Eating Green

"Let your culture inspire your eating habits"

Kibbe Conti, RD, created a nutrition model based on the medicine wheel, a sacred symbol that represents balance. Her hope is that it helps fight the diabetes epidemic currently raging among Native Americans.

Kibbe Conti was working on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation when her nutrition education collided with her culture.

As a certified diabetes educator, she knew that rates of type 2 diabetes among Native Americans are more than two times the national average. As a Lakota Sioux well versed in her history, she also knew that their diets were once healthy--made up of gathered plants, quality meats, and fish. But when Indian land shrunk to reservation size, highly processed meat products and soda replaced extralean buffalo meat and fresh water--not the best choices for people prone to obesity and diabetes, she says. Conti hopes to help by reintroducing more traditional foods into a diet plan that reflects how her ancestors ate: large game animals, fruits, and starchy vegetables. She's now testing her plan on an overweight Lakota man at high risk of diabetes for an upcoming PBS series, scheduled to air later this year

In her own home, "I practice what I preach," says the 39-year-old mother of two. Instead of sweetened drinks, she sips water, milk, or seltzer, and her family eats lean meat--most of the time. "My husband is Italian, and he's from New York," she says. "He really likes sausage, so sometimes he has to have it."

My Diet Rules:

* Buy locally "Our ancestors ate off the land they lived on, so we try our best to do the same. I pick up fresh fruits and vegetables at the market whenever they are available, and I keep organic milk and eggs on hand."

* Make veggies your starch "Native people used to eat beans, corn, and squash, which contain complex carbohydrates that gradually release glucose into your blood instead of spiking your blood sugar."

* Shop slowly "Our ancestors painstakingly hunted, gathered, and prepared food. These days, most of us spend almost no time. Slow down at the store, read the nutrition labels, peruse the fresh meat--healthy eating starts with healthy shopping."