Diets in transition: Hunter-gatherer to station diet and station diet to the self-select store diet

The transition of Australian Aborigines from a diet based on hunting and ga thering to an essentially Western diet has been proceeding for almost 200 y ears, but in some regions was greatly delayed In 1966/1967 Gould (1980) stu died operational aspects of hunting-gathering in desert regions of northwes tern Australia and recorded sufficient quantitative and species-specific da ta to allow definition of the diet over 5 months. By 1966, many Aboriginal people in that region had been displaced from their hunting grounds and wer e living in camps on cattle stations or in missions. Aboriginal diet on cat tle stations in the north-west was studied in 1951 (Commonwealth Department of Health) and shown to consist chiefly of fresh meat, wheaten flour and s ugar with small amounts of vegetables and dairy products. With the granting of citizenship in 1967, most Aborigines were dismissed from cattle station s and were moved first to town camps and later formed remote Aboriginal com munities. Studies in the 1980s showed that the self-selected diet in such c ommunities reflected the station diet to a greater extent than the traditio nal diet Quantitative presentation of the above three diets, in terms both of foods and of major nutrients, show that many of the dietary inadequacies of the station diet identified in 1951 still persisted in self-selected Ab original diets in the 1980s. comparison of the three diets with a modern re commended diet supports the nutritional adequacy of the hunter-gatherer die t. Traditional cultural values assigned to food preferences continued to in fluence food choices in all three diets.