Got Poi?

When it came time for me to share my Fun Fact at hula class this week, I announced that I had diet news. It had nothing to do with the fact that I had just watched the season's premiere of "The Biggest Loser" a few days earlier. My Fun Fact really did have Hawaiian cultural significance.

In my reading I had come across a mention of the Wai'anae Diet, developed in 1989 by Dr. Terry Shintani for the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center on O'ahu. In response to rising obesity and disease rates among native Hawaiians, he developed a new diet that he figured just might work.

The early explorers who came to Hawaii reported that the native people were trim and vigorous. But then along came Captain Cook in 1778 and ruined it all. After all, he paved the way for McDonald's, in a round about way.

Dr. Shintani decided to put a group of 20 obese native Hawaiians on a strict diet. Actually, he let them eat as much as they wanted. The only catch was that the food they ate was from the pre-contact (pre-Captain Cook) Hawaiian diet. On the menu each day was poi, poi and more poi. There were also sweet potatoes, breadfruit, greens, seaweed, fish and chicken.

The results: the average weight loss for the group was 17.1 pounds in 21 days. On top of that, they all experienced a lowering of their blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose.

My hula sisters gave this diet some serious thought. One confessed that she really loved poi and would find that part of the diet no hardship. As for the breadfruit, those who had tried it said that it was quite bland. But someone piped up and said, "It's not bad with butter!" Then she realized that butter would not be on the diet. "Yeah, the early Hawaiians couldn't milk the chickens," I noted.

But those diet results were quite impressive. Just the thought of dropping that many pounds in that short amount of time has me suddenly hungry for poi. For now, I'll settle for popcorn.

Brother Taro

My Fun Fact this week was about the taro plant. In Hawaii, that's an ancient topic. It's said that the first Polynesians to settle the islands actually brought the taro plant with them. Once cultivated, taro -- and poi, made from boiling and pounding the root of the plant -- became a staple.

My Fun Fact was actually a current event report. Last week, the Hawaiian Legislature voted to prohibit genetic modification of Hawaiian varieties of the taro plant. Taro is already the official state plant, but proponents of the bill felt it was necessary to protect the plant from being altered through scientific tinkering.

Botanists at the University of Hawaii opposed the bill, saying that genetic engineering can actually protect plants from disease. But others argued that allowing scientists to change the plant was in effect biopiracy. That was a new one on me. But as I learned, the definition of biopiracy is an attempt by organizations, such as food-producing corporations and universities, to patent or otherwise claim the rights to native-grown foods of indigenous peoples.

One reason many Hawaiians were adamant about protecting the taro is that the plant is considered sacred. According to myth, Wakea, also known as Sky Father, created the islands and the Hawaiians. But his first-born son, whom he named Häloa, was badly deformed and stillborn. From the dead baby's grave sprang a plant, the taro.

The next-born son, also named Häloa, was the first Hawaiian. The growing plant was considered to be his elder brother. And that belief, that the taro is the elder brother of all Hawaiians, has been held for generations. It's said that when a Hawaiian eats poi, he or she actually ingests the mana (power) of Häloa the elder brother. We could all use some big brother power from time to time.