Sunday Food For Thought: A Season of Abundance. A System of Deprivation.

Every year on July 18th—Mandela Day—I find myself thinking about food. I think about it because Mandela taught us that hunger inside a prison is never just hunger. It is a message. A method. A form of control. He wrote about how deprivation was used to break the spirit, how a tray of food could become a reminder of the state’s power over one’s body and dignity. And each year, as we acknowledge Mandela Day through our annual food solidarity fast, I am reminded that food in prison has never simply been about nutrition. It has always been about humanity.

But this year, that reflection feels even sharper because of the season we are in now—the season of food obsession. In the free world, we move from summer cookouts straight into Thanksgiving prep, holiday spreads, tables overflowing, recipe exchanges, grocery budgeting, family traditions built around abundance. Our conversations this time of year revolve around what we’re cooking, what we’re bringing, what we’re indulging in. We scroll through photos of meticulously plated meals while complaining about grocery prices or whether the pie crust came out right.

The contrast is jarring.
Because at the same time, people in Nevada’s prisons are writing to us describing trays of spoiled meat, moldy bread, undercooked patties, portions so small they go to bed hungry, and entire units missing meals during lockdowns. They describe the intensified deprivation inside solitary confinement, where “food” often means a cold bag or something so nutritionally empty it barely counts as sustenance. They describe dizziness, headaches, weakness, and the emotional toll that hunger takes when it is forced upon you—not chosen.

On July 18th, while many of us had the privilege to decide what to eat or skip a meal voluntarily, hundreds of incarcerated people across Nevada chose to fast. They fasted not because they had abundance, but because they wanted to expose the truth of what it means to live every day without dignity and without enough food. Their fast was an act of resistance, a continuation of Mandela’s legacy, and the most powerful leadership we saw that day. Very few people on the outside joined them; the courage came overwhelmingly from the people living the reality firsthand.

Now, as the holidays approach and our collective focus turns to meals, menus, comfort, and celebration, I find myself holding both truths at once: the joy of food on the outside, and the suffering tied to food on the inside.

How do we reconcile our own seasonal indulgence with the hunger others cannot escape?
How do we celebrate abundance while loved ones are denied basic nutrition?
How do we allow ourselves to feast while others write to us about losing weight they cannot afford to lose?

The simplest answer is also the hardest: we put on blinders. Not out of cruelty, but out of self-preservation—because if we don’t look too closely at the inhumanity happening inside, we can protect our own hearts and minds from carrying it.

But Mandela taught something different. He taught that our humanity is intertwined, that injustice behind walls diminishes all of us, and that dignity is a collective responsibility—not just an institutional one.

On Mandela Day, incarcerated people took off their blinders for us. They fasted to make sure we could not ignore their reality. And now, in this season of abundance and holiday tables, it is our turn to take ours off.

We cannot fix this alone—but together, we can.
Those inside have already shown us what courage looks like. Now those of us on the outside must match their courage with action. That means learning the issues deeply, getting trained to speak and tell the truth about prison food, joining workgroups that build strategy, and participating in the kind of focused, organized advocacy that creates real change.

If people enduring the worst of the system can stand up and fast for dignity, then those of us surrounded by plenty—by choice, by comfort, by food—must use our voice to honor their sacrifice.

This season, as we fill our plates, may we also fill our responsibility.
May we refuse to look away.
May we learn, launch, and lead.
And may we remember that the fight for human dignity is not seasonal—it is daily.