Bird Creek Farms: Returning to Healthier Foods

NEWS RELEASE

Osage Nation, Pawhuska, Okla. (April 28, 2015)—The word future for many at first thought means something better. It refers to an instance that has yet to come. In using the colloquial of new and improved, something always comes along to replace the old; history reveals this to be true. One example comes from childhood and the cartoons about life in a space-aged world. Everything in that cartoon existence is convenient. Life is easier and even better.

The future did deliver on that premise. Examples can be seen with air-conditioning which is affordable and available in homes and automobiles. There are vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, and devices no bigger than one’s hand such as a Smartphone™ which, to mention just a few aspects, will wake you up in the morning, search the internet, and monitor your house while you are away. The 20th-Century brought America a lot of innovations that were good not just to work and home life, but to health in the development of medicines. But this modernization has a downside too.

This can be seen in a University of Minnesota article on taking charge of your health and wellbeing, as it explains, “we are increasingly eating more processed foods.” We do it because it is convenient. It tastes good because we want our food to taste good, “but [this compromises] our nutrition.” The soil is depleted and chemicals are introduced.

In March, Osage Nation Assistant Principal Chief Raymond Red Corn spoke on just that topic at a public informational meeting about the Nation’s development of Bird Creek Farm (BCF). He told the audience, “We are unhealthy because we try to make our food taste good with sugar, salt, and fat—all of us. We all have that—we all crave that—naturally … humans crave that naturally. It isn’t just us [Osages].”

The mission statement of BCF is to develop a “sustainable community agricultural resource ….” And while this project’s development will present a variety of outcomes from “strengthen Osage culture” to “food access” there will also be education on ways to grow heathier food which in turn will improve health.

Assistant Chief Red Corn in talking about tastier foods reported that a greenhouse would be constructed at BCF. He continued by saying, “… We have to come up with some alternatives that still make food taste good and … I want to build a greenhouse … where we’re going to grow rosemary, thyme, lemongrass ….” Red Corn listed other herbs and explained that they are not expensive to grow, and the plans are to give them away. He further said that people who know how to use these herbs in foods could be brought in to demonstrate “… how to cook with that stuff and show you how to use it because it makes food taste really good … without fat, sugar, and salt.”

Progress at BCF is moving right along. Fields are plowed, and one for HAPA ZHUTSE (red corn) has been planted. Community plots are available too. For more information on this project and/or to get involved contact Osage Nation Communities of Excellence at 918-287-5267.