Country foods champion honoured at health gathering

A champion of Arctic country foods will be honoured on Sunday, the final day of the International Congress on Circumpolar Health in Nuuk, Greenland.

Dr. Harriet V. Kuhnlein, professor of human nutrition and founding director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) in Montreal, will receive the Jack Hildes Medal, named for the founder of the University of Manitoba’s northern medical unit.

Kuhnlein said she’s proud to receive an honour that recognizes the value of traditional country foods.

“It’s important that traditional food be recognized, not only for its contaminants, but as a source of nutrients,” Kuhnlein said.

She has said losing the nutritional, economic and cultural benefits of country foods can make people sick. Country food may contain persistent organic pollutants and heavy metal contaminants that find their way into the Arctic from long-range air and ocean currents and accumulate in the tissues of wildlife, but Kuhnlein said a diet of local, traditional food is still healthier than the alternative.

“You hear about the contaminants, but people always have to be reminded that all these other values bear on eating local food,” Kuhnlein said.

CINE coordinated the Inuit dietary benefit risk study, which was conducted over three years in partnership with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

The study included community workshops in every Inuit region, and 18 communities were selected by five regional workshops to participate in interview data and food sample collection for the study.

This study looked at the kinds of food Inuit eat, and evaluated its nutritional benefits and the risks from exposure to any contaminants it might contain.

“When traditional food is in the daily diet, nutrient levels are so much higher than if it’s not included in the diet, and that’s true across the board,” Kuhnlein said.

CINE was created in collaboration with indigenous peoples to address the need for community-based research and education on traditional food, as well as concerns about the impact of environmental and cultural changes on health, nutrition and lifestyle.

In the past 10 years, CINE has worked in approximately 40 communities conducting research, training residents in research techniques and preparing health promotion materials.

Kuhnlein has also worked with indigenous people in the United States and Asia. Recently, she has been working with the World Health Organization in developing countries including Guatemala, Laos, India, Bolivia, the Philippines, China, Niger, Bangladesh and Peru.

CINE and the WHO are drafting a document that will serve as a guide for researchers and communities in health research projects.