Even PoC Have Diet Restrictions

May 14, 2018 6:14 AM

Are there resources for restricted diets/food allergies (FODMAP, gluten-free, paleo, Atkins, veg*an, raw, etc etc) that take into account foods and cuisines from generally non-White/PoC/"ethnic" cultures?

I'm not personally in need of one such resource, but I sometimes look them up to help figure out food for shared situations, and it strikes me that most of it assumes a very White Anglo/Euro diet. You'll have pages about pasta or berries or steak, but you'll have to do some digging to figure out if a durian is FODMAP-friendly (apparently yes) or how to make gluten free paratha. It's as though they assume that the only people who care about food restrictions are White people while ignoring that staples of other cuisines can rub up against fairly common restrictions (for example, soy sauce generally not being gluten-free, or Atkins diets taking away rice).

The closest I can think of to such a list would probably be lists of halal foods, though that does tend to veer in the opposite direction as there's an assumption that "halal" = "curry/Middle Eastern/South Asian" even though there's nothing in halal that dictates a cooking style. Some Buddhist and Hindu cuisines are vegetarian/vegan by default (if not stricter) though they may not necessarily advertise themselves as such. The person that had the gluten-free paratha recipe seems to have a whole blog around paleo versions of South Asian food, and is herself Indian, so that's a good start.

I'm open to any sort of restricted diet, whether it's "faddy" or based on science or whatever. I'm also open to any sort of cuisine, even European/White ones, if they tend to be pretty unique on their own (e.g. a lot of Scandinavian food).

posted by divabat to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

These are not necessarily "resources" but more generally recipe collections.

Bryant Terry writes amazing vegan cookbooks featuring American soul food and African cuisines. His twitter is great to follow for other resources as well.

Sweet Potato Soul is a vegan blog and cookbook with more of a health focus that doesn't entirely focus on soul food, but does more so than some books.

The Indian food blog and cookbook world is HUGE, but these are the two I turn to the most:

Two Sleevers is the blog that launched the famous Instant Pot Butter Chicken recipe, which was originally written as a keto dish. It has a lot of keto recipes, including tons of Indian ones.

Vegan Richa is a vegan food blog (and pair of cookbooks) that features a LOT of Indian recipes, and she also usually includes gluten free and soy free options for recipes. That's right, vegan, soy-free recipes!
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:40 AM on May 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

Black Vegans Rock Has a page for resources.
posted by FencingGal at 7:27 AM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Nom Nom Paleo is a really great resource for paleo recipes done for Asian (East to South) and a lot of other cuisines.

Also, you've totally hit the nail on the head in regards to diet/health and non-white culture. I'm in a nutrition program studying to become a dietitian and man oh man is it so so so so so white! One of our assignments for creating a gluten free menu came with the instructions of "use a traditional American diet" as code for, "ignore all the non-white food that's naturally gluten free."
posted by astapasta24 at 7:38 AM on May 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Headbanger's Kitchen went all-keto a couple years ago, and he's based in Mumbai. It's not 100% Indian food but skews heavily and he often mentions where to find certain ingredients in India, though he's mindful of his international audience.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:24 AM on May 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

The vegan group PCRM has 21 day kickstart programs for helping people transition to a vegan diet. They have specific programs with recipes and cooking videos based on traditional foods for India, China, and Mexico plus one in an Asian language I don’t recognize, though it looks like only the Indian program is in English. For anyone who does know these other languages, the page with links to all of the kickstart programs is here.
posted by FencingGal at 8:38 AM on May 14, 2018

plus one in an Asian language I don’t recognize

That's Japanese. Katakana is one of three writing systems in Japan, and is a phonetic alphabet used to transliterate foreign words. Hiragana is the other phonetic system, and kanji are the characters based on Chinese. [Please excuse my poorly worded explanation, I'm sure someone can explain much better than I.}
posted by QuakerMel at 8:55 AM on May 14, 2018

Nthing Bryant Terry. I came here SPECIFICALLY to recommend Afro-Vegan.
posted by helloimjennsco at 10:34 AM on May 14, 2018

Oldways, of Mediterranean Diet pyramid fame, also has a set of traditional diet resources, including Medi, African, Asian, Latin American, and general vegetarian.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:46 AM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Waianae Diet Program: a culturally sensitive, community-based obesity and clinical intervention program for the Native Hawaiian population
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:25 PM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sean Sherman, aka The Sioux Chef, has come out with an excellent cookbook of indigenous Native American recipes (mostly Plains tribes, specifically Lakota, but there's a few other tribes' recipes included). He does mention intolerances to gluten, dairy, and the effects a Western diet has had on Native Americans.
posted by culfinglin at 6:13 PM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Buddhist diets from are generally veg*n , and omit garlic, onion and strong flavours.
posted by peppermind at 3:53 AM on May 15, 2018