Happy Friday, folks! Today, I wanted to take a break from our regular posts to introduce a new campaign here at The Food Martyr that is close to my heart: Food Justice Friday. What better time to introduce this than the holiday season? As we sit down at our holiday dinners (both near and far, thanks to COVID) and think about all that we are grateful for, let’s take a moment to recognize that some folks struggle with our most basic necessity: food.
If this is your first time hearing about food justice, it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. Terms are typically thrown around like food access, food insecurity, food desserts, etc. And I’ll be honest, when I first started working at a fresh food access nonprofit in New York, I was overwhelmed at, too! I knew I was passionate about giving everyone equal access to fresh food, after all, I was a member of their fundraising team. Fortunately, I had a group of teammates who educated me, and it was through this knowledge that I allowed my passion for food justice to grow with a greater understanding.
Let’s start off with the big question:
What is food justice?
Food justice requires us to almost look at food through a microscope, because when we carefully examine food as a whole, we can see what’s lacking. Food justice examines questions of access to healthy, nutritious, culturally appropriate food, as well as: ownership and control of land, credit, knowledge, technology and other resources; the constituent labor of food production; what kind of food traditions are valued; how colonialism has affected the food system’s development and more. Essentially, food justice shows the greater impact of food in our community and highlights its strengths and weaknesses.
But why is this important?
Our current food system model reflects most of mainstream American culture – cheap, easy, quick, and mass produced. A restaurant bosting qualities such as “farm to table,” “clean,” “organic,” or “sustainable” is typically going to be much more expensive (and harder to find) than a fast food joint. Simply take a trip to a grocery store, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Frozen or processed food is cheaper than fresh. If your food budget is meager, you’re going to cut out the most expensive products, which are often the ones that are the best for you.
This model leaves Americans both undernourished and unhealthy. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke are among the most common causes of illness, disability and death in the US. An estimated 80% of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, are preventable. However, cardiovascular disease remains the #1 killer and the most expensive disease, costly nearly $1 billion a day. Chronic conditions like heart disease, as well as lack of access to fresh food, are more common in minority groups – something we’ll take a deeper look at during another Food Justice Friday. It makes me wonder – how many lives could we save if people had access to nutritional food?
Recommended Readings
Food Justice Now!: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle
https://amzn.to/372s9jN
Food Justice (Food, Health, and the Environment)
https://amzn.to/37VKn5T
