Food Sleuth Radio Mariana Chilton, PhD, MPH, author of The Painful Truth About Hunger In America: Why We Must Unlearn Everything We Think We Know -- and Start Again.
Oct 23, 2025
Mariana Chilton, PhD, MPH, is a Professor of Public Health and an advocate for food security. In this engaging discussion, she reveals that hunger stems from greed, not food shortage, and highlights how low wages keep many reliant on support systems. Chilton emphasizes the need for solidarity over charity to tackle hunger effectively. She also discusses the urgency of measuring food insecurity and reveals its profound impact on children's health and futures. Ultimately, she calls for compassion and structural policy solutions to combat food injustice.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Lessons From Cheyenne And Arapaho
- Mariana Chilton learned humility and two core lessons from the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes early in her career.
- They taught her to offer only what communities ask for and to lead with love and solidarity, not social justice rhetoric.
What Food Pantry Users Taught Her
- Mariana Chilton describes learning about hunger directly from Black and Brown women at Philadelphia food pantries.
- Their experiences taught her that hunger is a multifaceted trauma—physical, mental, spiritual, and moral.
Hunger Is Manufactured By Greed
- Hunger is not caused by lack of food but by greed and deliberately created scarcity.
- Wealthy actors hoard resources and pay low wages, forcing workers to rely on programs like SNAP to survive.