06/17/2026
What we eat has always carried history. The foods that fed Black and Brown communities through generations of scarcity are now being repackaged as trends — and priced out of reach of the very people who kept them alive. breaks it down.
When people from low income and Black and Brown communities eat for survival, it’s called poverty. When wellness culture discovers it, it’s a trend.
Oxtail. Sardines. These foods sustained low income and Black and Brown communities through generations of scarcity. They are now being repackaged and priced out of reach of the very people who kept them alive.
Sardines were a symbol of scarcity before they became “girl dinner” and “protein maxing.” Oxtail was literally given to enslaved people as scraps — offcuts nobody else wanted. Caribbean, African, and diasporic communities turned those scraps into something sacred.
Now those same communities are being priced out of their own tables.
There is beauty in more people coming to eat. But when access is taken from the communities who created and preserved that value, that is food gentrification. And it is part of the same system that has always decided who deserves to eat well.
