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How Food Deserts Shape Our Mental Health

Walk into a corner store in many low-income neighborhoods and you will find shelves stacked with brightly packaged junk food, sodas, and processed snacks, but little to no fresh produce. Meanwhile, in wealthier areas, grocery chains like Whole Foods and Kroger overflow with organic, non-GMO, allergy-friendly, and vegan options. This imbalance creates what are known as food deserts, areas where affordable, nutritious food is scarce, yet fast food restaurants, liquor stores, and processed meals are within easy reach.


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For Black and brown communities, this is more than just a matter of convenience. Food deserts are a form of systemic inequity, shaping health outcomes for generations. They reflect an ongoing pattern of imperialistic structures that make nourishing food harder to access, pushing communities toward cheap, harmful options instead. Beyond physical health, the lack of nutrient-rich foods has an impact on the mind. Science now confirms what our ancestors always knew: the gut and brain are deeply connected, meaning what we eat directly influences how we think, feel, and behave. Simply put, you think how you eat.


“The gut and brain are in constant communication through what’s known as the gut-brain axis, a system that connects our nervous, immune, and hormonal pathways,” says holistic nutritionist and autoimmune health educator Genail “Genny Mack” McKinley. She adds, “95 percent of serotonin, one of our key mood-regulating neurotransmitters, is produced in the gut.” In other words, our happiness is tied to our diet. “When the gut is inflamed or out of balance, due to poor diet, environmental toxins, stress, or medications, this communication breaks down, contributing to symptoms like anxiety, brain fog, depression, and mood instability,” McKinley explains. “I’ve seen how restoring gut health through food, nervous system regulation, and lifestyle shifts can support people in addressing emotional dysregulation.”


Caribbean-American herbalist Brianna Cherniak, founder of Moss Medicine, echoes this truth. “The gut and brain are deeply connected through the vagus nerve, one of the longest and most important nerves in the body,” she says. “The vagus nerve acts like a communication pathway and sends messages between the gut and the brain. Because of the vagus nerve, when there is an imbalance in the gut, it travels upward, deeply influencing mood, mental clarity, and overall emotional resilience.” She notes that clients often feel mentally lighter and more balanced after supporting or cleansing their gut.


Still, many families are left with little choice but to consume foods that strip the gut of its natural defenses. “Fast food is packed with saturated fats, refined flours, synthetic ingredients, and chemicals,” McKinley explains. “Over time, eating these processed foods damages the gut, lowers beneficial bacteria, and increases inflammation, which impacts digestion, mood, and immune health.” Black neighborhoods are hit hardest.


“Neighborhoods where Black people make up 80 percent of the population have 2.4 fast-food restaurants per square mile, compared to 1.5 in predominantly white neighborhoods,” McKinley says. “It’s a result of structural inequality that limits access to real, nourishing food.”

The numbers show the scale of this injustice. Globally, 2.5 billion tons of food are wasted every year, while 733 million people faced hunger in 2023. In the U.S. alone, 47.4 million people lived in food-insecure households. ReFED reports that retailers generated 4.45 million tons of surplus food, with over one-third ending up in landfills. Meanwhile, entire nations, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Palestine, struggle with hunger crises.


Healthy food has been turned into a privilege rather than a human right. “Gut health is personal, but it’s also political,” says McKinley. “In Black and brown communities, emotional regulation is often shaped not just by what’s on our plate, but by the weight of intergenerational trauma.”


This connection between food, body, and spirit is nothing new. Chantel Robertson, CEO of Upful Blends, shares, “The gut and the mind aren’t two systems. They’re mirrors of the same internal world. Our ancestors didn’t need studies to understand that when the belly is in disease, the mind and the spirit begin to unravel.” She continues, “The digestive system… is the house of personal power, self-esteem, and intuition. It’s where our sense of self is digested.” She warns that when our energy is out of balance, whether through fear, people-pleasing, or self-suppression, it often manifests as gut-related illnesses like IBS, ulcers, or adrenal burnout.


“Our gut processes everything in our lives, turning not just food but experiences, emotions, and lessons into life force fuel,” Robertson reminds us. When emotions go unprocessed, digestion mirrors that block. Eating while stressed, scrolling, or upset imprints that energy onto the body. Lisa A. Smith, founder of The Plant Protocol, stresses that “70 percent of our immune system is in our gut” and that trauma and chronic stress weaken it further. “Chronic stress and trauma impact the gut in a very serious way,” she says. “Our stressors today are circumstantial and emotional, but the body still reacts as if in danger.” This constant fight-or-flight mode suppresses digestion, raises acidity in the body, and leaves us vulnerable to illness.


So how can communities reclaim their health in the face of food apartheid? Cherniak suggests, “Keep your food as colorful as possible. The microbiome thrives on diversity.” She recommends shopping outer aisles of stores for fresh produce and making simple probiotic-rich foods at home through fermentation. McKinley adds, “Foods rich in prebiotics, like onions, plantains, oats, seaweed, chickpeas, asparagus, dandelion greens, and other fiber-rich plants, help feed beneficial bacteria in the gut.” Probiotics such as sauerkraut, miso, and kefir can also restore balance affordably. Herbs like ginger, anise, fennel, clove, and bay leaf remain accessible, everyday tools for gut healing.


Mindful eating is equally essential. “Chew slowly. Eat mindfully. Don’t scroll while you eat. Your body can’t digest if it’s in fight-or-flight mode,” Robertson advises. Breathwork, meditation, yoga, and mindfulness-based stress reduction practices are simple yet powerful ways to reset the nervous system before meals.


On a larger scale, grassroots organizing is pushing back against capitalist food systems. Community fridges, mutual aid pantries, and neighborhood produce swaps are reclaiming abundance by redistributing food waste into nourishment. These efforts remind us that healing the gut is not just an individual act but a collective movement. “Mental health isn’t just in the mind, it’s also in the microbiome,” McKinley affirms. Robertson expands, “Our relationship with the gut is a living feedback loop. It’s all connected, physically, energetically, and spiritually.”


Healing the gut is resistance. It is remembrance. And it is food justice. Addressing food deserts requires more than survival, it requires reclaiming ancestral wisdom, demanding systemic change, and reshaping the way we nourish ourselves and each other.


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