Like roughly half of the remainder of the American voting public, I’ve had a tough week. The information that Donald Trump can be reelected to the presidency regardless of being an unrepentant racist and misogynist punched me proper within the intestine because the outcomes rolled in on Tuesday evening. I’m unhappy, scared, and anxious about what’s to return, however I refuse to be cowed by the looming specter of fascism. As a substitute, I’ll prepare dinner a meal for somebody.
Within the days following the election, a lot has been mentioned about what might want to occur subsequent as we glance towards the havoc that Trump will probably wreak for immigrants, for queer individuals of shade, for Gazans, for any marginalized particular person. We have no idea precisely what that influence will likely be but, however I agree with those that have steered that to outlive the chaos, we’re going to should be there for one another in so some ways. Meals isn’t any exception.
Trump has already proposed deep cuts to SNAP, or the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program, sometimes called “meals stamps,” which can probably enhance meals insecurity for thousands and thousands of Individuals. Costs at grocery shops are already excessive, and his proposed tariffs on imported items might enhance the value of important objects — meals included — by as a lot as 60 %. Because the threadbare security web on this nation is additional dismantled by Trump and his cronies, the need of coming collectively to supply help for medical care and different necessities will solely turn out to be extra vital. We can even must feed each other.
If you’re not already conscious of organizations that deal with meals insecurity in your space, now’s a good time to search for them. Take into account becoming a member of your native chapter of Meals Not Bombs, a nonprofit group that distributes meals to these in want in communities throughout the nation. Discover your nearest meals financial institution or mutual assist group, get your hands on free pantries and fridges close to you, and ask those that are already doing that work what your neighborhood wants most. Possibly it’s one thing so simple as making a couple of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for distribution at a close-by neighborhood middle, or maybe it’s as concerned as doing weekly meal prep for an aged particular person in your neighborhood.
Feeding applications are among the most impactful organizations on the market, which makes them a superb automobile on your post-election malaise. The work that meals banks and mutual assist teams do with restricted sources and time is staggering. The concept which you can spend a few hours assembling weekend snack packs for college youngsters with a gaggle of pals on the meals financial institution and probably find yourself feeding lots of of individuals is the precise sort of enhance that the majority of us want proper now.
Cooking a meal for somebody is among the easiest and most accessible types of offering care to others. It doesn’t should be a elaborate meal, it doesn’t should be made with the costliest elements, it simply must be ready with the intention of providing nourishment to others. A bowl of rice and beans, spiced with cumin and chili powder to procure on the greenback retailer, supplies the identical quantity of diet and luxury as a dish that prices 10 instances as a lot. A loaf of bread is cheap to make, and who amongst us isn’t joyful to obtain a heat loaf? It doesn’t harm that cooking itself might be such a cathartic factor to do — as my colleague Jaya Saxena wrote, you’ll be able to’t doom scroll in case your palms are coated in flour.
The broad feeling of hopelessness amongst so many individuals proper now’s completely justified. This consequence sucks, and it’s exhausting to flee the sensation that issues are solely going to worsen. However gazing my cellphone and stewing in my very own anxieties and prognostications isn’t going to make me really feel any higher, both. If we’re going to outlive the following 4 years — bodily and emotionally — we’re going to have to point out up for each other. And in my thoughts, there’s no higher approach to try this than to feed them.
