Structural Food Inequity and Community-Based Solutions: A Case for Plant-Based Justice

By Amy Quichiz, Founder of Veggie Mijas

The term “food deserts” suggests a naturally occurring issue, but it is the result of structural inequality. I grew up in Queens, New York, attending schools surrounded by bodegas and fast-food chains rather than grocery stores. A Popeyes and a Taco Bell were closer to my home than any supermarket. Street vendors often walked long distances to sell fruit in our neighborhood, filling a gap left by the lack of accessible farmers’ markets. I assumed it was normal that Trader Joe’s and upscale grocery stores were located in wealthier areas, not near my home. But food is not a luxury—it’s a basic human need. So why is it treated like a commodity reserved for the privileged?

On social media platforms like TikTok, a growing wave of content celebrates food as a symbol of wealth: $23 Erewhon smoothies, $20 strawberries labeled “perfect,” and curated farmers’ market hauls have become cultural markers of status. In contrast, communities experiencing poverty are left navigating a system that offers limited, often unhealthy, and highly processed food options.

Take Los Angeles as an example: the city is home to at least 42 billionaires and over 205,000 millionaires, yet food insecurity persists, especially in low-income and historically excluded neighborhoods. While many are encouraged to shop at elite grocery outlets like Erewhon, Cookbook LA, or Wine & Eggs, the reality for most Angelenos is far from that.

Growing up working class, I didn’t know what “luxury food” was. Nutrition education in schools was minimal, and often shaped by misleading industry campaigns like Got Milk?, which disproportionately targeted Black and brown communities. While traditional foods like rice, beans, and avocado remain foundational and nutritious, the processed alternatives marketed to our communities have led to preventable health disparities.

The Turning Point

In college, I was introduced to plant-based living through feminist and food justice circles. The first book I read was Sistah Vegan: Black Women Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society by Dr. A. Breeze Harper. In it, she writes:

“I am convinced that eating a meat-based diet—not to mention dairy products, eggs, and fish—is not only hazardous to food animals and harmful to the land, but, more important to me, perilous to the health of my people.”

That summer, I returned home and went to buy fruit from a trusted street vendor. When I asked to exchange a moldy piece, the vendor was visibly upset—he couldn’t afford to waste unsold stock. The interaction reminded me that this wasn’t just about one bad fruit; it was about a system that makes our communities settle for less. I turned to my dad and said, we deserve better. We all do.

Building Food Justice from the Ground Up

In 2017, I founded Veggie Mijas, a collective led by women, trans, and gender-nonconforming people of color who advocate for food justice and plant-based living through an intersectional, decolonial lens. Our mission is to reclaim ancestral knowledge, share resources, and create access to culturally relevant, plant-based education and food practices.

We do this through communal gatherings—potlucks, vegan panels, farm sanctuary trips, herb planting workshops—and by amplifying narratives that center Black, brown, and Indigenous experiences. To our knowledge, we remain the only collective of our kind in the U.S. focused on teaching communities of color how to cook with ancestral ingredients while redefining what health means to us. Dr. Harper reminds us:

“Choosing to eat this way is a reminder to myself and a demonstration to those around me that all of creation is worthy of respect and humane treatment—even chickens.”

Plant-based living doesn’t require full conversion. We encourage conscious eating: asking where your food comes from, who it nourishes, and who profits from it. Even in a fast-paced world where we’re limited to 15-minute lunch breaks or frozen meals, awareness is powerful.

A Collective Responsibility

We can’t rely on systems that continue to fail us. We must turn to one another: host potlucks, grow herbs on apartment balconies, share recipes, talk about our health, and join community gardens. The smallest act of care, especially when done collectively, is a step toward food sovereignty and healing.

As Dr. Harper writes:

“No one is on the sidelines; by our actions or inactions, by our caring or our indifference, we are either part of the problem or part of the solution.”

Follow Veggie Mijas at @veggiemijas | @AmyQuichiz