Meghan McCarron
LightNews LightNews
banner
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Meghan McCarron
@meghanmccarron.bsky.social
2.1K followers 350 following 360 posts
Freelance journalist covering food & culture. Work in NYT, Atlantic, Bon Appetit. Also a science fiction writer. Recent work in Lightspeed, Nebula & World Fantasy finalist. I live in Los Angeles.
Posts Replies Media Videos
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Another thing that gets lost is that SNAP is one of our most successful social programs.

But the cuts to the program are so major, and hit so many different aspects, that those same experts are concerned it will be undermined, and worry what will happen when a recession hits
If you asked me to design from scratch the optimal anti-hunger program for the United States, it would be SNAP, only better,” said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Now, she is concerned about what will happen in the wake of the budget cuts. She said the cuts in President Trump’s signature policy legislation “could be the end of this national program.” Policy experts say the cuts threaten SNAP’s status as what economists call an “automatic stabilizer” for Americans whose incomes fall below a certain threshold, its payments easily accessible to those in need and spent in their local communities.
November 14, 2025 at 6:14 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
The USDA historically refused SNAP restrictions from states. Now a dozen have been approve. While reporting this, I tried to figure out what granola bars I could buy that did contain flour, and it was pretty confusing
Driven by the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, in line with a public campaign by the nation’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S.D.A. has approved waivers that allow a dozen states to limit the types of foods SNAP recipients can buy with their benefits. The forbidden foods include obvious targets like candy and soda, but also, in the case of Arkansas, fruit drinks that contain less than 50 percent fruit juice. A waiver for Iowa includes a ban on granola bars that do not contain flour. Until recently, the U.S.D.A. had refused state requests for food restrictions, based on its own 2007 finding that they would be costly to implement and would stigmatize recipients. That report noted that an average of 12,000 new food products were introduced to the market every year from 1990 to 2000, and substantial education would be needed to help SNAP recipients understand what they could and could not buy, lest they be stopped and shamed in public at the checkout counter.
November 14, 2025 at 6:14 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
For families especially, SNAP benefits often don’t stretch to the end of the month. 80% of benefits are spent in the first 2 weeks, and there are many reports, like this, of parents skipping meals to keep their kids fed
Kris Adler, a single mother of two in Los Angeles who was laid off a year ago, said she feels that as she struggles to feed her family. “It’s just barely enough, we have to be really careful,” she said. “Toward the end of month, it starts to get scary.” Ms. Adler sometimes skips meals when food gets short. “I need to make sure the kids have their food,” she said, “and I would rather just not eat and make sure they have what they need.”
November 14, 2025 at 6:14 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Some kind words about my story "The Lord of Mars" from Rachel Khong's wonderful newsletter about short fiction rachelkhong.substack.com/p/cold-by-as...
Meghan McCarron’s epic, thought-provoking “The Lord of Mars,” about workers on Mars who unionize (The story also gave me a deeper appreciation for potatoes. And it reminded me of the Frederik Pohl quote: “A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”);
September 16, 2025 at 9:28 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Love to sweat my ass off in the blistering sun walking to Trader Joe’s and then encounter this
A large display of seasonal pumpkins and gourds in the front of a Trader Joe’s entrance
September 7, 2025 at 11:03 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Also spotted outside Kinokuniya
A battered printed-out sign reads in all caps WE DO NOT SELL LABUBU. It is clipped to a piece of brown cardboard and placed in front of a large black and white mural of manga panels
September 4, 2025 at 7:44 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
I don't know who needs to hear this but the Mar Vista Kinokuniya has lots of 2026 Hobonichi planners
An array of beige and black Hobonichi Techo planners are displayed on a white shelf
September 4, 2025 at 7:42 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Update from the family chat
A text that reads: “He graduated in 1977. I graduated in 1976. We probably ate in the Pie Shop (the main cafeteria) at the same time.”
May 8, 2025 at 10:09 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Shot / chaser (or should that be spritz / espresso martini?) www.bloomberg.com/news/article... www.thecut.com/article/nyc-...
A city of singles and young marrieds is a city that is constantly reintroducing itself to the world, chasing dollars with brunches and happy hours, and then having to do it all over again as those couples depart for places with affordable three-bedrooms and trees within reach. Still, despite the good time they’ve been having, they told me they can’t quite imagine staying in New York forever. This was like their study abroad. “I don’t think I’ll raise kids here or anything like that,” said the pink puffer. “I’ll probably leave within five years.”
May 5, 2025 at 11:12 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
there has been a lot of good reporting on this, too www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/m...
Because of health care, pension and other expenses, it costs about $53,000 to employ just one senior-level grip in Los Angeles for the same time frame, according to a line producer who provided the budget documents.
May 5, 2025 at 3:19 AM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Throw in the pandemic, runaway restaurant inflation, and the growing popularity of takeout and delivery, and the deck is stacked against an enormous, value-centric dining room. But they've been around so long, to lose them is to lose something essential to civic life
But the Chili’s, for instance, at the side of the highway is just rare enough, and just central enough, that people from a wide variety of tax brackets visit. And data drawn from social media like Facebook suggests that people who visit those restaurants more often also have more cross-class friendships. “It’s class-neutral ground to meet up with somebody you’re connected with through work or some other setting,” Mr. Wilmers said. “If there’s only really fancy restaurants or fast food, you don’t have the social infrastructure for having comfortable meet-ups.”
April 4, 2025 at 8:36 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Some researchers even believe our tastes shifted away from loaded potato skins and toward, say, a burrito bowl of responsibly-raised beef because of this same shift in class dynamics
S. Margot Finn, a lecturer at the University of Michigan, sees another side of the cultural obsession over “good” food, widely portrayed in the media as a mass enlightenment about farm-to-table produce and regional American barbecue styles. In her 2017 book, “Discriminating Taste,” she argues that this taste shift was spurred by status anxiety. In the 1980s and ’90s, she writes, as even the upper middle class ceased making economic gains compared with the 1 percent, they turned to food as a mark of distinction and discernment.
April 4, 2025 at 8:36 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
But these chains, custom-built to serve the middle class, faltered at the same time the fortunes of many middle class Americans did, most notably in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis
But the conditions that had fueled their growth also marked the beginning of a new economic order in which wealth increasingly concentrated at the top. By the 2000s, the middle class these restaurants had been custom-built to serve was shrinking as wages stagnated and neighborhoods grew more segregated by income. The chains began to falter, too. Worsening economic conditions in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis softened restaurant sales, and the subsequent recession hit casual dining chains the hardest. (This had not always been the case: A recession in 1989 benefited those chains.) Steak & Ale and Bennigan’s, once among the most successful chains, went bankrupt. TGI Friday’s was scooped up by private equity. Chili’s created a questionable ad campaign to resuscitate the brand. An activist investor targeted Darden, the parent company of Olive Garden, and urged them to limit their unlimited breadsticks. And Darden sold off Red Lobster, beginning a cycle of shuffling ownership at the chain. Image
April 4, 2025 at 8:36 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Their success took even industry experts by surprise. And they appear to have pushed out local, independently owned restaurants.
When strips of chain restaurants began appearing outside the small towns, closer to the highway, those locally owned cafes often withered away. Now, instead of a dining room serving the cook’s grandmother’s recipe for rhubarb pie, glossy picture menus offer, as Ms. Stern put it, “‘Mom’s meatloaf.’ Mom who?”
April 4, 2025 at 8:36 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
In the 1980s and 90s, sit-down chains like TGI Fridays and Olive Garden and Pizza Hut were at the top of the heap. And they offered affordable, regular nights out to a broad swath of Americans.
When Daniel Cox was growing up in Rochester, N.Y., he spent every Saturday night at Pizza Hut with his father and two brothers. The server got to know the family so well that when she saw their blue Dodge Caravan roll up, she would put their order in: two cheese pan pizzas and two pitchers of Pepsi. Mr. Cox’s parents were divorced, and the Pizza Hut ritual was centering for the family. “It was a time when we were all together and everyone was enjoying the experience,” he recalled. “Who doesn’t like pizza?” Now a father himself, Mr. Cox rarely goes out to eat with his kids. They’re in travel-soccer practice three nights a week, and his family can’t get out of the local pizzeria for less than $100. He couldn’t think of an affordable, sit-down meal they’d shared recently.
April 4, 2025 at 8:36 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
My working title, my inner monologue: Why No Egg??? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/d...
A few aspects of the supply chain can help explain customers’ wildly inconsistent shopping experiences. During a shortage, grocers have limited options for keeping eggs in stock. They can buy eggs on the wholesale market, which commands high prices, and then decide how much of that cost to pass on to customers. Bigger retailers can use their larger matrix of contracted suppliers to do similar juggling. Or grocers can keep prices low and set purchase limits to counter increased demand, limited supplies or both.
February 26, 2025 at 4:40 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Took me a minute but I got there. The IATSE sticker really seals it
A license plate on the back of a black car reads “IMAYQUP” surrounded by a glitter license plate frame and next to an IATSE sticker, also glittery
December 4, 2024 at 3:46 AM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Went to a gym in Tulsa with an extremely specific aesthetic (complimentary)
November 23, 2024 at 8:26 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Had a dupe of the Erewhon coconut cloud smoothie in South Dakota yesterday
November 22, 2024 at 2:57 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Haven't seen this one before
a menu note reads "please inform us of any food allergies real or imaginary"
November 22, 2024 at 4:06 AM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Can’t emphasize enough that this is about a smoothie
An ad poster reads “one life one body one chance” on a blue background next to a photo of a peanut butter pistachio smoothie
November 20, 2024 at 6:48 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Her embrace of cooking, and just, like, eating cake like a normal person is especially wild considering the history of women candidates and food
A screenshot of a graf of the story which reads: "For female presidential candidates, food was believed to be a downright liability. In 1964, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine became the first woman to seek the nomination of a major political party. The Republican was well-known for sharing recipes using ingredients from her state, but at least one campaign stop, she refuted her characterization as the “blueberry muffin” candidate, saying reporters should focus on her loyal service in Congress. During Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the most indelible food image was of the candidate looking longingly at a piece of cheesecake she didn’t dare eat."
October 29, 2024 at 9:05 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
So many talented cooks are kept out of the formal food economy because they lack capital. Even food trucks have gotten expensive.

This program can also help provide better food options directly in neighborhoods — the cooks I spoke to often spend hours prepping their meals from scratch
A man cooks at the stove in his home kitchen. Underneath, a quote from him reads, "With the MEKHO system, people are using fresh food and actually cooking with their heart and their soul. That's the direction we should start going in."
October 28, 2024 at 5:44 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
pomodoro undefeated
October 25, 2024 at 6:11 PM
meghanmccarron.bsky.social
Another Los Angeles micro season has arrived: the local surplus store put up their “Burning Man Supplies” sign
A storefront reads “the surplus store” with signs advertising survival supplies and burning man supplies
July 28, 2023 at 8:00 PM