Justin Lane:

So as far as health disparities go, related to colonization, I would say that taking a people whose diet is a certain way—basically game meat and some vegetables and then gathering—to give them flour and lard, it's going to affect your health. So, in turn, we see today a lot of disparities related to obesity, related to diabetes, that sort of thing. I think—I haven't seen the data myself—but I know that there's been research into how humans' genes react to starvation. So, when someone is starved . . .some genes are silenced, some genes are activated, so that their bodies will store as much energy as possible. So those genes, that silencing and that awakening of genes, or turning them on basically, has been inherited from the 1800s, when there was a lot of starvation. Then Native people now, their metabolisms aren't what they should be. So, in turn, it creates a lot of obesity and diabetes and heart disease and hypertension, that sort of thing. So, there's that. A lot of it goes back to food. And today, not for the Kaw Nation, really, but for a lot of other tribes that live on reservations, there's the food desert. So maybe they can't eat healthy vegetables, or whatever, because they can't buy them. They can't find them there.

Lisa Tatonetti:

Yes.

Justin Lane:

So that's, in my opinion, I think a lot of the health adversities come from diet diversity.