Three sisters soup / Photo via Vecteezy
In many American Indian communities, food is much more than sustenance. It’s medicine. It’s ceremony. It’s connection to land, to ancestors, to spirit, and to each other. And today, in Minnesota, that sacred understanding of food is helping Native people on the path to recovery and wellness.
At the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), we’re proud to support dozens of American Indian organizations and Tribal Nations across the state that provide culturally grounded substance use disorder treatment. Increasingly, these programs are incorporating traditional teachings — such as the concept of food as medicine — into their work, offering a more holistic path to healing.
For the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Dakota, and Ho-Chunk people, whose homelands stretch across what is now Minnesota, food has always been deeply spiritual. It’s about nourishing the body, yes, but also the mind, spirit and emotions. Meals like Three Sisters soup (made with squash, corn, and beans), venison, wild berries, and manoomin (wild rice) do more than fill the belly. They carry ancestral wisdom, seasonal knowledge, and stories of survival and generosity.
Harvesting this traditional food takes time, care, and prayer. When wild rice is gathered by canoe in the early fall, for example, an offering of asema (traditional tobacco) is given to the spirits of the water and the rice in thanks. That same care is offered when maple trees are tapped for syrup, or when deer are hunted, fish are caught, or berries are picked. These are not simply chores. They are acts of reverence.
“Every time we gather food or medicine, we make an offering and say ‘chi-miigwech’ — a big thank you,” says a cultural educator from northern Minnesota. “That practice reminds us to live in balance, to take only what we need, and to recognize that healing comes from relationship — with land, with culture, and with each other.”
Traditional plants and medicines — like sage, cedar, sweetgrass and tobacco — also play a central role in this cultural wellness. They are used to purify the body and spirit, in ceremonies like naming or water ceremonies, and to restore spiritual balance. Others, like wild rose, yarrow, dandelion, and milkweed, are gathered from local wetlands and prairies to treat physical ailments.
Indigenous knowledge teaches that healing from substance use isn’t just about quitting a substance — it’s about returning to mino bimaadiziwin, the “good life,” a way of being that is balanced, joyful and rooted in community and tradition. DHS supports this through Indigenous Determinants of Health programs, which reconnect Native people to land, language, food systems, and culture as essential components of wellness.
“It is hard being a human being,” writes Giiwedino Binesiik, also known as Lindsey Markwardt, a member of the Bois Forte Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. “But we struggle to live in balance. We need to return to teachings gifted by Gichi-Manidoo (the Creator) … Sometimes all it takes is just putting your hands in the soil and remembering who you are and where you come from. That’s where healing begins.”
In tribal programs across the state, gardens are being planted, maple sugar bushes are tapped, fish nets laid, and wild rice harvested not just as tradition, but as transformation. These hands-on cultural activities reconnect people in recovery with their purpose, their ancestors, and the natural world — a vital part of healing from trauma and addiction.
DHS is honored to walk alongside Tribal Nations and other partners in this work, recognizing that the most effective care is care that is rooted in culture. When food is treated as sacred medicine, it feeds more than just the body. It feeds hope.
Shirley Cain is supervisor of the Behavioral Health Administration’s American Indian Team at the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Qaiden Smith, Executive Pathways intern for the American Indian Team, contributed to this column.
