Sitting backstage before my talk at the Gun Owners of America conference, I found myself doing what I always do: listening.
The green room was filled with speakers, convention staff, members of the press, friends, and families. Small groups leaned over cocktail tables discussing the issues they cared most about. At one table, police officers shared their perspective. At another, firearm manufacturers discussed regulations.
Everywhere I turned, people were looking at the world through a very specific lens: the Constitution.
Not whether a policy was popular.
Not whether it sounded compassionate.
Not even whether it might accomplish a worthy goal.
Their first question was almost always, “Does the Constitution give the government the authority to do this?”
As I sat quietly on the couch, listening to snippets of conversation drift through the room, one thought kept returning to me.
We rarely ask whether food should be viewed through that same constitutional lens.
Maybe we should.
I’ve written about this before. Congressman Thomas Massie has proposed constitutional protections for food freedom. Joel Salatin has spent decades calling for the liberation of our food system. In Maine, advocates from across the political spectrum helped enshrine a right to food in their state constitution. This conversation did not begin with me, and I certainly hope it doesn’t end with me.
Conversations disappear if we, the people, don’t keep bringing them back into the public square.
When I suggested on Instagram, after having these thoughts backstage at Gun Owners of America, that America should adopt a constitutional amendment protecting the right to grow food, raise animals, and peacefully exchange food, the responses fascinated me.
Some people embraced the idea.
Others dismissed it immediately.
One response that stayed with me didn’t come from an anonymous account. It came from someone I’ve known since elementary school. Our politics have drifted in very different directions over the years. Instead of seeing healthy food as an opportunity to find common ground, she immediately found another reason to divide us. Her response was essentially that I shouldn’t be talking about a constitutional amendment because the current administration hasn’t done enough about chemicals in our food system.
Many of us are disappointed.
I’m disappointed, too.
But the question is not whether we’re disappointed.
The question is what we do with that disappointment.
Do we direct it toward our fellow citizens because they voted differently than we did?
Or do we rise together and continue demanding better from those we elected?
I was disappointed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I’m disappointed in this administration’s commitment to keeping chemicals out of our food and water.
I will be disappointed with successive administrations again.
That’s citizenship.
What I refuse to believe is that healthy food belongs to one political party.
Historically, much of the conversation around organic food, soil health, and food quality has come from the political left. Today, for perhaps the first time in decades, millions of conservatives are asking those same questions. That should be cause for celebration, not another reason to divide ourselves.
Healthy food is not a Republican issue.
Healthy food is not a Democrat issue.
Neither is healthy soil.
Neither is clean water.
A healthy child doesn’t care whether their parents voted for Trump, Harris, Kennedy, or someone else entirely.
The soil certainly doesn’t care.
Soil is quite literally our common ground.
Perhaps it’s time we started acting like it.
Some people responded that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments already protect these rights.
I hope they’re right.
But if the right to grow food, raise livestock, and peacefully exchange food is already protected, we’re doing a remarkably poor job of defending it.
Across America, homeowners associations tell families they cannot keep chickens. Neighborhood covenants prohibit gardens. Cities restrict food production through zoning ordinances. Small farmers navigate an ever-expanding maze of permits, inspections, licenses, labeling rules, processing requirements, and regulatory agencies simply to feed their communities.
In many places, people are pushed into private buying clubs, herd shares, or membership organizations just to exchange food that willing adults want to buy from willing farmers.
Whether every one of those restrictions is constitutional is a conversation worth having.
The bigger problem is that most Americans don’t even realize the conversation exists.
Why would they?
They experience food from the grocery cart, not from the field.
The shelves are stocked.
The milk is cold.
The eggs are neatly stacked by the dozen.
The extraordinary regulatory framework behind every bite of food remains almost entirely invisible.
After more than 20 years in the food industry—as a chef, restaurant owner, farmer, rancher, and now the owner of an on-farm restaurant—I can tell you firsthand that government involvement in every bite of our food is extensive. From the seed to the soil. From water to livestock. From slaughter and processing to transportation and labeling. From restaurant kitchens to farmers’ markets. Permits, inspections, licenses, agencies, and regulations touch nearly every step.
Growing food, feeding your neighbors, and selling food to your community are among the oldest and most human activities on Earth. Yet they have become some of the most regulated.
In a real emergency, our priorities become remarkably clear.
Air.
Water.
Food.
Fire.
Arms.
In that order.
Every constitutional right depends upon sustaining life itself.
Before we can speak freely, worship freely, assemble peacefully, defend ourselves, or pursue happiness, we have to breathe, drink, and eat.
Food is not simply another commodity.
It is the foundation upon which every other constitutional freedom rests.
It also happens to be one of the few issues that reaches across every socioeconomic, racial, political, and geographic line. When our food system becomes healthier, everyone benefits. When unnecessary chemicals compromise our food, they don’t stop at county lines or voting districts. When nutrient density improves, children from every neighborhood benefit. When access to fresh local food expands, those benefits cross every socioeconomic line.
The Constitution created a government of limited powers. It did not promise that the government would eliminate every danger from our lives. Liberty has always involved responsibility, judgment, and risk.
For generations, Americans have accepted increasing government control over food, often in the name of safety.
Yet despite countless regulations, agencies, inspections, permits, and bureaucracies, our nation has become increasingly burdened by chronic disease, obesity, metabolic illness, and declining health. Whatever the solution is, simply creating more regulations has not produced the healthy nation we all want.
Perhaps it is time to begin asking a different question.
Not how the government can regulate food more effectively.
But whether the freedom to produce, process, exchange, and nourish ourselves deserves explicit constitutional protection.
Below is my current draft. I don’t believe it’s perfect.
Neither was the Constitution.
It was debated.
It was challenged.
It was revised.
It was strengthened.
I hope this proposal receives the same treatment.
Improve it.
Challenge it.
Add to it.
Circulate it.
Share it with your family.
Send it to your county commissioners, your state legislators, your governor, your members of Congress, and anyone else who believes this conversation is worth having.
Conversations disappear when we stop having them.
Rights disappear when we stop defending them.
