Brazil

The right to good food has been enshrined in the Brazilian Constitution since 2010, and even before that, Brazil had laws obliging the state to guarantee good food for all Brazilians.

By including the right to good food in the Constitution, Brazil is fulfilling agreements made in 1948 by UN countries. As part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN countries agreed that good food is a human right. The treaty also emphasizes that countries should include this right in their constitutions.

To give substance to the right to good food, Brazil has set up, among other things, community canteens where people can eat a healthy meal for free or on a small budget. There are also food banks that give away food to people with limited resources. They use locally produced food as much as possible.

Canteens have a long history in Brazil. Since the 1950s, they have offered inexpensive meals to people in increasingly industrialized cities, based on the idea that providing good, affordable food would boost productivity. In these canteens, cooking classes and workshops about healthy eating were also offered.

During the military regime, from 1964 to 1985, these public services for good food fell into disuse.

More recently, with new legislation and the constitutional right to good food, community kitchens have reopened. These simply furnished restaurants serve lunch—the most important meal in Brazil—and sometimes breakfast or dinner as well. Many of the visitors come from socio-economically vulnerable groups, but students, the elderly, and single people also frequent them.

Brazil distinguishes between so-called “popular restaurants” and community kitchens. Popular restaurants are located in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and can serve up to 1,000 meals per day. Community kitchens are located in municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants and can serve up to 100 meals per day.

The management of these community kitchens and popular restaurants is in the hands of local authorities. They often hire private companies to provide staff, venues, and day-to-day operations. The national government is responsible for purchasing and maintaining the venues and kitchen equipment. They are also responsible for inspections.

The national government also develops guidelines for community kitchens, popular restaurants and food banks. These guidelines stipulate, for example, that restaurants must provide balanced meals prepared as much as possible with local products, and that they must be comfortable places that respect the right to feed oneself in a dignified way.

The furnishings of the restaurants is simple and the food is often traditional Brazilian, with lots of rice and beans.. Local cultural traditions are taken into account. They are also places where cultural events take place and where people learn about healthy eating and cooking.

There are also food banks. Although the first food banks in Brazil were private initiatives, part of the global food bank movement that began in the 1960s and aimed to get food into the hands of the most vulnerable and combat food waste, almost all food banks in Brazil are now government-owned.

In Brazil, too, supermarkets are being flooded with products containing too much fat, salt, and sugar, and people have less and less time to cook. According to nutritionists, community kitchens and popular restaurants are a good alternative for people who, due to lack of money or time, turn to unhealthy foods in the supermarket or fast food. They offer nutritious and healthy meals at a low price, and can play a significant role in preventing food related illnesses.

There are also challenges: many of the products distributed by food banks come from large international food corporations and are often unhealthy. Giving vulnerable groups the foods that other poeple don’t want to eat is ehtically dubuious, and the unhealthy foods in food banks increase the risk of diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. This raises the question of who benefits most from food banks: large food corporations that also receive a tax break for donating food, or those with limited resources. According to a scientific study, food in community kitchens and popular restaurants is cooked with too much salt and not enough fruits and vegetables are used. The government is trying to address these problems with a proposal to abolish the tax break and by imposing regulations on the types of products food banks are allowed to distribute and canteens are allowed to cook.

Read more: