10/31/2025
Earlier today I had the misfortune of reading a post from a real piece of work in one of my neighborhood FB groups, and while I usually just scroll on past this sort of nonsense, I couldn’t do so in good conscience. Using pseudo ‘woke’ and therapy language such as ‘let’s be mindful and compassionate’ and ‘community care means looking out for each other,’ she wrote about how if people aren’t ‘truly in need right now, please consider skipping visits to local food pantries.’ Her argument is that those resources are meant for people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from and not people who ‘have enough’ and take from food pantries ‘just in case,’ and that if folks who don’t “really” need these resources use them, that there will be less food for the people who “really” do. She called it “stealing” to go to the food pantry if you don’t “really” need to.
THE FOOD PANTRY IS FOR EVERYONE.
THE. FOOD. PANTRY. IS. FOR. EVERYONE.
If you refuse to read another word here, that’s just fine, as long as you burn those words above into your brain. The food pantry is for everyone.
I have never once, from my years working at the Greater Chicago Food Depository to my current career in private practice medical nutrition therapy, seen a person take my suggestion of a food pantry and respond to it ANY other way than “oh, I don’t think I should go, I don’t need it as bad as someone else might.” Never. Not once. Ever. Everybody, including unhoused folks, parents, folks who are eating maybe once a day so their loved ones can have food, EVERYBODY thinks the food pantry is for other people and not them. Everybody is nervous about standing in a line where their neighbors might see them and judge them. Everybody thinks they’re taking a thing that is limited and scarce when other people need that thing more.
This is rooted both in our damnably hyperindependent American culture and in a fundamental misunderstanding of how food pantries work (/how they intersect with the food system as a whole). For the purposes of this example, let's say that my food pantry expects to serve 10 people, and thusly requests 10 boxes of food from our distribution center. If 8 people show up, week over week, I will not be able to request 10 boxes anymore. If 11 people show up, I can request more. Many food pantries/banks/distribution centers do not have the ability to store food outside of a very narrow window, so if 8 people show up, 2 boxes of food go in the trash. That's awful! The more people that go to a food pantry, the more the pantry can ask for. Using a service keeps it robust and safe. Using the food pantry means more people are likely able to use the food pantry.
If I've already got your buy in here, let's try one further point. I know this one is a little bit trickier for some people, so if I leave you with 'people are already nervous you're monitoring their behavior and judging them, so don't freakin do that' and 'using the food pantry actually means the food pantry will keep existing, so please do that,' that's just fine. You can stop there.
If you're interested in going a little further though, I'd encourage you to ask yourself why you need to know that someone 'deserves' to have their basic human needs met. I'm seeing a lot of conversation around how the majority of SNAP recipients are children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and folks with jobs, and that's true! However, I think people who ARE 'just lazy' deserve to eat. I think that all humans deserve safe, dignified access to the foods that will nourish them body and spirit. I think that the only reason folks in the United States specifically don't all have that access is because we've decided that actually, food isn't something we're entitled to and is instead something to be earned by sacrificing yourself to a degree that satisfies our cultural longing for suffering. We want to see people getting their needs met only when they've performed a sufficient degree of misery or pain for your validation. That is monstrous, full stop. Everyone deserves to eat. People did not ask to exist, and they cannot exist without food. Humans deserve to have their needs met, and well before (or ideally, without) suffering to have that happen. There is enough food in this country for everyone to eat an adequate diet to meet their needs. There is no reason to deprive people of food. Not now, not ever.
Just in case you needed one last reminder, the food pantry is for everyone. If you need a buddy, or a cheerleader, you let me know.
And if you see somebody you don't think 'deserves' food standing in the pantry line, no you didn't; you saw your own judgement and you should question that instead of questioning the person in line.
