Nutritional composition of commonly consumed traditional Apache foods in Arizona.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: To provide nutritional composition data for commonly consumed traditional Apache foods to enable an assessment of dietary intake and to evaluate a food-store based intervention aimed at reducing risk of chronic disease.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Weighed recipes were collected in Apache households on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona. The nutritional composition was calculated using the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: A total of 47 weighed recipes were collected for 13 traditional Apache dishes; five were breads, five were chicken or meat-based stews, two were tortilla-based dishes and the remaining one was a traditional Indian dumpling. The calculated energy, macronutrient content and micronutrient content of these traditional foods are provided.

CONCLUSIONS: We have provided for the first time the nutritional composition per 100 g for 13 traditional Apache foods. These data are essential for determining dietary intake and diet-disease associations and for developing and evaluating the effectiveness of a food-store-based intervention in this population.