Proving Pemmican’s healthful benefits

Research aims to bring traditional Native American food back

The next time travel plans are being made you might consider taking along some pemmican.

What’s pemmican you ask? Well, it’s a food item invented by American Indians.

The recipe calls for minced dried meat from bison, moose, elk or deer. Fat is mixed in along with the most important ingredient of all: juneberries.

“It’s very delicious — it tastes absolutely perfect,” says chemistry and biochemistry professor Fathi Halaweish, who is researching the health benefits of pemmican, specifically the medicinal qualities of juneberries.

Pemmican was widely adopted as a high-energy food by Native Americans. It was also consumed by Europeans involved in the fur trade and later by Arctic and Antarctic explorers.

“Native Americans used it as a dry meal,” explains Halaweish. “They’d mash up the berries, mix it up with fats and buffalo meat. They dried it in the sun and took it along as a source of food. White settlers used it, too, while crossing the country.”

Halaweish, whose training is on the medicinal use of plants, became involved in the research on an invitation from Kerry Hartmann, instructor and head of the science department at Fort Berthold Community College in North Dakota.

Hartmann, who has collaborated with Halaweish on previous projects, wanted to study the health benefits of juneberries because of what he was observing at the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

“He noticed the locals were using juneberries as a high source of food and mixing them up to make pemmican,” relates Halaweish. “Many people pick the berries from bushes and some of the elders grow them in their backyard. They either mix them up with something or eat as fresh fruit.”

Lots about juneberries

With a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they opened their research in summer 2012 and will conclude the project this summer.

To date, the scientists have learned plenty about juneberries, which are commonly referred to as saskatoons in certain parts of the country.

Similar in color to blueberries, juneberries are more closely related to cherries and plums. Research has shown that juneberries have a higher level of antioxidants compared to wild blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. In addition, they have discovered that juneberries have a significantly higher level of vitamins A and C, protein, calcium and fiber than blueberries.

And, they discovered that when juneberries are mixed with meat and fat, the antioxidant level increases even more — and in fact — the antioxidants serve as a meat preserver, which explains why pemmican hardly ever spoiled when used on long trips or stored away during winter.

“Of course, because it’s a natural food,” remarks Halaweish, “it can be a full meal or just a snack. You have the protein, the fat — the total antioxidant.”

Students trained

Halaweish conducted a workshop for students last summer at Fort Berthold Community College that demonstrated how chemistry is used to show the activity of antioxidants in juneberries when used to make pemmican.

The students will continue their research at SDSU this summer. “We want to train them on the techniques that we use here.”

The ultimate goal, according to Halaweish, is for the research to lead to something much bigger than lab work.

“If we can show the health benefit of this study, the alternative is huge,” he says. “It means it will encourage the community to have healthy foods in their diet.

“It could also be a source of economic development for the community because they could produce it themselves and market it.”

Kyle Johnson