Episode 100: Humus Wars: Fighting Cultural Erasure with Food

Ayurveda & Spirituality with Alakananda Ma · May 7, 2026

“During the process of ethnic cleansing and genocide, destruction of foodways is an important feature. We may think of the slaughter of the bison that formed a key aspect of the genocide of Native Americans, as well as the uprooting of olive trees in occupied Palestine.

Let’s look at cultural erasure by assimilation and cultural appropriation through the lens of humus—or should we say, humus bi tahina.”

Growing up in a small town in England in the 50s, and then in a provincial town in the 60s, I was mainly familiar with a standard working class British diet, the foods my mother’s ancestors…