The main purpose of food is to indicate a status level in the book. For example, alcoholic beverages such as hard liquor and beer are generally classified with the lower classes; accordingly, the people who drink this sort of beverage are the uneducated blacks at the Golden Day who beat each other for fun. On the other hand, finer alcoholic beverages, like wine, are drunk by more "refined" characters such as Brother Jack.

Cabbages are another type of status indicator. Cabbages are what TIM smells at Mary Rambo's house, a symbol of how poor this woman is--she has to boil cabbages in order to feed herself and her inhabitants. This use of cabbages has appeared in other works also, for instance, George Orwell's 1984.

Another example of food in Invisible Man occurs during the night as TIM walks down the street. He sees a vendor selling yams, of which he buys two. Because he no longer cares for what the people think, he eats this yam in full view of anybody on the street at this hour. This is in stark contrast to his refusal to eat grits at the diner when he arrives at the city, lest anybody find out he is from the south.

Other minor food items appear in the book. Brother Jack offers TIM a cheesecake in order to persuade him to work for the Brotherhood. TIM brings a sandwich on his first day of work at Liberty Paints. Little items like these are sprinkled by Ellison in the novel to show the reader something about that character.