In an interview last year, the now-secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., articulated support for the idea of providing three healthy meals a day to every person in the country. Kennedy, a leader in the Make America Healthy Again movement, has proposed numerous ideas on how we can fix our health, most of which range from misguided to insane. However, in this case, I think he’s onto something.
The idea of the government providing three healthy meals a day for everyone is an appealing one, given the current state of the country's food system leaves 47 million Americans food insecure. Now, do I think Republican politicians care about food insecurity? No.
This is made clear by the party's support for cutting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which would obviously make the problem worse. The budget resolution recently passed by Congress includes cuts that will lead to millions of low-income households losing access to food-aid programs like SNAP.
The effects of this will be felt hard in North Carolina, which has the 10th highest SNAP participation rate in the country. Around 1.5 million North Carolinians participate in the program, and many of them are at risk of having their access significantly cut back.
Cutting SNAP benefits, certainly without offering an alternative policy, only exacerbates food insecurity. However, that’s not to say that SNAP is a silver bullet either; it has its flaws. In practice, the program acts as a subsidy for corporations that underpay their workers, forcing them onto government assistance programs. It also subsidizes massive food corporations whose products SNAP recipients are buying.
Fixing the former requires addressing the root economic failures that make it so millions of Americans can’t afford basic necessities like groceries. Fixing the latter requires government investment in developing a healthier and more respondent food system.
There is no reason, in one of the richest nation in the world, that people should go hungry. However, eliminating food insecurity requires government action. This means things like changing the kind of crops we subsidize, tightening regulations on food companies and investing in publicly owned and community-organized food distribution systems.
State and local governments can take the initiative on this. There are models for programs like this all over the country, including in North Carolina. Some local examples include the Carolina Cupboard for UNC students, the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s Heavenly Groceries program and the Inter-Faith Council Community Market and Kitchen.
These programs are great, but it shouldn’t be up to private citizens to try to provide healthy food for everyone, and these organizations simply don’t have the ability to guarantee access to everyone. Federal, state and local governments can partner with schools, colleges, local organizations and businesses in order to provide the necessary infrastructure needed for storage and distribution.
