Circle 3: Access to Healthy Foods

The Mississippi Free Press convened a virtual Solutions Circle on June 17, 2025, with about 40 attendees discussing health access and disparity challenges and brainstorming solutions. with our staff and this summer’s Mississippi Youth Media Project students to discuss their experiences. Our reporters and students listened in on these conversations, and kept notes about the issues and potential solutions participants came up with. Our YMP students will be using this experience as part of their summer projects. 

Then on Thursday, June 26, the YMP students and full MFP staff did an in-newsroom Solutions Circle to brainstorm and log specific story ideas either team can follow up separately or in collaboration.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this circle! If you’d like to hear about more circles, sign up here: http://mfp.ms/circlesinterest. Our next virtual circle is Tuesday, July 1, at 5:30 p.m. to identify types of freedom challenges and potential solution to inform our coverage. Please join if can.

Issues:

  • Affordability & Cost:
    • Healthy food is more expensive in Mississippi due to grocery tax.
  • Geographic Disparity (Food Deserts):
    • Rural areas are food deserts (little to no whole food chains). 
    • Low quality and environment of local supermarkets.
  • Cultural & Dietary Concerns:
    • Condemnation of “soul food.”
    • Diets often exclude cultural foods.
    • Concern about losing traditional recipes (both culinary and metaphorical).
    • Dietary impact on dental/medical expenses 
    • Mississippi is one of the most obese states
  • Lack of Education & Awareness:
    • Lack of education in growing food.
    • Lack of understanding regarding nutritional labels.
    • Lack of understanding of long-term effects of current eating habits.

Potential Solutions:

  • Community Agriculture & Networking:
    • Need to grow food in rural communities.
    • Initiating a network of community gardeners. 
  • Education & Awareness:
    • Education is access to better food options.
    • Reading nutritional labels.
    • Doing deeper dives into health through blood work.
    • Understanding the long-term effects of what we eat now. 
  • Policy & Regulation:
    • Changing policies in food and nutritional regulations.
  • Healthy Cooking Alternatives:
    • Finding alternatives to cooking traditional food (healthier cooking methods). 
  • Community Engagement & Ownership:
    • Connect local colleges and universities with communities.
    • Community change happens through actions.
    • Take ownership and accountability for individual, family, and community choices.

The mission of the Mississippi Free Press, a new nonprofit journalism website and multimedia network that launched in March 2020, is to publish deep public-interest reporting into causes of and solutions to the social, political and structural challenges facing all Mississippians and their communities. Mississippians need to know each other across regions and share our challenges and solutions despite geographic and other differences. We are introducing Mississippians to each other through our deep accountability reporting and compelling people-focused storytelling, and by convening online and physical “solutions circles,” using our statewide networks to ensure inclusivity and representation.