Category: Attitude of Abundance

Several years ago, one of my food pantries received a large donation of spices. We were excited as seasonings are always in short supply, and it was a rarity to offer our neighbors cinnamon, thyme, and turmeric.

Although some of the spices went quickly, most of our clients, who had backgrounds in South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, were not interested in turmeric.  Cases of it sat in the warehouse as just a few adventurous shoppers chose to give it a taste.

By complete coincidence, this donation occurred just when our pantry was gearing up for an influx of immigrant families arriving from Afghanistan after the fall of their government. We were struggling to assemble a food selection that adhered to Halal requirements and cultural traditions.

Our Afghani shoppers were thrilled with the turmeric. These families were looking to recreate familiar meals made with whole food ingredients after being thrust into a foreign country, and turmeric was an essential component reminding them of home. Even though we didn’t have all the foods they were used to, an abundance of this spice allowed them to recreate familiar flavors anyways. In no time at all, we gave away all our turmeric.

If you’ve ever donated to a food drive before, you’ve likely contemplated what types of foods you think food pantry shoppers might like. Canned fruits and vegetables, boxed potatoes, and dry beans are all likely selections. Nutritional quality is often a primary factor for choosing what foods to donate, recognizing that access to healthy options can be limited for people experiencing food insecurity. High levels of salt, sugar, and fat are popular concerns.

However, those healthy foods don’t always taste very good on their own. When cooking in your own kitchen, you likely cook in olive oil or butter, add a little salt and pepper, and incorporate other seasonings. No matter how healthy you are eating, you (hopefully) add flavor to your meals.

Taste and the value of delicious food are often neglected components of food security.

Too often, the effort to fight hunger stops with acquiring the basic ingredients without a thought given to the final step of transforming food into a meal.

If we want to encourage families to learn to cook and eat together, we need to ensure they have the tools to do so. Spices are essential for making our food enjoyable, practicing cultural traditions, and evoking memories.

After working with thousands of food pantry clients, I have learned that most people know what they need to do to eat healthy; they simply lack the resources to do so. Although we’ve made progress increasing access to fresh fruits and veggies, it’s still hard to cook collard greens without oil, or to assemble a curry without turmeric or cumin. Even the healthiest eater is unlikely to eat a dry sweet potato unless they have no other options.

Data shows that adding spices and seasoning to meals enhances flavor while increasing nutrient accessibility. But spices are some of the most expensive components of a meal, which means many people experiencing food insecurity can’t afford to buy them.

Why are people living in poverty condemned for not eating healthily when they are denied access to the ingredients that make a meal palatable?

It’s practically a cliché to condemn people experiencing poverty for eating luxurious foods like steak or lobster. But in doing so, we’ve unintentionally reinforced the idea that this population doesn’t deserve to eat things that are delicious. Certainly, steak and lobster are regularly treated as inappropriate because of their cost, but also because they are delicious. People experiencing hunger aren’t considered deserving of delicious food.

I emphatically believe that it’s possible to eat healthy food that also tastes wonderful, but only when we have the tools necessary to succeed. We can build a world where we all have access to healthy food, and meals that leaves us content to sit at the table for just one more pleasurable bite.

How do we build anti-hunger spaces celebrating delicious food?

• Spice drives. Let your donor community know the importance of making food taste good by encouraging everyone to donate spices and seasonings. The more variety, the better!

• Taste tests. Prepare meals using only the options available at your organization. This is a great opportunity for staff and volunteers to experience the reality of working with limited options. Celebrate when you have the ingredients you need to make something truly delicious, but don’t shy away from discussing why it doesn’t taste delicious, and the challenges this raises for your shoppers.

• Purchase seasonings. Food banks and pantries are increasingly making their own food purchases. Find out the spices in highest demand at your organization and consider adding them to your purchased foods. A little can go a long way and can help other staple ingredients taste better and be more versatile.  

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

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This week, I overheard a comment as a client entered our food pantry, an iced drink in hand. One of my volunteers muttered, “if they can afford Starbucks, then they probably don’t need to be here.”

I was disappointed by the judgement and the lack of empathy and understanding that I heard in their voice. Unfortunately, this is an attitude I encounter regularly as a food justice advocate.

Many people, whether consciously or unconsciously, believe that hunger is primarily the fault of an individual making bad choices.

When someone believes that anyone can simply work themselves out of poverty, spending five dollars on a delicious frosty drink on a 90-degree Friday is merely confirmation that their poor choices led them to needing to use a food pantry. This assumption is the primary motivation for anti-hunger institutions to control what types and how much food a client may receive- because of the belief that they can’t be trusted to do it themselves.

These attitudes are heavily engrained in our society, particularly among demographics who still advocate that hard work is the primary component of financial success.

 Too many anti-hunger organizations and supporters espouse providing minimal resources to avoid anyone in need from becoming “too dependent.” (We’ll dig into the absurdity of fearing people will become too dependent on food another time.)

This assumption persists even though there’s abundant data refuting it and proving that nearly all factors of poverty are beyond an individual’s control (cost of living, available jobs, or adequate hours, not to mention the many forms of discrimination. And of course, your zip code).

What is Food Justice?

Food justice is a framework that holds food as a human right and seeks to address the structural barriers that perpetuate hunger and poverty. It is closely aligned with the environmental justice movement and advocates for building access to healthy, culturally appropriate food for everyone in a way that also supports the environmental health of our world.

Alongside recognizing that poverty is a systemic rather than individual condition, a food justice perspective analyzes the impacts of the entire food system- including land ownership, labor conditions, environmental impacts, nutritional quality, and economic and physical access, and the factors that perpetuate injustice like exploitation, racism, colonialism, and discrimination.

Historically, food banking does not easily fit into a food justice framework.

Until very recently, traditional food pantries rarely examined their role in perpetuating injustice or their neglect of the root causes of hunger by treating it as purely an individual problem.

As an individual rather than systemic solution, food pantries regularly dictate what and how much food is available to people and communities who need it, and actively perpetuate harmful assumptions about hunger and poverty (like the volunteer I mentioned in my opening paragraph).

How Can Food Pantries Take an Active Role in Implementing Food Justice?

1. Offer client autonomy. Trust that your clients know their own needs best and give them the freedom to choose what and how much their families need.
2. Actively engage your volunteers, staff, and leadership by learning about food justice to help them move beyond any assumptions they may carry about people living in poverty. It’s important to remember this will never be a one-time lesson, but rather the long-term establishment of a community culture that recognizes the historic injustices that perpetuate hunger, the evolving economic realities of our world, and embracing the idea that everyone deserves to eat, unconditionally.
3. Partner with food justice programs who actively work to undermine our current food system in favor of more equitable and alternative options. The fact that food justice is a recently adopted idea for the food banking industry means there are ample opportunities for food pantries to offer leadership and innovation in this field. (Here are some programs doing great work in the Pacific Northwest).

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

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“Do we have enough food?” is the question currently echoing throughout the emergency food assistance network. The demand for food assistance is growing rapidly, and food pantries across the nation are straining to accommodate the number of people reaching out for help every day.

One year ago, my own food pantry was learning how to serve 100 households in four hours. Just two weeks ago, we set a new record for the number of households served- 181 in that same amount of time. With SNAP cuts in March and rising inflation, hunger needs are growing like we haven’t seen since the beginning of the pandemic and show no signs of slowing.

With the dramatically increasing need and demand for our resources, it is incredibly easy to become fixated on scarcity. How do we feed all these people with our limited food supply?

I consider myself a student of anti-hunger advocacy, but lately I realize more and more how much this work depends on psychology.

Although my focus is on the logistics of supplying hungry people with the food they need, I learn every day that doing this job well depends just as much on how I think about food access and hunger.

How people living with food insecurity feel about the resources available to them impacts how they use them.

How anti-hunger advocates think about hunger and the services they provide equally influences the systems they implement and how resources are distributed.

I spend a great deal of time advocating for presenting a sense of abundance and food security for our food pantry visitors. (Read more here). But with the growing need and strained capacity of the anti-hunger system, I have also been reflecting on the importance of advocates prioritizing our own abundance mindset.

Why should we as anti-hunger advocates develop our own attitude of abundance? How does that help us serve our community better?

Most anti-hunger organizations ensure they always have a stash of food available to support the next client, or the next distribution. But an emphasis on holding food back for later also focuses efforts on maintaining the food supply instead of the needs of our shoppers.

 When our brains focus on this scarcity, we shrink our capacity to think about other things, which reduces our effectiveness at the work we do. (Right now I’m reading Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How it Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir.)

An abundance mindset helps us broaden our vision and find opportunities for doing better.

When we assume that we’re maxed out, we shut down any possibility of innovation. By adopting the paradigm that we have the tools we need to succeed, it enables us to strategize for success. An abundance mindset allows us to experiment with new ways to do better once we’ve internalized the idea that we have the capacity.

How can hunger fighters prioritize an abundance mindset?

1. Prioritize growth and experimentation.

In many ways, food pantries have evolved little since their modern inception of the 1970s. Most food pantries offer similar systems of food distribution that change little once they are established. But these systems may not be able to support an increase of clients or fluid food supplies, so it can be easy for a food pantry to decide they simply don’t have the capacity to grow.

Instead, food pantry staff should constantly experiment with ways to change and update their systems. By ensuring that no operation is set in stone, it empowers opportunities for innovation that very well might be able to support changing community needs.

Even small changes can be incredibly worthwhile. For the past year, our food pantry has taped client tickets to the handle of our clients’ shopping cart. This past month, we experimented with taping them to the front of the cart instead, which has expedited check-out and helped eliminate traffic jams for faster client service. This tiny adjustment has had significant ramifications on our operations.

A willingness to experiment under stress is hard; it requires a certain level of comfort with risk (and requires trust and enthusiasm from volunteers). But a refusal to take those risks ensures that your organization will not evolve to meet your community’s needs.

2. Emphasize the resources you have.

My pantry often runs low on popular food items. We rarely see canned fruit anymore and are experiencing a major shortage of pasta and sauce. These empty sections on our pantry shelves stand out like a beacon, but rather than staring at those gaps, we constantly rearrange.

Canned pumpkin is not a popular food item (especially in the summertime!) but our local food bank has an abundance, and it allows us to fill up our shelves. Even though we know most of our clients aren’t interested, filling the space on the shelves draws attention away from our lack of essentials and helps everyone feel a greater abundance.

I appreciate having some food items that are not popular. Because they move slowly, our volunteers don’t need to dedicate time and effort restocking, but they do help everyone feel like our pantry has the resources to support anyone experiencing hunger.

3. Don’t hoard your food.

My perspective comes partially from the privilege of having a significant warehouse and storage capacity, but our food has little impact when it is sitting on our shelves. There is a pervasive attitude in food banking that we must always save some for the shoppers coming tomorrow (which is true), but we give out sequentially less and less food if the goal is to always have leftovers. If you give away the food you have with faith that more will arrive tomorrow, everyone will be better served.

Projecting an attitude of abundance for food pantry clients is essential for helping them feel like their needs are being met, they are respected, and they can have confidence in their food security.

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Adopting an attitude of abundance for anti-hunger advocates is harder- we are constantly faced with the challenging reality of a limited food supply while being overworked and underpaid. But by focusing on the opportunities that are open to us to do better, experiment, and practice innovation, we will access new avenues for success that otherwise would remain unexplored.

Previous Post: Why You Should Run Your Food Pantry Like a Restaurant

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

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Hunger rates are rising. With the expiration of Covid-era SNAP benefits alongside inflation, thousands of families who have never faced food insecurity before now worry about where their next meal will come from.

Food pantries are seeing dramatic increases in the number of clients seeking help. It’s only been seven weeks since this most recent increase began, and anti-hunger advocates are tired. Because of an industry-wide fear that there isn’t enough food for everyone, there is pressure to retract, hoard our food, and reduce the amount distributed so that it never outweighs the amount coming in. Fatigue and fears about the future reinforce this inclination. Historically, the food banking industry has been careful to never give away too much food at once lest they run out, even when hungry families clamor for more.

Contrary to every industry impulse, I propose that this is the moment when food pantries should push harder than ever to give our clients as much food as possible. Although meeting the growing demand is an infinitely complex struggle, this is an opportunity to revisit the reason we do this work while uplifting every client’s individual needs. One of the most powerful methods of empowering our clients is by letting clients choose how much of everything they want rather than limiting and rationing our food supply.

Why food pantries should remove as many limits as possible and increase the amount of food available to our clients right now:

1. Setting limits on the amount of food people take encourages them to take more than they otherwise might.

There is ample evidence in marketing research that introducing scarcity increases demand by making an item seem more rare and thus desirable. Clients are more likely to take the maximum amount allowed because limits promote a scarcity mindset, when otherwise they would only take what they need. Studies show that pantries who switch to a no-limits model see clients increase the amount of food they take at the initial transition, and gradually reduce as confidence in their food security increases. We have noticed in my pantry that the clients who are slowest to transition away from a scarcity mindset are refugees, as we serve several families recently arrived from Afghanistan and Ukraine. It makes complete sense that people escaping a warzone have a scarcity mindset and are slower to adopt a mindset of abundance. Limiting their access to food only perpetuates their fears of scarcity.

2. It’s impossible for someone to take too much food.

Every client requires a different amount of food to feel secure. Some people need a full fridge to feel safe, while others only require a couple cans. Preventing clients from taking what they need to feel secure may force them to visit the pantry more often, which overworked food pantry staff will tell you they would rather not encourage! And for many people, that is an unfair demand. One of our clients last week sold plasma to get gas for their car to visit our pantry. Food pantries should minimize the number of visits a client makes with the recognition that they face many other challenges besides hunger. Abuse of welfare is rare (by people in poverty,) although Regan’s “welfare queen” rhetoric continues to color how our society views people who use welfare.

3. We’re here to end hunger.

Although it’s always more comfortable to have the cushion of a full warehouse, the food we distribute is only useful when it is in the kitchens and bellies of the people who need it.

More complex food flow demands should not deter us from making sure every one of our neighbors has dinner every night this week.

It feels counter-intuitive but with the demand rising, it is more important than ever for food pantries to distribute as much food as possible. As organizations responsible for keeping our neighbors fed, we must overcome the innate human instinct to hoard and our own scarcity mindsets in favor of making sure our community has the food it needs to survive.

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The goal of every emergency hunger assistance organization is not just to keep people fed for one more day. For organizations committed to ending hunger, we aspire to provide people with the food they need to thrive so that their resources can be allocated towards paying rent, or medical bills, and other essentials. This starts by respecting their individual needs and empowering clients to make their own choices.

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

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