Mariana Chilton is the author of the new book The Painful Truth about Hunger in America: Why We Must Unlearn Everything We Think We Know--and Start Again. She is Professor of Health Management and Policy at Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University.
Q: What inspired you to write The Painful Truth about Hunger in America, and what is that “painful truth”?
A: For two decades I thought that I would help people who experienced hunger to write their own books. Throughout, I ensured that a lot of people had a platform to speak out about their experiences – mainly through photo exhibits with their testimonies, panel discussions, articles, and op-eds.
But I learned that writing their own book was not a meaningful option for them because they were constantly struggling to simply survive and stay healthy.
I worked with so many people who experienced hunger that I was able to see patterns that a lot of other people could not see. It was an undeniable pattern of violence passing through the generations that many researchers, policy makers, and food justice advocates ignore.
I wanted to write the book so that no one could continue to ignore the violence underneath hunger. That’s the painful truth: that violence—the disrespect built into government programs and the loveless ways we treat each other and the natural world—creates hunger.
Q: What would you say are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about hunger in the United States?
A: Many people refuse to believe there is hunger in the United States. They think it happens in other countries but not the US. This misconception is because the dominant narratives in the US insist the US is the richest country in the world, and that there is minimal poverty in the US. This lie must be exposed.
Here is another misconception: people believe that hunger can be solved with food. This clouds people’s vision so much that people are convinced that if they donate to a food bank that they are helping people.
I show how food banks and big food companies advertise that they are “combating hunger.” Their marketing seeps into the minds of our kids—even my own child and her third-grade teacher.
Their school was encouraged by the local food bank to create a competition to see who could bring in the most “pounds” of food. The food bank insisted that the kids could “help the poor” and have fun doing it. They said winners could have a pizza party or throw a pie in their principal’s face. See the confusion and disrespect?
I show how big food companies and fossil fuel industries create so much excess that they want to cleanse their corporate reputations by appearing charitable.
If we we’re honest, we’d recognize the emergency food system for what it is: a candy house hiding cruelty inside of it. It’s a mirror reflection of the well-known folktale of Hansel and Gretel. They were starving and desperate, and when they were lost in the woods, a witch wanted to lure them in to eat them, and she did it through the lie of sweetness glued to the outside of her house.
In the eyes of Grace, a woman I interviewed who had Type 1 diabetes, it was the bad food she got at food banks that caused her to be hospitalized. And when she came out of the hospital, she had no money. So, she went right back to the food bank trying to figure out how to feed herself.
The volunteers gave her their corporate excesses, but it was all the kinds of things she couldn’t eat, like canned beef and SpaghettiOs, which were ultra processed, had high sodium and low nutrient content.
So, she simply lugged the food home, looked at what she couldn’t eat, and then threw it away. There is no justice in that. There is only humiliation and poor health.
In similar fashion, the food and beverage industry profits off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Though SNAP helps families stay healthier than they would be without SNAP, I argue that a universal basic income paid in cash would be far more helpful and ensure that people who have low incomes could have the power to spend money in ways most meaningful to them.
Q: The author Andy Fisher said of the book, “Equal parts memoir and academic analysis, this book exposes the violence underlying hunger in America while demonstrating the courage and love needed to end it once and for all.” What do you think of that description?
A: This is spot on. Because it’s so hard to be open to the truth, I make it a slow unveiling to help readers learn along with me in a way that is non-threatening.
I’m trying to show people how I got to the painful truth. That required me to show my own emotions, my own questions and insecurities, especially when the scientific and advocacy communities were hesitant to accept my findings on the violence underneath hunger.
Also, I explain that that we must dig deep. I expose how hunger is caused by racism, sexism, capitalism, and imperialism that people harness in their everyday lives to harm each other.
Many women I spoke with had been raped—and this trauma held them back physically, emotionally and economically. They explained that the police did nothing to help them and, often, their own families refused to believe them, or they were punished for bringing it out into the open.
When so many women explain their suffering and no one does anything about it, when one in five children live in poverty, when one out of two newborns in this country are born into poverty with little hope of escape, and when this suffering seems accepted by our politicians, community leaders, and the public, it demands we start asking tough questions about ourselves and our society.
How do we let this happen? How do I contribute to this society that celebrates domination and disrespect? How does white supremacy culture and internalized sexism land in me?
In asking these questions of myself, not only am I doing my own work to become a more kind, thoughtful and loving person in the world, but I’m also trying to model the behavior that I hope to see in others – readers, students, colleagues, friends, and family.
Q: What do you see looking ahead when it comes to the issue of hunger in this country?
A: People are waking up to our reality – that our society and the way we live is out of control; often we are without thought for others. With the incoming Trump administration, there will be many thoughtless policies and disrespectful actions that will bring great harm to people who are poor. But I have faith in people; I know we will resist such cruelty.
Specifically, we must be vigilant and outspoken about the extremely harmful policies in Project 2025. The Project 2025 playbook seeks to drastically reduce SNAP benefits.
Though SNAP has its problems by being married to the food industry, we also know that SNAP can help people like Grace stay healthy and out of the hospital. We also know that when SNAP benefits are inadequate, this affects blood sugar and causes more problems with diabetes.
Additionally, there are proposals to slash school nutrition programs. But these nutrition programs support children’s learning, health and wellbeing.
So not only is there a possibility that families with children, Black and Indigenous people, and people with disabilities will experience more hunger and poor nutrition, but our society could become more ignorant by the day.
But we can fight against this if we take courage, speak up, and build community that focuses on ensuring everyone gets the food, housing, and other supports that they need.
This is a time to get creative with how we share money, food, and support. We ought to look to mutual aid, cooperative businesses, and other ventures rooted in solidarity. This is the key to our survival – staying connected and being in the world with equanimity (without discrimination).
I encourage people not to give in to fear. Rather, we need to grow our courage to resist the energy of hatred and indifference.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I wrote about the importance of healing the harms of violence in order to end hunger. I insisted, for starters, that the US government ought to return the land to Indigenous peoples, and that there ought to be reparations for intergenerational harms of enslavement. This creates expansive opportunities for healing and repair, and for cherishing each other. I’m continuing that work and going deeper.
I’m writing a new book about how public health practice must lead with an ethic of love and solidarity that is opposed to racism, discrimination, and genocide. In my personal life, I’m working on the flip side of the same issue.
As always, I am investigating how such pain and violence lands in the way I feel, think and act. I am a descendent of enslavers and people who participated in genocide against Indigenous peoples. So, I am working on showing how that tendency for domination gets handed down, and how to transform that violence so I can spread peace and kindness. I’m curious about how proximate this violence is.
One of my grandfathers, who was remembered as a kind person, helped to create the atomic bomb. Clearly, the energy of violence is very strong in our society and also in me. I’m learning how to diffuse the bomb inside of me so that I can help us stop bombing and killing each other.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Working on hunger and poverty takes self-awareness and a deep and abiding commitment to cherish all life. We can start with our food. I remind people that our food is our kin and ought to be regarded with reverence.
If we could slow down enough to give thanks to the natural world, to the plants, animals, and minerals that help to nourish us, we can be healthy and live a more meaningful life. In Painful Truth, I show how Indigenous people consider corn or rice as their mother, as their kin. Our plants and our food take care of us.
So, while I say that in addressing hunger we must go beyond food, I also am trying to help people understand that the food we eat every day comes from sacred lands and waters and helps support our lives.
This is a gift. Every life is precious. If we can start to have more reverence for the “more than human world” then maybe this attitude can teach us how to have reverence for each other, to be less racist, to resist any attempts to disrespect and mistreat women and children, to not humiliate people who are poor, and to even treat ourselves better.
We have been gifted with the beautiful opportunity to be human and alive at this time. Let us not waste these moments, and may we share not only our food with people around us, but may we also share the best of ourselves through kindness to all beings.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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