"I promise to give up fat ''Indian'' food this year and to urge others to do the same.

Target number one: the ubiquitous frybread - the junk food that's supposed to be traditional, but isn't, and makes for fat, fatter and fattest Indians.

Frybread is bad for you? Well, let's see. It's made with white flour, salt, sugar and lard. The bonus ingredient is dried cow's milk for the large population of Native people who are both glucose and lactose intolerant.

Frybread was a gift of Western civilization from the days when Native people were removed from buffalo, elk, deer, salmon, turkey, corn, beans, squash, acorns, fruit, wild rice and other real food.

Frybread is emblematic of the long trails from home and freedom to confinement and rations. It's the connecting dot between healthy children and obesity, hypertension, diabetes, dialysis, blindness, amputations and slow death.

If frybread were a movie, it would be hard-core porn. No redeeming qualities. Zero nutrition."

Get the Story:
Harjo: My New Year's resolution: No more fat 'Indian' food (Indian Country Today 1/20)

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