Vegetarianism handout 2 unit 9

Vegetarianism handout 2 unit 9

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  Tribal Diet BHandout Pennington Biomedical Research Center Awesome.2Cents! A Healthy Lifestyle Curriculum for Teens… Lesson 9, Vegetarianism Tribal Diet B Kalahari Bushmen cuisine The Kalahari Bushmen are hunter gatherers, adapting to their semi-arid environment by gathering roots, berries, fruits, and nuts that they gather from the desert, and from the meat provided by the hunters. Both women and men possess a remarkable knowledge of the many edible foods available, and of the medicinal and toxic properties of different species. The diet consists mainly of edible plants. Although the Kalahari is a dry region it contains a great variety of highly nutritious food plants. The San tribe eats up to 100 different plant types. Among the most important is the Mongongo nut. This is a staple food and provide more than half of the San tribe daily diet. The Mongongo nut comes from a fruit of the Mongongo tree. The fruit is eaten fresh, dried, or cooked into a sauce similar to applesauce. The creamy yellow nut meat is oily and nutritious; it is very good eaten raw, and even more delicious when it is roasted. The nutritional content is outstanding. The kernel is 57% by weight fat. Of this, about 43% are polyunsaturated fats (almost entirely linoleic acid), about 17% saturated fats (palmitic and stearic), and about 18% monounsaturated (oleic). Add the sugars in the fleshy part, and, by one estimate, an adult man would meet 71% of his daily energy requirement by eating 100 fruits (kernels and flesh). Indigenous people have been reported as eating around 100-300 fruit a day in parts of Namibia. The kernel has 26 grams of protein per 100grams, an amount similar to peanuts and other protein rich legumes. Kalahari Bushmen men are responsible for providing the meat, although women might occasionally kill small mammals. The men are expert hunters of duiker and steenbok, a wildebeest or even one of the smaller burrowing animals like a springhare, porcupine or even birds. Large animals include eland, kudu giraffe and antelope. These animals are hunted with bows and poisoned arrows. In some instances they use a snare to trap the smaller game. The meat including liver, heart and brain are roasted immediately after the hunt. Game is not plentiful and the hunters sometimes must travel great distances. Meat is usually sparse and is shared fairly among the group when a hunter is successful. Every part of the animal is used; hides are tanned for blankets and bones are cracked for the marrow. Typical game sought in the hunt includes wildebeest, gemsbok, and giraffe; they also kill various reptiles and birds, and collect honey when it is available. Also rock hyraxes, tortoises, steenbok and klipspringer are hunted. In the coastal region they also gather mussels, limpets, fish, rock lobster, and marine birds. The men provide household tools and maintain a supply of poison tipped arrows and spears for hunting. Contrary to popular belief, Bushmen hunting activities are often not directed at the larger antelope, but rather at smaller
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  Tribal Diet BHandout animals such as duiker and steenbok, as well as burrowing animals such as the springhare and porcupine. Custom demands that the meat of larger animals must be shared with others. Not only does it strengthen the ties between people, but it can also be seen as an insurance policy, ensuring that no one will go hungry while others may have an abundance of food. A hunter's parent-in-law are usually the first to receive their share. Kalahari Bushmen women provide the majority of the food, spending two to three days a week foraging varying distances from the camp, and are also responsible for child care, gathering wood for fires, carrying water, and cooking. Typical foods they might return with are mongongo nuts, baobab fruits, water roots, bitter melon, or !Gwa berries. Children are left at home to be watched over by those remaining in camp, but nursing children are carried on these foraging trips, adding to the load the Kalahari Bushmen women must carry. The San tribes eat plants that grow above the ground and also underground bulbs and tubers. The San women use special sticks to unearth the bulbs and tubers. As women are the main collectors of plant foods, they are in a sense the breadwinners among the Bushmen. Hunting, nevertheless, is an important activity, as meat is a much sought after food. Men are therefore under constant pressure to hunt. This is mostly done in small parties that search for fresh animal tracks, which are then followed. As Bushmen arrows are light and flimsy, a hunter must be close to the animal before he shoots, thereafter relying on the poison to kill the animal. Kalahari Bushman mostly use the contents of the pupae of certain beetles of the family Chrysomelidae, though Cape Bushmen in earlier times also used plant and snake poison. In the northern Kalahari, Bushmen utilize more than a hundred plant food species. In the drier Southern Kalahari, plant foods are less abundant, but even there plant foods such as the tsama melon and gemsbok cucumber are of critical importance for Bushman survival. Not only are they important foods, but also for long periods may be the only source of moisture, as parts of the Kalahari only has standing water during the relatively brief rainy season. The diet contains mixed diet of plant foods, particularly the corms of species of Iridaceae (including Watsonia, Babiana, Homeria and Moreae), as well as a variety of fruits and berries. The tsama melon is an important food and a valuable source of water. The pips of the melon are normally roasted over a fire. The tsama melon and gemsbok cucumber are of critical importance for Bushman survival. Not only are they important foods, but also for long periods may be the only source of moisture, as parts of the Kalahari only has standing water during the relatively brief rainy season. As 'hunter-gathers', they gather their diet in the form of roots and tubers, seed grains, fruit, nuts and other nutritious plant products. On average 81.3 percent of the diet is vegetable based and 18.7 per cent is animal based.