More Than a Meal: How Black Culture has Shaped Nutrition and Public Health

Before public health degrees, federal guidelines, or wellness trends, Black communities have been practicing public health through food, connection, and care.

Many Black-American cultural dishes also known as “Soul Food” are based in various African traditional cuisines adapted to the diverse climates and miserable conditions in which slavery took place. However, what started as survival quickly became a means of cultural creativity and socio-economic mobility. Many enslaved Black Americans kept gardens to grow additional food in the face of the negligent food portions provided by their enslavers. In these gardens, Black people introduced several plants which have become staples in American cuisine, including okra, yams, peanuts, and watermelons. 

Collard greens, for example, originated as a flavorful and cheap way to extend meager meat scraps while still taking in critical nutrients. Black women street vendors also known as “Hucksters” sold the products of their gardening and cooking at weekend markets, using the earnings to build wealth during and after enslavement. 

Food became a means of resistance and community at several points throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th century history for Black Americans. As early as the 18th century, certain African cultures braided rice and/or seeds into the hair of their children in order to ensure their nourishment in the face of possible separation during the transatlantic slave trade. In the 20th century in particular food became a point of a cultural consolidation and resistance.  For example, sweet potato pie, while not technically invented by Black Americans but perfected by them, became symbolic of Black pride, identity, and resistance. Georgia Gilmore, a restaurant cook in Montgomery Alabama served sweet potato pie in hot lunches which were provided to Black drivers supporting the community during the Alabama bus boycott of 1955. Later when she was fired from her job for her activist work, Martin Luther King Jr. assembled other activists to help Georgia start her own restaurant where she sold soul food and offered a safe space for cultural exchange, political planning, black joy and mental respite for civil rights activists. 

Black Americans also developed several inventions critical to the agricultural value chain or “farm to fork” process that we use today.

Agricultural science has significant implications for public health with regards to large-scale nutrition supply. Some of the inventions essential to our agricultural supply chain invented by Black people include: 

• Crop rotation with protein-rich plants; extending the life and use of agricultural fields (George Washington Carver) 

• The automatic refrigeration system for trucks, trailers, railroad cars, (and later for ships and planes), which allowed for food to last longer while being transported long distances (Frederick McKinley Jones) 

• Chemical preservation techniques to prevent food spoilage (Lloyd Augustus Hall)

Connection & Care

Folk Medicine

Since Black people arrived on American soil, traditional medicinal techniques based in various African cultural practices have been incorporated into Black American healthcare. This reliance on “traditional” African medicinal practices and other alternative methods of treatment, often called “folk medicine”, intensified during slavery and Jim Crow, as Black people were systemically excluded from contemporary medical care. Some folk medicine practices are still valid today and are often included in mainstream wellness including: 

• Using Aloe vera to cure aches and burns 

• Consuming garlic to lower blood pressure and to promote general wellness

• Drinking baking soda for digestive relief (Alka-Seltzer)

• Using cayenne pepper for arthritis relief

Mutual Aid Societies

In the 18th century, Free Black Americans living north of the Mason-Dixon Line were some of the first to establish mutual aid societies/networks. The first official mutual aid society was established in Philadelphia by Abasalom Jones and Richard Adams in 1787. The purpose of the society was to unite freed Black Americans and build their economic and social capital based in christian values. While their work was initially based in social welfare (providing scholarships, supporting widows, providing unemployment aid, offering social support for the transition from enslavement to freedom, etc.), the society’s function took a medical turn in 1793, when they provided medical, housing, and funeral services to both Black and white Philadelphia citizens during a yellow fever epidemic. 

Black mutual aid societies multiplied and flourished throughout the 19th and 20th century, often linked to abolitionist activism and the socio-economic rehabilitation of enslaved people into free life like the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty + Pension Program. They also filled in the gaps in nutrition and healthcare for Black citizens during and in the aftermath of Jim Crow law. One of the more famous Black mutual aid programs of the 20th century is the Black Panther Free Breakfast Program, which provided free breakfasts for 50,000 young children in 45 cities across the country and inspired the contemporary USDA Free Breakfast Program. 

Carrying the Legacy Forward 

Black History Month invites us not just to reflect—but to recognize that many of the solutions we are searching for already exist within the communities most impacted.

For example, Unwind with the Tribe is a Beacon Public Health campaign supporting Black women navigating obesity through education, connection, and community care. By creating space for Black women to come together, slow down, share food-centered conversations, and prioritize wellbeing without judgment, Unwind with the Tribe honors ancestral wisdom while responding to modern realities like burnout, chronic disease, and inequitable access to care. Check out our free resources and start a conversation with your wellness tribe today. 

Explore our educational resources, training opportunities, and community campaigns at www.beaconpublichealth.com, and follow us on social media to join the conversation.

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About the author:  Simone John-Vanderpool is a Social Action Project Officer working for the Regional Pension System in Paris, France. Holding two respective master’s degrees in Psychology and Health and Social Policy Engineering, Simone is passionate about public health education and its implementation through a multicultural and multinational lens.