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Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous Peoples: Nutrition, Botany and Use

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Abstract

Abstract Reporting on the nutritional, botanical and ethnological data of more than one thousand species of edible plants, this reference guide addresses an academic audience with a variety of backgrounds and needs. In addition to providing nutrition information, it describes regions where plants are available and presents patterns of use of particular species of Canadian Indigenous Peoples. Several cross-referencing tables containing common English plant names, botanical names and composite information about each species are accompanied by chapters giving an overview of the known ethnic uses of the most important and universally used species. In addition, a thorough index is supplied. Biologists, ethnologists, Indigenous Peoples, nutritionists, wildlife enthusiasts and health care professionals should all find this volume irreplaceable.
Kuhnlein HV and NJ Turner. 1991. Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian
Indigenous Peoples- nutrition, botany and use. Gordon and Breach 1991
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... Considered as alternatives to the global food system, Indigenous and local food systems have, to date, been conceptualized separately (Kuhnlein and Humphries 2017;Kuhnlein and Turner 1996;Irshadd 2010;Edge 2013). An Indigenous food system is unique to an Indigenous community and based on local species and natural resources, proximity to migratory routes, and cultural food practices, including the intergenerational transfer of food knowledge from older to younger generations (Assembly of First Nations 2007). ...
... Chen and Natcher (2019) identified 36 community gardens and 17 greenhouses where residents grow food across northern Canada. Other studies have identified over 500 animal species and up to 680 plant species harvested from the environment and used by Indigenous Peoples (Kuhnlein and Humphries 2017;Kuhnlein and Turner 1996). Another important food procurement activity is subsistence fishing and harvesting of seafood, especially in coastal ILFSs (Marushka et al. 2019;Lowitt 2014). ...
Article
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Before the last century, societies around the globe, including Indigenous Peoples and early settlers to Canada’s west coast, relied on local procurement and preservation of seasonal food to support their food security and food sovereignty. In some instances, Indigenous Peoples and settlers shared and adopted each other’s food provisioning and preservation practices and associated values. Such cross-cultural knowledge exchanges provided wide-ranging food provisioning options for those living in the region. In this paper, we conceptualize such exchanges and varieties of provisioning options as part of Indigenous and local food systems that have been co-created through mutual interdependence, support, and food-related values. Using data from interviews and document analysis, we show that current residents of the Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Region have maintained traditional food procurement and preservation techniques, although with some new methods that have emerged in response to new technologies, innovation, and need. Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents who share food and exchange food provisioning practices simultaneously support their food needs, wellbeing, and cultural maintenance. In contrast to research that examines and conceptualizes local food systems and Indigenous food systems separately, this paper highlights the existence of an interrelated Indigenous and local food system, characterized by historical and contemporary shared food provisioning practices and cross-cultural food knowledge exchanges on Canada’s west coast. The advantage of the joint conceptualization lies in acknowledging how food systems can and do evolve to co-exist over time, and how they create opportunities for people living in remote, sometimes marginalized communities to strengthen food security and food sovereignty through shared food provisioning practices that resonate with their values.
... Roughly one-quarter of the world's boreal forest, temperate forest, and wetland area, respectively, are found in Canada (Government of Canada 2022). Prior to colonization by European settlers, Indigenous communities relied on a diversity of wildlife to meet nutritional and medicinal needs and maintained strong spiritual and cultural connections with ecosystems for millenia (Kuhnlein and Turner 1991;Turner et al. 2000;Hummel and Ray 2008;Cannon and Yang 2017). Such connections to place still exist for many communities, and 96% of Canadians believe that nature is important to their well-being (ECCC 2024). ...
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Facing the global biodiversity crisis, conservation practitioners and decision-makers seek to catalyze wildlife recoveries in their region. Here we examined social-ecological attributes related to threatened species recovery in Canada. First, we used a retrospective approach to compare the trajectories of the original species assessed by Canada’s species-at-risk committee and found that only eight of 36 species now have decreased extinction risk relative to the past. There were no significant differences in human or financial capacity provided for recovery across species doing better, the same, or worse; the only significant difference was whether the primary cause of decline was alleviated or not. Second, when looking at species assessed at least twice between 2000 and 2019 we found that only eight of 422 (1.9%) experienced both increasing abundance and decreasing extinction risk. The defining characteristic of successful recoveries was first alleviating the original cause of decline, which was most often accomplished through strong regulatory intervention. Once declines were halted, practical interventions were highly species-specific. It is instructive to learn from conservation successes to scale resources appropriately and our results emphasize the importance of threat-specific intervention as a fundamental precursor to the successful restoration of biodiversity in Canada.
... Plants from USOs usually are rich in starch content, thus, are high in carbohydrates and energy and can serve as an important or even major food source in many food traditions (Bishop, 2021;Bishop et al., 2022). However, many of them also contain toxic substance that need to be degraded by grinding (Hastorf, 2016:106;Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991;Mears and Hillman, 2007;Klooß et al., 2016;). Therefore, if USOs were consumed at a site, there is a high probability of their starch residue being present on grinding stones. ...
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Analyses of plant microfossils retrieved from grinding and polishing stones are shown to constitute a reliable line of evidence to unveil the functions of these stone implements at the site of Oldenburg LA 77. Dating to the Middle Neolithic (3270-2920 BCE), this settlement is one of the earliest villages that are representative of the social shift in northern Germany, from living in isolated farmsteads in the Early Neolithic towards population agglomeration in villages in the Middle Neolithic. Our results paint a complex picture of the use of grinding and polishing stones in daily plant preparation: they were predominantly used to crush and/or grind cereals, but also regularly used to grind wild grass caryopses, tubers, rhizomes, and, to a lesser extent, wild legumes. We see no significant functional differences among the sampled grinding stone tools linked with different stone morphotypes, stone raw materials, as well as stone sizes. Our results also indicate that daily food processing-related grinding stones may have been deliberately chosen, invested with social meaning, eventually became part of ritual activities in the settlement, and thus, may have additional functions beyond economic practices.
... In Canada, urban foraging has a long history. Indigenous communities have long harvested wild plants for food, medicine, and other uses, and these land-based practices continue to exist today (Kuhnlein and Turner 2020). Settlers learned to also harvest from the wild along with establishing agricultural practices. ...
Chapter
Urban foraging research has been growing in the past two decades. Likewise, trends in social practice are moving towards connecting with nature through activities that include urban foraging. While the global urban population increases, it brings into focus on food security issues and practices such as foraging are seen as one possible mitigation strategy to provide local, accessible food. In this chapter, we highlight the growing phenomenon of urban foraging globally and provide an overview of Canada’s current status and practices. Firstly, using grey literature, we unpack and synthesize existing urban foraging practices, and the status of legislative frameworks and by-laws that restrict the use of urban foraging across 16 Canadian municipalities (larger than 100,000 population). Then, we use a bibliometric analysis to review and synthesize the scholarly “urban foraging” literature to identify themes and trends in publication. The latter part of the chapter dives into a case study highlighting the historical importance and current status of urban fruit trees in the City of Toronto. Finally, we conclude the chapter by comparing urban foraging practices between the global north and south. We found Canadian urban foraging research is still in its early stages, while practices grow, conservation policies restrict and limit the activity on public lands.
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Fundamental to understanding plant species distributions are the roles of natural and anthropogenic mechanisms of dispersal. Recent attention has focused on mechanisms of long-distance dispersal, and some research has examined whether past Indigenous peoples dispersed preferred plant species long distances in North America. Assessing dispersal mechanisms is crucial to understanding a plant’s capacity for range shifts under future climate change. This study investigated the northern distribution of pawpaw (Asimina triloba [L.] Dunal), a species of ecological, horticultural, and cultural value for which researchers have debated the relative role of different dispersal mechanisms including past Indigenous facilitation. Focusing on western New York State (NYS), this study employed interdisciplinary analysis to infer the possibility of human-facilitated dispersal of the species, including by analysing archaeological site data and historical records. Results suggested that pawpaw distribution is primarily driven by natural dispersal (i.e. hydrochory, endozoochory), though some populations may have originated from Indigenous or Euro-American planting. Given the buoyant characteristics of A. triloba fruit and seeds, Great Lakes (i.e. Lake Erie and Lake Ontario) currents were and are capable of facilitating long-distance dispersal into western NYS. This study also suggested that A. triloba is less rare in the study area than once thought (n = 70 populations historically and/or presently) and is within its climatic limits. This study broadly provided insight into the relative roles of natural and human-aided dispersal for a noteworthy tree species of eastern North America.
Chapter
This chapter provides a case study of fire-cracked rock (FCR) employed in cooking and cuisine in North America. Three hunter-gatherer Late Archaic (c. 5000–2000 BP) sites from Grand Island in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are investigated, which contained evidence of cooking via earth oven, stone boiling, and rock griddle facilities based on contextual, spatial, and FCR analyses. Although the case study focuses on FCR, the author’s analysis of all 29,221 lithics from the studied sites are briefly presented, as well as the background information for the sites, and the island’s environmental settings and geological formation. Nut processing and lipid residue analysis from FCR samples are also discussed in Chap. 5, as well as the concepts of cooking and cuisine in archaeology.
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