The Traditional Plants and Foods Program

The traditional plans and foods program is a long-term general wellness program that recognizes the therapeutic value of traditional foods, medicines, and lifestyles, and includes many elements. Regularly scheduled workshops teach people about Native foods nutrition, harvesting traditional plants, gardening, plants as foods and medicine, and much more. Through community-based participatory research, we identify barriers that keep people from re-adopting traditional healthy food behaviors and then develop programs to overcome the barriers. We use mentoring relationships and train-the-trainer workshops to increase the number of community educators able to teach about traditional plants and foods and healthy food behaviors. We examine community food assets and accessibility, with the ultimate goal of improving food security and Tribal food sovereignty. Partnering with drug and alcohol treatment centers, we combat substance abuse through the use of traditional culture, foods, and medicines. And we identify job skills and opportunities related to traditional plants and foods, with the goal of eventually providing job skills trainings