And that's Pizza Beans...

Dispatches from my Corner of the Internet

Recently, I’ve cracked the case on my low energy. For the past six to eight weeks, I haven’t been eating enough. Turns out existing on coffee and anxiety leads to low energy levels, poor sleep hygiene, and decreased executive function. I was crabbier with my loved ones, couldn’t pay attention at work, and felt terrible about myself and my body. My levels are back to stasis. I eat my three squares and two snicky snacks, and fibermaxing to my heart’s content. One trick that has helped me stay consistent in eating enough is my Finstagram account.

For about five or six years, I’ve maintained a separate Instagram account where I only follow food creators, Bravolebrities, bookstagrammers, and other hobby content. I religiously monitor this space, weeding out creators who talk about hormones, shredding fat (without a box grater present), or specific health advice without sources or a degree in their bio. I also don’t follow friends and family, lest their content migrates my way. Protecting this feed took vigilance, but it paid off, helping improve my relationship with food over time.

Lately, my corner of the internet has consisted of fiber maxing, reclaiming soul food, and silliness. The videos by Black content creators manage to combine all three by coining “soul-frito” (a portmanteau of soul food and sofrito). This subset of the internet responds to the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, dramatically increasing costs of living, and proliferation of diet culture content with a regular series of high-fiber recipes designed to help you poop.

As opposed to fearmongering by calling foods by their scientific names, Vitamin C becomes ascorbic acid, or talking vaguely about regulating hormones, which is out of scope for anyone but an endocrinologist, more videos on my FYP have asked me to think about the small tweaks I can make to my meals that will make my bowels move. It’s simple, cost-effective, and life-changing for my health. This trend matters as current food policies prioritize animal protein over carbs, fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

New dietary guidelines, which shape food policies like SNAP benefits, school lunches, and military food, flip the long-phased-out food pyramid, putting grains at the tip and protein and produce at the wider base. Many of the changes are visual. Looking closely at current and 2020 guidelines, which featured the My Plate visualization developed around 2011, the specifics remain unchanged. One major difference is a focus on saturated fats, solid animal-based fats (butter and fatty meats), versus unsaturated fats (seed oils, avocados, nuts, and seeds). Public health researchers have long proven the heart and brain benefits of unsaturated fats. But, dietitians also worry that the emphasis on animal protein and fats will affect grocery budgets, a key factor in overall health, as meat is more expensive than plant-based proteins.

So an influx of easy and fun food content not only feels like a balm but also feels political. Unlike most TikTok or IG videos, these series get me off my phone, into my kitchen, and in tune with what produce will be the best to cook with. For example, spring is mango season. While global food supply chains make them available year-round, March through May is a peak time, making them abundant, sweeter, and potentially more affordable than normal. All the more reason to be excited to cook with them. Next week, in celebration of Mango season, I want to try Mango sticky oatmeal. A fun way to get in as little as 8 grams of fiber in the morning and about 1/3 of the way to my fiber goal for the day.

Another series about foods we don’t think of as vegetables has encouraged me to give myself credit for all the vegetables I already eat that don’t look like steamed broccoli: Guacamole, salsa, mushrooms, canned pumpkin, and corn. An approach that many of her followers can attest has helped them eat more vegetables with more joy and ease. This ease and joy are crucial. Most adults don’t eat enough servings of vegetables and fiber. A fact that’s troubling, given the rise in pediatric colon cancer and micronutrient deficiencies like scurvy. Overall, studies find that malnutrition is on the rise in the US. Making nutrition accessible, encouraging, affordable, and culturally responsive is more important now than ever.

My favorite series has specifically encouraged Black Americans to expand our definition of soul food to include plant-based, nutrient-dense foods that are a part of our culture. Collard, turnip, and mustard greens, peanuts, black-eyed and field peas, corn, sweet potatoes, rice, tomatoes, okra, and watermelon are all affordable, accessible in most grocery stores, and packed with nutrients. This creator argues that Black Americans should be eating our cultural foods every day, not just the celebration dishes.

She argues, with sources, that encouraging Black Americans to give up cultural dishes under the guise of healthy is racist. Black food historians, scholars, and writers like Jessica B. Harris, Toni Tipton-Martin, and Michael W. Twitty detail this history in their books and public projects. Categorizing Black American food as unhealthy ignores the history of enslavement, cuisine, and resistance movements in this country. For many African Americans, gardens were sites of freedom, family legacy, and cultural practice. Families could feed themselves despite restricted access to grocers, pass on farming techniques and seeds, and connect with ancestral knowledge. Black families have been forced away from indigenous forms of nourishment through sharecropping, redlining, eminent domain, and Jim Crow segregation, among other racist policies.

History shows that government polices, versus individual choices, made healthful nourishment harder for Black families, many of whom face disproportionate malnutrition, food insecurity, and chronic illness. So, the focus on cost-prohibitive dietary guidelines may have real consequences for families who may not have access to enough food. One content series, Dollar Tree Dinners, underscores that most families don’t live within driving distance to even a Walmart to get fresh produce and so rely on what’s available at dollar stores.

Pushes for Black Americans to focus on healthier eating habits are not new. The American Heart Association has long run a campaign to help Black Americans make soul food staples with health-conscious swaps. Afro-Vegan movements come around every few years, reminding us of the links between the diaspora and plant-based diets. Tabitah Brown built a platform encouraging Black Americans to turn carrots into vegan hot dogs. But I appreciate that social media influencers want healthy eating to be fun, easy, and cool. More importantly, I appreciate the focus on creative ways we can all get enough healthy food. And that’s pizza beans.