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Northern Territory Department of Health Library Services Historical Collection
Money and Food
Money and Food
This material was produced by the
Northern Territory Department of Health,
with assistance from TAFE Curriculum Section,
N.T. Department of Education ISBN 0.7245.0984.4
Vol 7 of 7
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1. Aboriginal people got their food from the bush.
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2. There were many different kinds of food. .
3. They shared the food with the family.
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4. The white man brought his kinds of foods.
5. Some foods were like the "bush tucke( .
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6. Many Aboriginal people worked for the white man. 7. They were paid with food..
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8. Later they were paid with money instead of food.
9. They bought things in the store.
10. It was easy to forget to buy food with all the other things available.
11. White men did not know about \\bush tucker".
12. Many white men became sick.
13. Aboriginal people were not able to learn about white man's fruit and vegetables.
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14. Now they were not strong like their grandparents.
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15. Many of them had new kinds of sicknesses.
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16. Even babies became sick.
Mothers could not easily give them bush foods like before.
17. Health Workers and Sisters know about the new kinds of sicknesses.
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18. Many Aboriginal people don't buy enough strong food.
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19. Good food is more important than
other things.
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LONG GRAIN RICE
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LONG GRAIN FICE:20. Good food doesn't always cost a lot of money.
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21. Choose the cheapest way to buy the same kind of good food.
22. Baby can eat soft family foods instead of special, expensive baby food~.
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23. Breast feed-
ing is best for
the baby.
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24. The mother knows the money should be used to buy good food for all the family. ,
Money . and Food
In the old days people got their food from the land. The men hunted animals and birds in the bush and fished in the sea and in the rivers. The women got shellfish and crabs, dug for roots and yams in the ground, picked fruit and berries and gathered seeds in the bush; all this food was shared by the whole family.
The people knew the best places and best times of the year· to find the different kinds of food which they liked. They also knew the special ways to catch different animals. Because the food was good and they had plenty of exercisff - hunting, walking, digging - they were usuGlly very strong and healthy.
When the white man came, Aboriginal people were forced to change their ways. Cattle and sheep drank from the good waterholes leaving bad or little water for the people and the bush animals. They ate many of the important bush tucker plants. Aboriginal people were not able to move easily from place to place in their country anymore because everything on the land . was changing. The old ways had to change too.
The people began to move closer to settle- ments, missions or stations where they could get reliable water. Some men and women started to work for the whites to get extra food as the
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bush foods were harder to get. The white man~~
did not have much fresh food. Aboriginal peo-
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pie were paid with foods that were not fresh but would keep for a long time without going bad. Foods like flour, sugar, tea and tobacco to
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After a time, m1ss1on people and station owners became used to having some Aboriginal people around and supplied enough food to encourage them and their families to stay and work. These people did not hunt or gather bush foods as much after this. They would not have to walk from camp to camp either. Much later, people were paid with money and had to buy their own food.
As years went by most people were not getting as much exercise and they were not getting as much fresh food from the land either. These people were beginning to live a different sort of life from the old days.
These people now were not as strong as their pa rents or grandparents. Some became fat, so fat it was hard for them to breathe or to move fast. Many people became diabetics, they had the sugar sickness, or developed high blood pressure.
By this time, Aboriginal people really needed Health Workers and Sisters to help with all the sicknesses. Some of these came from not eating the right foods and not getting enough exercise. These sicknesses were not the same as those the grandparents had.
Sick babies were also becoming a problem because mothers were not often able to give them the bush baby foods like witchetty grubs. They did not know which of the white man's food they could give instead.
Most people who became sick did so because of these things. They were not able to get enough of their own kinds of foods. They did not understand that they needed different kinds of food.
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The food that they could buy from stores filled their stomachs but did not keep people strong. It was not fresh. Because there were not many kinds of foods to buy then, Aboriginal people could not learn how to choose between good white man's foods and other foods.
What people today need to know is how to spend enough money on the right kinds of food to keep the family strong. Too much money is being spent on rubbish foods or grog. People need to know how to spend their money on good foods before they buy other things. They must remember that food is the most important thing. It is the first thing to buy.
Learning how to use money properly can be very hard. Many people spend all their money as soon as they get it. People must think of all the things they need and buy those things first. Then, if they have some money left over, they can buy other things which they want. Thinking how to use money like this and not spending it all at once is called making a budget.
In many communities the food in the store costs a lot more than it does in a town. People must be careful to use their money to buy foods in their store which have the most goodness in them.
We know that rubbish foods like cool drink, and crisps are expensive. If we buy too much of these things then we won't have enough money to buy foods which are good.
Another way to help make sure money is used properly is to .find the best and cheapest way to buy a kind of food It is often cheaper to buy a lot of a food that will keep, rather than buying small amounts every day. A big tin of flour is usually cheaper than eight 2 kilogram packets.
That way you buy a good tin to keep foods safe as well.
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_It is usually cheaper to buy plain foods rather than changed foods. Changed foods have some of the goodness of the fresh food taken out and things like sugar and salt put in. It costs more to buy th_ese sorts of foods because of these extra things. For example it is better to buy a tin of Sunshine milk powder than a tin of sweetened· .condensed milk. The condensed milk has had some of the water taken from the milk and a lot of sugar added to make it thick and very sweet.
It is better for all babies to have mother's milk. Breast is best. Sometimes a mother can think that giving a young baby milk from a bottle is better than breast-feeding. For most mothers and babies mother's milk is safer, makes the baby strong quickly and is cheaper than having to buy bottles, milk and . things for cleaning the bottles.
Family foods like stews are good for babies learning to eat. They can eat the soft part of the stew out of clean cups or pannikins with clean· spoons. Some mothers like to buy the· special kinds of baby foods which can cost a lot of money. If they do this all the time they might not have enough money to buy good foods for the rest of the family.
The best thing for a mother is to breast -feed a baby and use money to buy good food so that she and the baby and the rest of the family can all stay strong and healthy.
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