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Utah State Extension personnel help senior citizen program directors and staff at Navajo chapters (small governing parties) in northern Arizona and southern Utah assess and improve the nutritional quality of congregate meals served to their clients. One consistent concern has been that many seniors refuse milk, a good source of calcium and other nutrients. However, Extension personnel noted that many chapter cooks were adding juniper ash to corn bread products and cooked cornmeal cereal. The Navajo tribe has used juniper ash for many generations as a flavoring in a variety of food products. Additionally, it is used in traditional ceremonies and healing rituals, including a sacred cleansing ceremony. It is also made into a tea and consumed for diarrhea or stomach ailments, and as a heat therapy for healing injured muscles.
The dietary ash prepared by the Navajo tribe is usually derived from branches and needles of the juniper tree. The process of ashing results in the calcium oxide form of calcium. Calcium oxide has a high solubility in water or in weak acid solution, and an expected high bioavailability when absorbed in the small intestine (1). The purpose of this study was to compare the nutritional adequacy of the menus approved by the Indian Health Service to which juniper ash was added as a calcium source when milk was eliminated.
METHODS
Branches and needles from juniper trees were collected from 5 sites in Utah and the northern part of the Navajo Nation. An ash sample was also obtained from a member of the Red Mesa Navajo chapter, located in the Four Corners area of the reservation (near the junction of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico). The juniper samples from each site were pooled and then processed and analyzed in triplicate in a nutrient analysis laboratory at Utah...