issue No. 6:
Eating Good

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

Karen Washington is the farmer activist who coined the term “food apartheid.” She is a community organizer in New York and a committed food justice advocate for Black and Brown folks. Through Rise & Root Farm and the Black Urban Growers (BUGS) organization, Karen prioritizes economic and land development for and by Black farmers.

Photography by Meech Boakye

Meech Boakye explores practices of gardening, foraging, and preparing food both as a form of communal care and as a medium to question the ordinary.

Latched On: The Realities of Breastfeeding

For over 40 years, there has been a widely documented racial disparity in breastfeeding rates and maternal health statistics for white and Black mothers. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Black babies die at more than twice the rate of white babies, and during pregnancy, Black women are three to four times more likely to die than white women.

Finding Balance

If you were in school in the United States before 2005, you were likely taught about the food pyramid. Today, the Department of Agriculture uses a plate instead of a pyramid to show how much of each food group you should consume each day. While the visual of the plate is intended to make proportions clearer, you may still have a lot of questions about what specific foods should go in each group.

Womanly Magazine is a health and arts publication providing accessible health information to women and non-binary people.

About Us

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

On Food and Freedom

I’ve always considered myself to be something of a counterculturalist. Popular trends were never really my scene, I always had to put my own spin on things. … I was “woke” before it was a hashtag. It wasn't until later that I realized, despite my best efforts, I was still in the grasp of the government. On food, one of the most necessary and often compromised resources, I couldn't help but be dependent.

Poop 101: What Your Poop Color and Texture Says About Your Health

Bowel movements can tell you a lot about your nutrition and digestive health. Things like texture, color, frequency, and smell can help indicate if you have any dietary needs or digestive issues.

Lessons in Rotting

Every October, I look forward to eating persimmons at my family’s farm in Cato, Indiana. I like that I don’t have to hunt; the soft, orange-purplish fruits are just there, on the corner of the driveway amongst the crunchy autumn leaves.

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

Scream Inside Your Hearts

Painting by Amber Vittoria

Food Journey

Illustration by Nan Cao.

Shared

Illustration by Joy Velasco.

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

Reclaiming Culture Through Food Sovereignty

As a person with Afro-Caribbean and Japanese roots, I grew up loving the “strange” foods that my dad cooked meals with and that my baasan (grandmother) kept stored in the house. I was scarfing down jars of seaweed long before it became a health trend in the U.S. and I always cherished the days my dad made plátanos maduros fritos.

The U.S. Needs Universal School Meals—Now

When schools began to close due to COVID-19, one of the biggest concerns for both families and policymakers was how children would access the meals they are typically served in school. School meal programs fuel students’ learning throughout the school day. 2.4 billion breakfasts and 4.9 billion school lunches are served each year.

Food Assistance Programs: SNAP and WIC

What you need to know about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps, a nutrition governmental subsidized food program for families in need that is subsidized by the U.S. government.

Nutrition For Only You

Feeling our best has become devalued, as we have grown used to exhaustion, mental fog, bloating, irritability, and more. Improving our well-being shouldn’t feel impossible, but it is often hard to choose between various wellness fads. No matter how alluring this month’s wellness trend is, it may not be the sustaining north star for your body.

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

Common Food Allergies

Learn what a food allergy is, common symptoms, how to treat them, how to avoid them, and the common foods people are allergic to.

What Is Diabetes?

What you need to know about Diabetes - the chronic disease that affects how the body turns food into energy. More than 122 million Americans are prediabetic or living with Diabetes and it is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

What Is The Digestion System?

All you need to know about your digestive system - the way our bodies break down nutrients from food and drink.

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

Community Garden

Illustration by Joanna Blémont/Jozinnol.

Pink Oyster

Photography by Julia Gartland.

Taste of Summer

Illustration by Jen Yoon.

Editor’s letter masthead disclaimer Sources

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Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

Passing It Down: Food and Influence Through Generations

A Conversation with Brenda Horton-Harris, Attia Taylor’s aunt.

Treasuring Guyanese Cuisine in Los Angeles

Photography by Cara Elise Taylor.

Movement

Photography by Justine Brown, Founder and Owner of Vegan Justine.

Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities [MASTER]

A Call to Home

Poem by Ośunkoya Chavon.

As Her Daughter

As my mother’s daughter, it’s nearly impossible for me to separate my relationship with food from her influence over it. My appreciation of herbs and spices, the inner peace I get from a well-stocked market, making sport out of trying new fruits and vegetables—I can directly attribute these things to seeing the joy they brought her.

Our Hunger Is Political: How Food Insecurity and Mutual Aid are Changing the Political Landscape on the Ground.

Having needs is part of being alive. We need to sleep, to breathe, to eat. Our needs make us vulnerable; if we spend too long without having our basic needs met, we will die. This urgency makes our needs political. They reflect a power relation between the person with needs and their ability to access necessary resources. We need to consider the implications of putting food into our bellies.

why is it that our grandmothers are cooks but white men are chefs

Poem by Mari Santa Cruz.

Coping

Comfort can be confusing. It is something that we seek out as often as love, safety, and acceptance. Sometimes it is something that we run and take cover inside of when things get too hard. We want to feel protected, like things are okay, or maybe just to avoid confronting things that are too big to deal with.

Global Food Insecurity by the Numbers

People facing food insecurity lack the resources they need for adequate physical growth and development. This may mean they can’t consume enough calories, lack nutritional diversity within their diet (e.g. survive mostly on cheap grains), or don’t have access to clean drinking water, sanitation, and healthcare in order to stay healthy.

Prison Food: A Hidden Public Health Crisis

Prison food refers to the meals that are served to those incarcerated in correctional institutions. While some correctional facilities do prepare and cook their own meals, most prisons outsource their food from private catering companies, which, over the past several years, have received an increasing number of grievances and lawsuits about inadequate food quality and quantity.

Fine Dining and Its Colonial Legacy

As much as food can bring people together, it can also be one of the most obvious markers of difference between people. And, along the same lines, of hierarchy.

Shopping for Gochujang

I went shopping for gochujang for the first time at 26, and I felt lost. I felt like an imposter. What I really mean is I felt white.

Birthing Seeds

Poem by Tanagidan To Win (Tara Perron).

A Guide to Eating Intuitively

About three months into the pandemic, somewhere between considering a sourdough starter and discovering shallots, I noticed my relationship to food shifting. These days, I’m steps away from my kitchen, where all the rules I have around food have become more apparent than ever.

home

Poem by Kristen Jeré.

Salt Intake

I have low blood pressure. When standing quickly, my head might sway or swim, but I won’t faint. I gaze at my fist from time to time and remember that if I close it and open it steadily that my heart is beating at the same rate.

Food Bloggers Lack Nuance Towards Cuisines of Asia

Can all you white recipe developers and food bloggers stop using ‘Asian’ as an adjective for your dishes? This usage is rampant and problematic.

Body Dysmorphia and the Lies We're Told to Swallow

Close your eyes and imagine your reflection in a full-length mirror. What do you see?

Cleansed

Poem by Abigail Lalonde.

Featured

Eat Healthy and Be Healthy

Painting by Nonja Tiller.

Nutritious Summer Fruits

Illustration by Jen Yoon.

Fear of Sugar

Illustration by Nan Cao.

Anthropology 102: Race and Food, Guided by Octavia and Ursula

The year is 3411. In schools across the former United States, Racism is studied as anthropological history and is divided into categories so that students might grasp the now foreign concept.

Ichi Ju San Sai: Japanese Cooking in North Carolina

Despite having lived in the U.S. for over half their lives, my parents continue to eat a nearly complete Japanese diet, thanks to the remarkably precise cooking methods of my mother. Though I’ve inquired often throughout my life, it remains a mystery to me how she manages to create complex and authentically Japanese recipes in the heart of North Carolina.

Decolonizing Food: An Antidote to Oppression

Browsing a supermarket aisle, a jar of milky white beef bone broth caught my eye. It was not because of the hip minimalist font and bright packaging. Rather, it caught my attention because it was something I never thought I’d see in a mainstream American grocery store, especially outside of the “ethnic” aisle.

Daily Specials

Photo essay by Kendall McKenzie.

Bowls

Illustration by Elizabeth Fortnum.

Zenat Begum Knows Community Fridges Won't Solve Hunger

I chatted with Zenat Begum, owner of Playground Coffee Shop, to ask her what it’s like to provide mutual aid to a community, specifically through her nonprofit’s community fridge project. Community fridges are publically accessible refrigerators that invite members of the public to take what you need and stock what you can.

How To Go Vegan When You're Melanated Young and Broke

I try to be nice to my body. To accept that it needs more than rest and sleep to fend off disease. I am constantly thinking about my grandmother, who beat two types of cancers and lived to tell me that sugar is the devil.

Featured

To The Land: A Short Film by Biz Young

Film by Biz Young.

The Junk Yard

Painting by Xavier Xcel Lightfoot.

Spring Mood

Illustration by Nan Cao.

Sweet Autumn

Illustration by Nan Cao.

Chrissy's Garden

Photo essay by Lucy Murray Willis.

Food Justice: Where Policy Meets Practice

Christine Tran is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC). She is an Angelena, born and raised in L.A. and a daughter of refugees. She is committed to increasing access to healthy food, expanding local opportunities, and building healthy communities.

Breast/chestfeeding and Formula

Breast/chestfeeding is natural and has countless health benefits for parents and babies. Despite this, there are many reasons why parents struggle with breast/chestfeeding and end up switching to formula.

How to Read a Nutrition Label

Reading a food label helps us understand what’s in our food, and allows us to make informed choices about what we buy and eat. These are the parts that make up a food label. Understanding what each section means will help you make healthy decisions.

An Illustration by Jemima Muir

Illustration by Jemima Muir.

Dinners Served

Painting by Xavier Xcel Lightfoot.

Growing a Garden at the End of the World

It is the weekend following Earth Day and I have decided that this is the ideal time to plant my garden. This is my second year attempting to be in relation with the Earth; last year’s garden was sort of a fluke. It yielded fruit, but something about this year told me to invest more in this land.