Do Food Pantry Clients Have the Time to Cook From Scratch?

After a long day of work, there is nothing worse than having to decide what to cook for dinner. If I don’t already have a plan, figuring out how to quickly assemble a meal that is nutritious and appealing based on what’s in the fridge is a challenge. As a perpetually hungry (and often hangry) individual, I hate scrambling to put a meal together last minute.

While I’ve previously discussed the emotional labor of fighting hunger, it’s also important to acknowledge the emotional labor it takes to nourish a household.

Preparing meals for your family requires an enormous amount of thinking and planning, no matter how simple the actual process of cooking may be.

Preparing food isn’t limited to the physical labor of cooking.

Meal planning requires considering personal preferences, nutritional requirements, cooking skills and capacity, and the availability and accessibility of ingredients. The household cook must align household expectations with their budget and resources.

This work is largely invisible, and sharply divided by gender. For people who aren’t the primary cooks of their household (like the men who predominantly manage anti-hunger programs and determine policy), it’s easy to believe that meal prep only encompasses the tasks necessary to safely cook, prepare, and serve dinner.

The challenges of putting together a tasty meal are amplified if you’re a food pantry client, as you likely have little choice or autonomy over the foods and quantities available to you.

One of the primary challenges is that more than half of people facing food insecurity are employed full time. Those who aren’t working full time face significant barriers to doing so, such as disabilities, caregiving responsibilities, or a lack of employment opportunities. To make ends meet, many people work multiple jobs, which means available time for food preparation is extremely limited.

The next challenge is to figure out how to turn eight cans of beans, two cans of tuna, a butternut squash, and a jumbo bag of potato chips into something your household is excited to eat. While I’m sure it can be done, it takes creativity, research, and time to transform food pantry donations into a functional meal. This is a big ask from someone already overextended by the trials of poverty.

Despite the challenges of living with food insecurity, we still haven’t moved away from the unrealistic expectation that people who care about their families cook wholesome, time-intensive meals from scratch, and project that assumption on our emergency food assistance programs.

While we don’t have the option of increasing wages or reducing work hours for our clients, there are steps food pantries can take to ease the burden on our shoppers.

• Provide foods that accommodate a variety of lifestyles and living situations. Too many of our food pantry clients had little time or capacity for intensive cooking sessions. While I applaud the movement to emphasize fresh, whole foods, this level of food prep may not be accessible for working households. Microwave meals, canned goods, and instant options are essential to accommodate all lifestyles. It’s important to remember that our opinions of what people “should eat” has no impact on what they are able to eat.

• Bundle. The food that pantries provide is only useful if clients can use it. That means providing food in quantities and partnerships that make it useful. No one eats tomato sauce on its own- partnering it with pasta, chili ingredients, or other pairings ensures that it supports a functional meal. While providing a household with a small can of chicken noodle soup may prevent starvation, it doesn’t relieve the burden of trying to figure out what else the meal requires to make sure everyone’s belly is full. Offer useful quantities and partner with appropriate items when possible.

• Offer culturally appropriate foods that are familiar to clients. This saves people from having to learn how to prep new foods and convince their family to eat it. (While I’m a fan of encouraging people to try new foods, it’s important to offer it as an option rather than expectation.) Offering cooking classes or taste tests alongside sensitivity training for volunteers may be necessary to ensure they are able to appropriately support clients when shopping.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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