(9) Comments:

#1. Posted by Nutrition Education on April 28, 2018
Nutritional education is needed across the North. Too many people making poor food choices with stores constantly out of pop, chips, processed foods while nutritious fruits and vegetables go bad and are thrown out regularly.

Traditional diet contributed necessary nutrients because organ meats, bone marrow and virtually every part of an animal was consumed. Unfortunately today that is not as prevalent as it once was. Many people take the most delicious parts of the animal and give the rest to animals or leave it on the land.

Not to mention the environmental impact our rate of consuming processed(canned, bagged and wrapped) products has on our communities. Every year how many candy wrappers, pop cans, chip bags etc do we clean up during the melt?

We can all do better to help alleviate this problem and educate the future generation on proper nutrition and healthy living!

#2. Posted by Vitamin D on April 28, 2018
Why are we not investing in buying massive quantities of Vitamin D and handing it out to people, instead of spending millions on bad health?

A recent study showed that Vets who suicided had little to no Vitamin D in their bodies, even though they had been in sunny locations for their military tours.

We know how little sun people get up here.

Why can’t we learn from that and other studies??

Get a campaign going and hand out the vitamins and people would show the difference, including in their mental health!

Give them out free like you give meds to pregnant women and see the difference in health indicators.

Don’t be cheap in the wrong places.

#3. Posted by Check the facts before publishing on April 29, 2018
a) Individuals on TB medication receive nutrition supplements along with their medication;
b) Vitamin D is provided free from Health Centres to children under 2, pregnant, and nursing women, and covered by NIHB for others.

#4. Posted by jenna on April 30, 2018
this is totally true. In winter, if i eat my vitemans, the dark doesnt effect my moods barely at all. If i dont eat well and not take vitemans i can feel the depression kicking in.

Having said that, in the south pre-cooked healthy food is so readily available and because of that convenience factor our diets in the south are much more healthy.

Upon returning to the arctic i am tryng so hard not to go to the frozen food section. I spend 3 hours more a day up here having to cook and clean from all the meals, just so we can eat healthier. I tell my kids that only water takes away thirst, not juice. And they cant have junk until as a treat after supper. That seems to be the only way up here because the quality and availablilty of fresh-made food for sale is just not there.

I did a cost comparison. If i dont buy frozen food (except meats) and cook from fresh i save around $200 a week! Family of 4 in the high arctic. Its those cheap frozen foods that are easy and crazy expensive! smile

#5. Posted by #prices#cost#living#north on April 30, 2018
THE PRICES PEOPLE THE PRICES OF LIVING IN THE NORTH IS UNREAL!!! $100 CAN BARELY BUY YOU ANYTHING UP THERE! THINK ABOUT IT, MALNUTRITION IS CAUSED BY PRICES!!!!! CHEAPER TO BUY JUNK FOOD THEN FRUIT AND VEGGIES!!!

#6. Posted by Candice on April 30, 2018
How can we, in other parts of Canada, help?

#7. Posted by Gansha on May 01, 2018
#4,
You really have your act together, I like your story, it reminds me of my own upbringing.
Not once do I remember being hungry, or with bad clothes. It is all about good money management and responsibility for your family.
A lot of parents are to lazy to care for their families, and they blame everyone and everything except themselves.
#6
Thank you for your nice enquiry, but please be aware of con artists, they exist in Nunavut as they do everywhere.
#5
Quit waiting for the world to feed you. Get money management skills!!

#8. Posted by Tina on May 01, 2018
Its harder to find healthy food from the stores, especially in the communities. Most times the veggies are rotten or close to it.
The frozen food and junk are much easier to buy.

The Nutrition North program needs to change. This program has cost more than the food mail program that was in place with very little benefit for cheaper healthier choice.
Getting away from The two stores and buying direct from the south on healthy food would make more sense. There must be a way to improve this expensive program that seems to be benefiting Northwest company and ACL.

#9. Posted by True, True. on May 01, 2018
Very true words #8.
Food mail was really good by those who used it.
Nutrition North was invented by Southern experts with little benefit to Northern people.
When something is going good for Nunavut, it is destroyed by incompetent people. PLEASE BRING BACK FOOD MAIL.
#7 Gansha, very good letter, but as I am sure you know, people have to do it for themselves.

~~~

For the Inuit communities that do not practise selling meat, money is not the object preventing them from having a traditional and therefore healthy diet.

Consider that they've been not only introduced to Western diet and processed foods, but coerced to embrace them for decades. It has been a situation that at best is naive charity and its worst can be described as a cruel experiment.

Because the West has taught them Western values and enforced them, Inuit have grown with a Western style of life. They are changed now.

Unfortunately, when the West was teaching and enforcing these values its knowledge was severely lacking. Since then we have made remarkable progress in math and sciences and we now see that some of these Western values are completely erroneous.

So now we have to undo a lot of the work we've already done - it was done wrong. We are struggling with this problem in the South, and our progress is moving at the pace of a trickle towards the North; But information, like fresh veggies, never seems to arrive fast enough.