‘MAHA moms’ are pushing for changes to America’s food system
For The Washington Post:
They say the food industry is putting pesticides, dangerous food dyes and other toxic chemicals into the U.S. food supply. They eschew highly processed foods, raise chickens and grow organic vegetables in their backyards. Some call themselves “crunchy moms,” a term once linked with 1970s liberal environmentalists.
But these aren’t traditional, left-wing environmentalists. They are the moms in the “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement: They lean conservative, distrust vaccines and support Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And they are changing what it means to be an environmentalist in the United States — and generating growing momentum to change the country’s food system.
April LoConti and her children plant seeds in the kitchen of their Eastliake, Ohio home. LoConti, a hair salon owner, real estate agent and mother of two, spent most of her life trusting scientists and the medical system. Her children were vaccinated on the typical schedule, and she believed in Western medicine. But after a breast implant surgery, she began to have migraines and vertigo every day, for months. Doctors were baffled, and she was shuffled from one expert to the next.
Seeds to be planted in the LoConti garden are labeled before they go in the ground.
Most of the food consumed by LoConti and her children is produced at home. Here she prepares sourdough bread.
April LoConti and her daughter Juliana add kitchen scraps to their compost bin.
April's son Andrew harvests eggs from their chicken coop.
Eggs laid by the two LoPresti family chickens.
LoPresti, a conservative health influencer across a variety of platforms, limits screen time, encouraging her children to play outside instead.
LoPresti's son Andrew cradles one of their chickens.