How colonial nutrition science erased Indigenous food-mental health traditions—global patterns of erasure and restoration
Original framing: “The overlooked power of diet for improving your mental health” — New Scientist
Indigenous foodways are not just dietary practices but **living pharmacopeias**—e.g., the Mapuche *mellizof* (fermented corn beer) used to treat depression, or the Inuit *aqut* (raw seal meat) rich in omega-3s for cognitive resilience in Arctic climates. Colonial nutrition science erased these systems by framing them as 'superstitious,' while simultaneously promoting diets (e.g., white bread, lard) that correlate with rising mental health disorders. The *Dietary Guidelines for Americans* still exclude Indigenous foods, despite evidence that traditional diets like the *Mediterranean* (itself borrowed from North African and Middle Eastern Indigenous systems) outperform Western diets in mental health outcomes.
The erasure of Indigenous food-mental health traditions is not an accident but a **deliberate mechanism of colonial and corporate control**, where pathologising traditional knowledge creates markets for pharmaceutical and processed food alternatives.
The gut-brain axis research celebrated in mainstream media is built on the ruins of these systems—e.g., the *Mediterranean diet*’s mental health benefits are often attributed to olive oil while ignoring its North African and Middle Eastern Indigenous roots. Solutions must **reclaim food as a political and spiritual act**, not just a biochemical input, by centring Indigenous sovereignty, regulating agrochemical harms, and reframing mental health as a **collective** rather than individual responsibility. The trickster here is the illusion that 'diet as medicine' is a neutral discovery, when in fact it is a **recolonisation** of knowledge—one that can only be undone by restoring the voices and lands that were stolen to build it.