Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Food Security in the Alaskan Arctic, an Ethnographic Investigation of Yup'ik Food Storage and Processing

本研究的目的是调查阿拉斯加Yup'ik土著生存储存和保存技术- Yup'ik食物制备的绝对必要组成部分-及其对阿拉斯加西南部两个村庄社区（Tununak和Chefornak）生存食品中持久性有机污染物（POP）浓度的潜在缓解影响。Yup'ik是一个北极狩猎采集族群，居住在阿拉斯加西南部，分布在育空河和库斯科温河三角洲的70个村庄。尽管最近在饮食中加入了从商店购买的食物，但Yup'ik人仍然依赖当地收获的资源，主要是鱼类和海洋哺乳动物。他们保留并继续利用他们在海洋狩猎、沿海捕鱼、苔原采集以及对该项目最重要的大型海洋哺乳动物和大量鱼类捕捞的加工和长期储存方面的广泛知识。由于他们以海洋为基础的饮食，Yup'ik人的健康状况吸引了健康研究人员的注意，比如糖尿病发病率低，心血管健康状况好。然而，最近，由于对海产品中普遍存在的持久性有机污染物（POPs）的担忧，许多阿拉斯加土著群体的饮食受到了密切关注。持久性有机污染物是人类在农业化学革命期间生产的化学物质，用作杀虫剂。尽管大多数持久性有机污染物已停止生产，但它们仍然对人类健康构成威胁，因为它们在环境中持续存在（数十年或更长时间），可以长距离传播，并在食物链中积累。北极地区虽然远离主要的农业场所，但残留的持久性有机污染物的浓度特别高。这是由于许多因素造成的，包括持久性有机污染物能够随着洋流传播，通过北极的野生动物物种，以及持久性有机污染物在食物链最高的动物（如北极海豹、鲸鱼和熊）体内积累的事实。关于食用海洋食品的安全性，结果是一个复杂的信息：营养学家提倡食用海洋食品，因为它们“对心脏健康”？（多不饱和脂肪酸含量高），环境毒理学家警告食用它们，因为它们积累持久性有机污染物的能力比许多其他食物要高得多。不幸的是，阿拉斯加土著居民经常食用的鱼类和海洋哺乳动物的毒理学和营养资料的主要数据来源来自未加工的肌肉样本（即收获、取样、冷冻运输和解冻供实验室分析的物种）。然而,是的吗?Ik人不仅食用动物肌肉组织以外的许多其他部分（脂肪、器官、血液、小骨头），而且很少食用新鲜捕获的物种，并且在食用之前有大量的加工、储存和准备方法（例如，ninamayuk是一种受欢迎的食物，在食用前需要一个月的晒干和两到三个月的发酵）。然而，加工、储存和当地饮食传统对食品营养和毒理学特征的潜在影响却很少受到关注。Yup'ik社区不仅渴望了解他们所吃食物的潜在益处和危害，而且这些信息可以阐明可能影响食品安全的过程。对Yup'ik食物的制备和储存如何影响生计食品的营养和毒理学特征的检查将通过以下方式实现：1)对Yup'ik人在Yup'ik社区中制备的食物和原始生计物种的未经准备的组织进行实验室测试；2)通过直接观察和记录（在可能的情况下）、访谈和半定性调查进行调查。研究区域的两种主要海洋食物（海豹和鲱鱼）在今天和最近的过去被Yup'ik人清洗、加工、储存、准备和食用的方式。当地的食品加工和储存技术在污染物研究中通常被忽视，特别是在为当今的Yup'ik社区设计的食品风险评估中。然而，有证据表明，在其他情况下，加工技术、储存时间和条件以及饮食可对各种食品毒物的水平和/或其生物利用度产生影响。在北极周围，加工和储存食物的许多不同的技术通常仅限于历史文献中的早期描述，稀疏的旅行者记录和最近的民族志（纯描述性）记录。如今，Yup'ik社区中许多传统生存方式的可行性或近期记忆为研究人员提供了一个独特的机会，可以系统地调查这些过程中的一些，直到最近，人类的生存才完全依赖于这些过程。迄今为止，切福尔纳克村没有关于海豹或鲱鱼的生存数据，而图努纳克村的现有数据不迟于20世纪90年代。这项研究将为这两个村庄提供新的和所需的生存数据，并为正在进行的关于小规模食物储存在人类进化中的作用的辩论增添新的内容。土著居民健康研究中的一个普遍假设是，一旦狩猎采集者参与市场经济或“西方化”，就没有回头路，很快就会完全融入。阿拉斯加的土著居民，因为他们一直依赖当地的狩猎和采集为生，对这种假设提出了质疑。尽管如此，他们仍然存在许多现实问题，本研究项目将通过调查食品加工和储存的潜在中介效应，对阿拉斯加本土食品进行风险评估。这项研究将有助于更好地了解和欣赏阿拉斯加土著的生活方式，并增加对该地区主要健康问题的认识，并有助于总体上了解关键的全球健康问题。

The purpose of this study is to investigate Yup'ik Alaska Native subsistence storage and preservation techniques - an absolutely essential component of Yup'ik food preparation - and their potential mitigating influence on persistent organic pollutant (POP) concentrations in subsistence foods in two village communities in southwestern Alaska (Tununak and Chefornak). The Yup'ik are an arctic hunter-gatherer population living in southwestern Alaska in 70 villages dispersed throughout the delta of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Despite a recent shift toward the inclusion of store-bought foods in the diet, Yup'ik people still depend on locally harvested resources, primarily fish and sea mammals. They retain and continue to utilize their extensive knowledge of ocean hunting, coastal fishing, tundra gathering, and, most importantly for this project, the processing and long-term storage of large marine mammals and sizeable catches of fish. As a result of their marine-based diet, the Yup'ik have health profiles that have attracted the attention of health researchers, such as low rates of diabetes and good cardiovascular health. However, recently, the diets of many Alaska Native groups have come under scrutiny because of concern over persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are commonly present in seafoods. POPs are chemicals that were produced by humans during the chemical revolution in agriculture for their use as pesticides. Despite discontinuation of the production of most POPs, they remain dangerous to human health because they persist in the environment (for decades or more), can travel long distances, and accumulate up the food chain. Although far from major agricultural sites, arctic regions accumulate particularly high concentrations of leftover POPs. This is due to a number of factors including the ability of POPs to travel with ocean currents, the wildlife species that pass through the arctic, and the fact that POPs accumulate in the bodies of animals highest up on the food chain such as arctic seals, whales, and bears. The result has been a mixed message regarding the safety of eating marine-based foods: nutritionists promote their consumption because they are "heart healthy?"(i.e., high in polyunsaturated fatty acids) and environmental toxicologists caution their consumption because they accumulate POPs significantly more so than many other foods. Unfortunately, the primary source of data for the toxicological and nutritional profiles of fish and sea mammals that are frequently consumed by Alaska Native peoples comes from unprocessed muscle samples (i.e., species that are harvested, sampled, frozen for transport, and thawed for lab analysis). However, Yup?ik people not only consume many other parts of animals aside from the muscle tissue (blubber, organs, blood, small bones), but they rarely consume freshly caught species and have a vast array of methods for processing, storing, and preparing foods before they are consumed (for example, ninamayuk is a popular food that involves one month of sun-drying and two to three months of fermentation in rendered seal blubber before it is consumed). Nevertheless, the potential effects of processing, storage, and local dietary traditions on the nutritional and toxicological profiles of foods have received little attention. The Yup'ik community is not only eager to know about the potential benefits and hazards of the foods they eat, but also this information can shed light on processes that may impact the safety of foods in general.An examination of how Yup'ik food preparation and storage affects the nutritional and toxicological profile of subsistence foods will be achieved by 1) laboratory tests of foods that are prepared by Yup'ik people in Yup'ik communities and of the unprepared tissues of the origin subsistence species and 2) investigation, via direct observation and documentation (where possible), interviews, and semi-qualitative surveys, the ways in which the two staple marine foods in the study region (seal and herring) are cleaned, processed, stored, prepared, and eaten by the Yup'ik today and in the recent past. Alaska Native food processing and storage techniques have generally been overlooked in contaminant research, particularly in food risk assessments intended for present-day Yup'ik communities. However, there is evidence in other contexts that processing technique, storage time and conditions, and diet can have an effect on levels of various food toxicants and/or their bioavailability. The many diverse techniques of processing and storing foods in the circumpolar north have generally been limited to early descriptions in historical documents, sparse traveler accounts and more recent ethnographic (purely descriptive) accounts. The viability or recent memory of many traditional subsistence practices in Yup'ik communities today presents researchers with a unique opportunity to systematically investigate some of these processes on which, until only very recently, the survival of people absolutely depended. To date, no subsistence data on seal or herring exists for the village of Chefornak and the data that exists for Tununak dates no later than the 1990s. This study will provide new and needed subsistence data for both villages and add to ongoing debates about the role of small-scale food storage in human evolution.A general assumption in research on indigenous health is that once hunter-gatherer populations become involved in the market economy or become "Westernized" there is no turning back, and full integration will soon follow. Alaska Native peoples, because of their continued reliance on local subsistence hunting and gathering, question this assumption. Nevertheless, there are many real concerns for them, and this research project will make a risk assessment of Alaska Native foods by investigated the potential mediating effects of food processing and storing. This research will contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of Alaska Native life-ways, as well as add to knowledge about a primary health concern in the region and contribute to an understanding of key global health issues in general.