The case for citywide free food
Smart mayors should adopt a langar — the Sikh idea of a communal meal — in their cities
Tragedy of toogoodtogo
Not long ago I used to love the app toogoodtogo.
In fact, I was the first touchpoint for many of my friends who are now active users.
To me it felt like one of those business models that just was so good. For those who are unaware, the app allows for you to buy leftovers from local restaurants for a discounted rate towards the end of the day. So back in 2021 when I was an active user, you could get a pretty sizable amount of food for around 3.99 as long as you were willing to wait until 10pm, or something like that, to pick it up.
I had a personal bond to the mission toogoodtogo. My semi-claim to fame in college was creating a free food Facebook Group, where people would post about leftovers and events with free food. It grew quite quickly.
So toogoodtogo was a great product that I had an ideological reason to support, so why have I fallen out of love?
Well, I think restaurant owners got tired of yuppies, like myself, who would just wait until the designated time to arbitrage the restaurant’s toogoodtogo offerings. I can imagine that a small business owner just recovering from COVID shutdowns would get beyond annoyed with they see a flock of Canada Goosers taking $30 of their food for $5 bucks at 8 pm. Thus, they course corrected.
Most of the in-app restaurants I frequented in Hell’s Kitchen — without a doubt one of the best places for food/just has a high number of restaurants in the city — now give far smaller portions of what, to be honest, feels like genuinely unwanted leftovers.
Quelle tragedie!
What’s worse? The app is growing in popularity among the general public amongst 2nd and 3rd movers and their friends. Thus, despite the quality of the food declining, the app is now being lauded as one of our great “modern” innovations.
The CEO of toogoodtogo even met with Apple and had a red carpet rolled out for her. So, while the app is devolving into a plaything, a novelty, for the Bourgeois Boheme, the boomers are starting to praise it as some kind of great innovation.
First Principling Food
As you probably can tell, this annoys me greatly, but I can’t blame them. Toogoodtogo built a great product, and a useful one in theory.
But that’s just the thing: The theory of it all.
People love toogoodtogo because it is the best new bandaid on a flawed system. The nicest new color of paint that hides the mildew of walls that are near caving in.
People appreciate toogoodtogo because in theory it is a great idea, and it is worth noting for many people it still is.
However, the underlying problem, people don’t have access to high quality, accessible food, proudly persists!
The issues of our food system are so widely known that I don’t feel the need to monologue about it, but if you’re an American you know that we live in a flawed dietary system.
So why don’t we tackle this problem at a first principles level?
Why can’t we just people free, high-quality, whole-grain, organic, protein-rich food?
I can already hear your protests, but hear me out.
We already give food away! To the tune of $145 billion in SNAP [aka food stamps] and over $80 billion for prisoners. Combined, that is far more than the $222 billion United Kingdom pays for its national healthcare system, the NHS. (Before you say I’m comparing apples and oranges, note there’s a big difference in the cost of healthcare/doctors and food/farmers. Also, its just a heck ton of money) This is also not accounting for the myriad of charities that give food away to homeless people, most of which are in some way supported by our government.
Add to this, the food is really bad for recipients!
As the Cato Institute reports: “A 2021 USDA study found that adult men in SNAP had a higher obesity rate (37 percent) than low-income nonrecipient men (32 percent) and that adult women in SNAP had a higher obesity rate (52 percent) than low‐income nonrecipient women (40 percent).”
So, we are already paying for free food for people, just food that is literally killing people in the long run. Why not use the money we are already spending from our taxes to give people — all people — healthier food? If you’re spending money, wouldn’t you want a good product in return?
Yeah, but free food doesn’t seem fair?
So, despite all these statistics, the idea in principle just feels off. Sure you may agree with me on food stamps being a poorly run endeavor, but why not just cut all of it? Well, let’s examine who we are on a first-principle level.
We claim to be a Judeo-Christian society, well guess who gave their people free food? Moses and Jesus!
Be it manna from heaven or multiplying bread and fish for 5,000, the so-called “Western faiths” have a deep tradition of giving food to the masses.
The United States is called to be more than just a normal European city, many of our original cities were called to be cities upon hills or cities that take the principles of the Bible — specifically those virtues mentioned in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (free food speech) — to heart.
Beyond “Western faiths,” most of the religions of the world call upon similar actions for their believers. Zakat and Sadaqah in Islam call for specific portions of food to be given.
Hinduism’s Bhagavad Gita says the highest form of Karma is sharing food. Steve Jobs himself fed himself with free food from the Hare Krishnas when he was a bohemenianing it up during his college dropout years.
Langar — the act of eating and cooking in a communal kitchen — is a fundamental tenet of Sikhism, and may most reflect the successful implementation of free food breaking the class divides amongst their faithful. I would suggest following an initiative similar to this, for any would-be philosopher kings who choose to implement a free meal plan.
Important to note, that all of these faith traditions advocate for high-quality food to be given to the people, so to any prince reading: Don’t try to pull any Cain-esque moves and serve lesser-quality food!
Silicon Valley City
I recognize that free food on a nationwide scale will probably never be implemented in a place like the United States. We can’t even pass legislation on border control that both parties support, and right now poses severe problems.
Free food for the governed actually exists today, largely at cutting-edge companies. Proponents cite multiple benefits of the practice including: increased worker productivity, boosted social morale, healthier employees, increased employee [civic] engagement, and countless increased social connections between workers.
We are in a new, global world, where workers can in theory work anywhere around the world, and most would if it were not for archaic tax rules.
In this world, the new dynamic entails cities vying for competitive citizens — similar to how these high-tier companies are vying for top talent.
A city government or mayor that recognizes this dynamic, should start creating a program that provides high-quality, free food to its citizens and potential future citizens.
People and companies are leaving major United States cities en masse, a smart mayor in an up-and-coming city should consider offering communal food experiences as a way to:
1) Set themselves apart from competitor cities.
2) Set a tone for their city as a home for different thinkers.
If implemented correctly, such an endeavor will attract top talent to migrate to their city.
Would free food increase laziness?
One of the most compelling arguments against this would be stating that such an endeavor will lead to a culture becoming lazy. Benjamin Franklin — who was sympathetic to the poor — actually pointed this out as his reason to avoid overt austerity programs.
I, respectfully, disagree.
We live in a different time where artificial intelligence is posing a total threat to most of the work that we’ve
Right now, in the United States we have a progressive tax, and while our tax system is flawed and people notably “game the system,” I doubt anyone is actively earning less money just to avoid paying a slightly higher rate.
Right now, we have public education that — while greatly flawed — provides people with a bare minimum level of education that both makes America a greater country and at least helps kids have basic skills. It can be improved, yes, but no one would suggest not educating our kids.
The food a city should provide should be high quality and tasty, but that won’t prevent people from eating at restaurants that they love. Think of the food as analogous to Whole Foods’ hot bar. The food is tasty, but it isn’t going to be the only thing you’d ever eat.
At our dining halls, we would for the most part eat there, some rich kids would eat out regularly for food, but such is life. For the most part, it was a nice threshold.
This wouldn’t get rid of good restaurants, maybe it could affect low-performing ones, but I would assume many of the good workers there could be hired by smart mayors to help run the new food kitchens.
The ones that aren’t great performers? Well, at least they’ll be able to feed themselves when they’re figuring out what is their correct calling.
Will this happen?
Truthfully, I don’t know. I do think that a smart mayor can leverage this, especially if they’re from a place that really needs to differentiate itself to high income-earning expats.
What if a city that had similar qualities of a target destination of laptop lifestylers, perhaps in a country like El Salvador or the Bahamas that is aiming to attract them, offered its people delicious, and healthy free food? I am certain it would be a far more compelling place to immigrate to than Bali or another picturesque city that is resting on its laurels.
People would take the free canteen food, but I am sure they would also want to try the other types of restaurant food — much like how many of my college classmates opted to eat at restaurants even though they could in theory eat in the dining hall.
More than that, as we are entering a world that has to deal with the very real consequences of AI and job displacement, we need to support our fellow man when they will inevitably undergo that hardship that comes with the changing of the tides.
Ideas like UBI, or universal basic income, are growing in popularity, but UBI doesn’t provide communal benefits the same way a langar does. Langar in India causes people to bond across class lines and fosters community. Some of the most proud Indians are the Sikhs, and langar plays a role in fostering this pride. Pride in one's community is desperately lacking in cities and smart mayors and governments should be thinking of out-of-the-box solutions for this.
On a personal level, I think a city-wide langar will create a nicer society, and this kindness I think is its own reward.
