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About Us
About Us
The Native Nourishment Network was established by Dr. Tara Maudrie in 2025. The Native Nourishment Network supports strengths-based research and community efforts related to Indigenous nutrition, traditional food revitalization efforts, and holistic wellbeing.
Health Outcome Background
Health Outcome Background
American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities experience the highest rates of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) in the United States. Many Sault Tribe citizens reside in Chippewa County, Michigan, where the T2D mortality rate is nearly three times higher among AI/AN people compared to non-Hispanic White residents. These statistics are not a reflection of who we are as Anishinaabe people but the cumulative impact of centuries of land dispossession and historical traumas.
Land dispossession, environmental degradation, and policies designed to disconnect us from our traditional food practices and one another not only changed what we eat, but they disrupted our ways of being and nourishing one another.
Our traditional foodways nourish us across four interconnected aspects of our wellbeing (Maudrie et al., 2024a, Maudrie et al., 2024b):
Physically — providing the nutrients our bodies were sustained by for generations, and connecting us to the land and water through our traditional food practices
Relationally — bringing us together through intergenerational knowledge and community food gatherings
Emotionally — grounding us in our connections to land, water, our more than human kin (plants and animals), to each other, and to ourselves
Spiritually — connecting us to our original responsibilities as caretakers of the land, water, and all our relations
When our foodways were disrupted, the harm moved through all four of these dimensions simultaneously, disconnecting us from our lands, waters, more than human kin, and one another. Our team believes that nutrition and diabetes in our Anishinaabe communities cannot be understood outside of this context, and that healing comes from returning to our ways of nourishment.
Our current work examines the connections between food sovereignty practices (e.g., hunting, fishing, gathering) and nutrition, overall wellbeing, and T2D-related health outcomes among Sault Tribe members. Our work is grounded in the understanding that in order to effectively address nutrition and T2D, we must return to our Indigenous ways of understanding wellbeing and work to nourish all four domains of our wellbeing.
Approach
Approach
In all of our work, we use a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework that centers equitable collaboration and shared ownership with community members. Working alongside community partners, we develop sustainable, culturally responsive interventions that reflect the unique context and priorities of the Tribes and communities we serve. Every step of our research process, including study design, measurement development, interpretation of findings, and dissemination of results, is shaped by community perspectives and experiences through a Community Research Council (CRC).
We have Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) and Data Use Agreements (DUAs) with the Sault Tribe Health Division and Natural Resources Division that govern our approach to protecting Tribal data sovereignty and ensuring our work accurately reflects and uplifts community priorities.
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