by Alex Cragun

Imagine a world where the food on your plate reflects not just your nutritional needs, but your values – regardless of your income. A world where everyone has access to healthy, ethically sourced, sustainable food. For me, the intersection of food justice and animal welfare is fighting hunger, stigma and inhumane farming practices.

As someone who has experienced food insecurity firsthand and turned that into a lifelong fight for food justice and food system reform, these issues are deeply interconnected. Let’s explore stigma in policy, its origins, how it impacts the fight for more humane treatment of farm animals, and what you can do to build a more equitable and compassionate food system.

Growing Up Hungry

I know what it is like to go to bed hungry. The anxiety waiting in the grocery line, wondering if we should put some of the produce back on the shelves. The shame of coming up short and returning items at the checkout counter. I recall my mom stretching cans of soup by adding more water than recommended, skipping meals or eating less so that we could eat enough.

Poverty gnaws at your self-worth and gives society permission to write off your systemically determined circumstances as the byproduct of your bad choices. Poverty is paperwork, phone calls, appointments, paper vouchers, referrals, long lines and curt bureaucrats. It’s deciding between eating and paying your gas bill. Poverty tastes like cream of mushroom soup, canned peas, peanut butter, powdered milk and stale bread.

I remember going to the grocery store with my mom as a young child, the paper vouchers in her hand, her looking for the little WIC icon on the grocery shelf. Her vigilant math, checking and rechecking to not go beyond what was allowed. At the checkout counter, she’d don an apologetic tone, look low to the ground, face flushed with embarrassment, all to appease the cashier. Accessing food help in America comes at the cost of your dignity, then and now.

Looking back now, life was a daily struggle, but programs like The Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) eased the burden on my family.

However, I remember the stigma that accompanies it. While the WIC program has taken significant efforts within the last decade to combat the problem of stigma, more can be done by state governments.

What is WIC?

The WIC program, established in 1974, serves low-income pregnant people, new parents, and young children up to age five who are at nutritional risk. According to the USDA, in 2023, WIC serves approximately 6.6 million participants monthly, providing supplemental nutritious food, nutrition education, and referrals to health and social services. The program’s goal is to promote healthier pregnancies, improve birth outcomes, and improve growth and development outcomes in early childhood.

With its benefits comes the stigma and judgement. In 2022, 12.8% of American households reported being food insecure, meaning they lacked access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. Accessing assistance programs such as WIC is often accompanied by feelings of shame and embarrassment, also known as “internalized stigma.” Stigma and disregard for the food insecure is deeply rooted in American society’s view on poverty and poverty relief, and like all other aspects of our society, are influenced by classism and racism.

Historical attitudes continue to shape public perception and policy around programs like WIC. Restrictions on the types of eggs that can be purchased with WIC funds, reinforce the idea that recipients shouldn’t have autonomy over their food choices. Understanding this history is crucial as we work towards a more equitable food system. It is not just about increasing access to food but dismantling long-standing systems of inequality that determine who gets to eat what.

The Politics of Consumer Choice

As awareness of the harmful impacts of factory farming has grown, so has demand for more ethically produced foods. “Cage-free,” “free-range,” and “organic” have become more than just food labels for some consumers; they have become political or moral statements. However, these higher welfare options often come with a higher price tag, making them inaccessible to many low-income consumers. This creates a system where ethical food choices become a privilege, rather than a right for all consumers.

Despite evidence that cage-free eggs may be healthier and pose less risk of salmonella, they’re often considered a “specialty” item. While most states now allow WIC recipients to purchase “cage-free” eggs, there are still some states that limit recipients’ ability to make ethical food choices.

Eggs and Making Do

It’s has been more than a decade since I’ve eaten an egg, but they played a central role in my childhood diet. “Eggs in a basket” was a cheap and filling Saturday morning breakfast, an egg in your ramen noodles made the meal feel luxurious. When you are “making do” with what you have, eggs are a cheap way to break up a monotonous menu. But that low price can come with a great cost for hens.

Years later, I became more interested in food—where it comes from, how it is produced. I learned about the appalling living conditions egg-laying hens live day-to-day, how they suffer to produce millions of eggs every year. This knowledge transformed my understanding of the true cost of cheap food.

Most people in the U.S. don’t know where their food comes from, or how eggs are produced, but they overwhelmingly support policies that protect chickens from the cruel efficiency of industrial farming. Over the last couple of decades, we have seen the egg industry transition away from the inhumane practice of caged egg farming to cage-free and pasture-raised egg production. Forty percent of eggs now come from cage-free hens—up from just 16% a decade ago. Despite this progress, many state WIC programs are not keeping up pace with this change.

Compassionate Food is Food Justice

At Compassion in World Farming USA, we believe that addressing food inequality goes hand-in-hand with promoting more humane farming practices. Fighting for a world without cages is not just about animals, it is about creating a food system that is more equitable and sustainable for everyone. Every meal is an opportunity for compassion. Working together, we can create a future where more ethically produced food is accessible to all, regardless of income.

Giving low-income families access to the same higher-welfare food choices that are available to non-WIC shoppers helps to provide participants with the same dignity, respect, and status afforded to all.

According to a 2022 Harvard study, 80% of Americans would prefer to buy eggs from chickens who have not been kept in cages. We can better serve the needs of the WIC community by allowing for the purchase of cage-free eggs in more states while ensuring that families, regardless of income, can make food choices that align with their values. 

The fight for food justice and farmed animal welfare is interconnected. By addressing the stigma associated with food assistance, challenging the problematic roots of our food system, and advocating for more humane farming practices, we can work towards a future where the food on our plate nourishes not only our bodies, but our values and shared humanity.

You Can Help

You can help by supporting policies that expand access to higher welfare foods for WIC recipients. Do you live in a state that prohibits the purchase of cage free eggs? Contact us! We’d love to work with you to fight for compassionate change.

Alex Cragun has more than a decade of experience in nonprofit government affairs, public policy, grassroots organizing and campaign management. In addition to his work on food system reform, Cragun has a track record of working on issues affecting low-income and historically marginalized communities like healthcare access, food insecurity, voting rights, election law and transportation policy. Cragun centers his career around “doing good work,” by creating and sustaining coalitions, binging communities, and community organizations together through shared interest. Before joining Compassion in World Farming, Cragun was the Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy, US at Mercy for Animals. Cragun has his master’s in public administration from the University of Utah. Cragun is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.