What’s Justice Got To Do With It?: Why Health Isn’t Always a Choice
Each year, during this crisp and blustery month, we spend time trekking to the homes of distant relatives, stockpiling raw cranberries and pumpkin puree, and sitting down to a table overflowing with a line-up of symbolic foods. Maybe your cousin Andrea has gotten on a health kick recently and so this year the table includes a Black and White Quinoa Dressing with Butternut Squash and Pecans instead of stuffing, or Garlic Roasted Green Beans with Shallots & Hazelnuts instead of the standby green bean casserole. Maybe your nephew Keith has been studying under a French pastry chef, and so your family will skip the savory dishes and instead feast on éclairs, beignets, and custard tarts.
Either way, it’s a choice.
We often think of healthy eating in this way – as a choice that those with colossal self-control decide to make. The thing is, there are a lot of people who don’t even have the opportunity to make that choice.
For 13% of the US population and 1 in 8 Marylanders that is the case. This population is food insecure, meaning they are without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. Good intentions and discretion aside, a too-large percentage of our citizenry simply does not have the access and ability to make healthy food choices for themselves and their families.
This is about more than hunger. This is about justice.
Food justice specifically, according to the organization Just Food, is “communities exercising their right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food. Healthy food is fresh, nutritious, affordable, culturally-appropriate, and grown locally with care for the well-being of the land, workers, and animals.”
While the concept of food justice and the fight for it reaches wide “from labor rights to increased access to healthy foods to land sovereignty to toxic chemicals,” we’re zooming in on one small but amazing piece of it that’s happening right here in our Baltimore neighborhoods and now in our Whole Teacher schools too.
This fall, The Whole Teacher is partnering with an incredible new group called Hungry Harvest. Hungry Harvest began as a for-profit produce delivery service with a mission. To date the business has recovered over 1 million pounds of perfectly good fresh produce that would have otherwise been discarded (contributing to America’s disgraceful food waste problem), and delivered it to the homes of people in Baltimore, Philadelphia, DC, and Virginia who are hoping to get more fresh food into their lives. Now Hungry Harvest is delivering to our Whole Teacher schools too, so that teachers can also source fresh produce at 20 – 30% cheaper than grocery store prices. Check out their website if you’d like to get the same love from Hungry Harvest!
Realizing that their model was missing a significant portion of the population, and that they had the power to contribute to a more just food system, Hungry Harvest now also has a non-profit arm. The group sets up regular subsidized produce pick up sites, like mini farmers’ markets, in food insecure neighborhoods. Going beyond just feeding families, Hungry Harvest is looking to empower families to purchase and value healthy produce, providing people the choice to be healthy that they may not have had before.
We are in an age where food is becoming so much more than ever before. Beyond biological fuel that powers humans to survive, food is now creative expression, social commentary, and political statement. Lest we forget, food can be simmered slowly on the stove and reduced to one simple thing: sustenance. Let us, however, expand our definition of sustenance from just something that staves off dying to something that fosters thriving. Let us move to a place where, as they say at Civil Eats, everyone has “access to healthy, sustainable food in order to have a fair and equitable global society”.
We’ve only just introduced the idea of food justice here. To delve deeper into topics within this theme we recommend:
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Alica Diehl
Alica Diehl is a kitchen experimentalist, food nerd, and healthy lifestyle crusader. She appreciates how health varies from person to person, so she explores and shares many different means of healthy eating, exercise, and mental/emotional wellness. She began her career as a HealthCorps Coordinator at Patterson High School in Baltimore, and is now the Community Programs Coordinator at the Institute for Integrative Health. Throughout her career she has developed several programs and events to inspire and motivate others to foster their own personal thriving. Alica is currently pursuing a Culinary Nutrition Expert certification to expand her knowledge and illuminate new opportunities. She personally believes in the importance of local food systems and seasonal eating, the support of community, and the power of food in building relationships.
