easily absorbed than cow’s milk, leaving less undigested residue behind in the colon to quite literally ferment and cause the uncomfortable symptoms of lactose intolerance.
Good information for survival/self-reliance uses.
We used to cook food over an open fire and the wood ash provided minerals.
When we burn brush at the farm, the cows will lick up the ashes for the minerals.
Sells Almond milk too. And that low amount of calcium won’t help your bones. Takes 1,000-1,500 mg per day. Off set with half that much Magnesium Citrate, Oxide is not well absorbed, unless you need it for blocked bowels, Strontium Citrate, K2 Complex, zinc 10 mg, boron, Magnesium 800mg, D3 at 2,000 UI. K2 Complex forces the shed Cal to stay in the bones not your arteries in the form of plaque. It and D3 thin the blood.
Calcium in the form of Coral Calcium is my choice, less gas than the rest of the products out there. And I’m reversing OP with it, not drugs which are FDA Flagged/black boxed and as all are A-Fib flagged I can’t touch them. Enlarged heart with small leaky valve. 2 ER trips for A-Fib were scary.
Interestingly, I came across this the other day when I wanted to make Navajo fry bread and the standard explanation for juniper ash is that it makes niacin available from the corn. Other explanations: it intensifies the blue-ish color and people say they prefer the taste.
Is this like using wood ash to make a weak lye for hominy? Juniper ash is made mostly from burned needles, rather than wood branches. Saw modern Navajo & Hopi doing it in an aluminum pan over a BBQ grill.
The berries themselves are used as a flavoring in some German cooking and are supposed to help with a variety of ills, mainly urinary tract infections.
Fry bread uses wheat flour,lard, powdered milk (if using the Hopi recipes. Ash in some recipes, not in others and seemingly not related to the corn used in mush (and tamales). Seems strange they added powdered milk if they are lactose intolerant. Also, while the vids I watched stressed the ingredients were from government commodity rations, I wondered when powdered milk was added? That’s something I first recall seeing in the 1950s.
I refuse to take drugs for osteoporosis. It drives the doctors nuts because my lumbar score is -4.9. But I know they’re bad news. And if they do cause A-fib problems, that’s a deal killer. Thanks for the info.
My mother used to be pleased when the cast iron skillet gave off tiny black specks - she said it was good way to get iron!
Good question. It might be that weak lye action that releases the calcium for absorption.
Juniper ash is made mostly from burned needles, rather than wood branches.
That's a good thing to know before making a really bad batch of corn mush. I don't think I'd emulate their use of an aluminum pan though.
This is a racist comment that insults and demeans my people.
"The Grocery store sells Lactose -free milk"
They also sell lactose free beer. Pretty sure all firewater is lactose-free.
But what good is in fry bread? (Not that it isn’t delicious)
Calcium supplements make me stop pooping.
Is that why they are only 60% of the daily RDA?
One of those disposable pans. They held the burning branches over the pan and then sifted the ashes when they cooled. I doubt there’s enough exposure to the aluminum to hurt anyone.
We have an ancient local cedar in the front yard. I’m not fond of the turpentine-y taste of juniper berries, but after watching the Navajo cooking vids, I looked at some of the uses for berries. All recipes except the medicinal ones use only a few berries at a time...not that appealing, for me. Basically, use 3-4 smashed berries w/caraway in cabbage or for a pork or lamb rub. Also for game.
Always thought the hominy treatment was for niacin activation. It was poverty food in an era rife with pellagra.
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