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The Urban Food Desert Myth
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janejellyroll wrote: »Not really. There's one side that says people can make their own decisions and are capable of making healthy choices even in challenging circumstances. Then the other side engages pity for the poor oppressed have-nots and explains why they are forced to make unhealthy decorations by the circumstances assigned to them by society.
I feel like the conversation has been more nuanced than that (at least in many posts). I think we can discuss how economics influence our food/activity choices without saying that anyone has been "forced" to do anything. And those influences, by the way, aren't just on the poor. We're all influenced the circumstances of our lives.
Agree with this.
I do find the discussion somewhat frustrating, like people are talking past each other.
The topic of the thread is whether food deserts are a significant factor in whether or not people are able to eat healthfully.
Some people brought up other factors about being poor that affect that (which I think are important and true).
Others jumped in to defend the food desert concept (if I am reading correctly) or to claim that other similar issues make it impossible for people to eat healthfully -- maybe I am reading that wrong, but that's what I was getting out of it) and seem to be assuming that a disagreement with the food desert concept means that people are saying it's easy to be poor. I understand that to some degree -- there were posts that I disagree with that suggested the only issue was self control, etc. -- but I would also say that the issue is different than people buying potato chips because they have no alternative. IMO it's a more nuanced and accurate conversation if we acknowledge that people DO have alternatives, it is not impossible for the vast majority of even poor people to cook healthfully, and yet there are a number of reasons why they may not (not just self control).
IMO, yes, there are reasons people will choose not to cook in a time-consuming way vs. convenience, or choose "healthy food" (which they may think of as unappealing) vs. junk food or other high cal ultra processed foods, and I don't think this is difficult to understand. That it's a huge pain to shop on top of everything else is probably part of it (it used to be for me before I figured it out, and that's when I was a healthy 20-something in a decent area of the city). That stores with fresh produce are less convenient than other stores, same. But to insist it's because it's impossible and people just don't get it suggests that if we just brought in a better store the problem would go away (when BMI seems to be related to poverty level, in part, but not distance from good stores). I also think to claim it's because people can't phyically cook is a questionable tactic when in the US something like 97% of people in poverty (vs. 98% of people overall) have a gas or electric oven/stove.
Also, worth noting that in the US obesity is hardly limited to poor people, urban poor people, or people in so called food deserts.5 -
Prior generations would have had no problem throwing together a soup with whatever limited root vegetables & meat they could get their hands on in the winter. Hell- there are probably still a few folks around who remember making dandelion soup during the depression.
Did someone say dandelions?! Aka, Hillbilly Arugala, aka Redneck Rocket?? Seeing as its the first day of spring and all, I just had fresh picked dandelion greens for lunch with my Poor Mans Nicoise. (It doesn't have tuna because I ate that while I made the rest). For the 60 g of greens, I got 27 calories, 238 mg potassium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 134% vitamin A, 24% vitamin C, 124% calcium, 2% iron, a delicious peppery salad, and a nice little walk around my yard. I combined it with a little romaine and newly growing chives and dressed it with a homemade balsamic, but it would have been awesome with a hot bacon and cider vinegar dressing, which is what I will try next time.
There is SO MUCH food that can be foraged for free, even in the city. Even without financial capital, you can just exercise some intellectual capital or social capital by learning from an old timer and eat extremely well, or even make some good money if you can find morels and ramps.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Do people not push small carts to the grocery when they have a lot to buy anywhere else but Texas? You can get them for a couple of bucks at a dollar store, and they fold up for storage or the ride to the grocery on the bus. They're narrow enough to take on a ride back, too - people here will usually help getting the cart on the bus if you have trouble, and the driver will help if others don't.
Hell, when I was living in Houston people who walked to the grocery often had actual grocery carts they pushed to and from the store. I was never sure if they were grabbing abandoned ones (I'd see them left under the overpasses and in the bayous), getting decommissioned ones from the grocery, or outright stealing them from the store, but it was a common sight.
Where do you buy these carts? The closest one I've seen is for strapping to the back of a bicycle and not convenient for pushing with hands.
FTR, I'm one of the lazy buggers who can't be asked to walk 3 miles to the store.
I used to have one. I think I bought it at Target.
Fwiw, most of the urban homeless people in my city seem to have these carts, or something similar.
Also, in response to the observation that many people can't physically carry food, I don't think that really explains it. Bottled soda is very bulky and heavy, and yet it's also very overconsumed, including in poor urban areas. Somehow a lot of it is making its way into people's homes.1 -
I think these are all fair points.lemurcat12 wrote: »IMO it's a more nuanced and accurate conversation if we acknowledge that people DO have alternatives, it is not impossible for the vast majority of even poor people to cook healthfully, and yet there are a number of reasons why they may not (not just self control).
IMO, yes, there are reasons people will choose not to cook in a time-consuming way vs. convenience, or choose "healthy food" (which they may think of as unappealing) vs. junk food or other high cal ultra processed foods, and I don't think this is difficult to understand. That it's a huge pain to shop on top of everything else is probably part of it (it used to be for me before I figured it out, and that's when I was a healthy 20-something in a decent area of the city). That stores with fresh produce are less convenient than other stores, same. But to insist it's because it's impossible and people just don't get it suggests that if we just brought in a better store the problem would go away (when BMI seems to be related to poverty level, in part, but not distance from good stores). I also think to claim it's because people can't phyically cook is a questionable tactic when in the US something like 97% of people in poverty (vs. 98% of people overall) have a gas or electric oven/stove.
Also, worth noting that in the US obesity is hardly limited to poor people, urban poor people, or people in so called food deserts.
I think it's also helpful to consider that just because BMI is linked to poverty doesn't necessarily means poverty causes people to tend to be obese. It's also possible that poverty and obesity are often caused by some of the same things.
Also fwiw, I found this interesting article from Reason magazine about a USDA study. I wasn't sure if anyone had mentioned it.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/13/500-million-later-usda-on-food-deserts
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Do people not push small carts to the grocery when they have a lot to buy anywhere else but Texas? You can get them for a couple of bucks at a dollar store, and they fold up for storage or the ride to the grocery on the bus. They're narrow enough to take on a ride back, too - people here will usually help getting the cart on the bus if you have trouble, and the driver will help if others don't.
Hell, when I was living in Houston people who walked to the grocery often had actual grocery carts they pushed to and from the store. I was never sure if they were grabbing abandoned ones (I'd see them left under the overpasses and in the bayous), getting decommissioned ones from the grocery, or outright stealing them from the store, but it was a common sight.
Where do you buy these carts? The closest one I've seen is for strapping to the back of a bicycle and not convenient for pushing with hands.
FTR, I'm one of the lazy buggers who can't be asked to walk 3 miles to the store.
I used to have one. I think I bought it at Target.
Fwiw, most of the urban homeless people in my city seem to have these carts, or something similar.
Also, in response to the observation that many people can't physically carry food, I don't think that really explains it. Bottled soda is very bulky and heavy, and yet it's also very overconsumed, including in poor urban areas. Somehow a lot of it is making its way into people's homes.
As someone who grew up urban poor, I never comprehended the purchase of soda (or juice). Why on earth would anyone invest so much effort in carrying sugar (or fake-sugar) water home?! If I didn't like water, I would have at least forced myself to get used to (generic) kool-aid packets...no way in hell was I EVER going to be willing to carry large quantities of water (with or without some added sugar and flavourants) in a 1st world country with running tap water.
Edited to add: ..especially now that on-tap or pitcher water filters like Brita/Pur are cheaper and more widely available.3 -
I get so irritated because this seems like a type of bigotry of low expectations going on here. Oh the poor are too dumb or stupid to figure out that rice and beans and chicken legs/thighs will stretch a budget a lot farther, and too lazy to cook (although they can run a microwave), and too unknowledgeable to realize that much packaged food is selling a lot of salt and fat and little else.
That's probably not what any individual poster intended, but that's what I, as someone who has spent the majority of their life on an exceptionally tight budget, who has walked or biked more than 3 miles to the grocery store, and used public transit when available for the same trips, as someone who has grown tomatoes in pots and rented an unwatered garden plot that I had to haul water in during the summer by the jug; that's what I hear.
yeah, that is what I am hearing too, and have these experiences myself.
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Do people not push small carts to the grocery when they have a lot to buy anywhere else but Texas? You can get them for a couple of bucks at a dollar store, and they fold up for storage or the ride to the grocery on the bus. They're narrow enough to take on a ride back, too - people here will usually help getting the cart on the bus if you have trouble, and the driver will help if others don't.
Hell, when I was living in Houston people who walked to the grocery often had actual grocery carts they pushed to and from the store. I was never sure if they were grabbing abandoned ones (I'd see them left under the overpasses and in the bayous), getting decommissioned ones from the grocery, or outright stealing them from the store, but it was a common sight.
We have one of those, they are pretty standard here in continental europe ours is not as nice as the picture, it works well. I go grocery shopping most mornings for the days meals. Its one half mile to the shops, there are fresh fish market and fresh veg and fruit in this town, its paradise compared to most towns in that regard. Also food is low priced compared to most places I have lived for the quality.
I grew up in the 50's and rode my bike or walked for groceries often, especially when my mother was expecting my 2 brothers. That was a little over a mile walk to the Safeway store.
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RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.4 -
This popped up in my FB memories today. Tell me a poor person would choose the blueberries when they have 4 mouths to feed. I dare you
Why is the choice only expensive fresh blueberries likely shipped at great expense due to their fragile nature vs. boxed mac & cheese? Seriously? No one EVER says "Oh I have enough money I can buy either blueberries or mac & cheese" . That's absurd. It's more like "The kids complain whenever I cook so I give them mac & cheese because they don't complain".
Honestly, when you're poor, blueberries are DEFINITELY a luxury item. This has nothing to do with the distance to the grocery store (the definition of "food desert"). You eat a lot of apples, oranges and bananas. There's nothing wrong with apples, oranges and bananas. There's plenty of cheap, easily cooked food. If you can mix up a box of mac & cheese or reheat a frozen dinner in a microwave, you have the means to cook a LOT of things.
I'm looking at the weekly ad from Aldi's
69 cents/lb chicken drumsticks
79 cents/lb fresh green beans
99 cents / cantaloupe
$1.99 / 3-lb bag pink lady apples
Over at Walmart and Walgreens, we have 64 cents/dozen eggs. I can get milk at the local Super-America for $1.99 / gallon (it's $2.38 / gallon at Walmart ).
This stuff is way cheaper than a processed meal.
In spain blueberries are cheap, I think they grow wild, like oranges and lemons here. At least atm a pack of fresh blueberries is only 1.60 euro. Sardines also, 2 euro yields a large pan of fried fresh anchovies or sardines and feeds 2 adults. have to get to the fish shop early thoughor they are all bought up! Econmizing largly depends on what is available locally, usually those are the least expensive foods anywhere people live! imo. Sometimes its the daily grind of it all that gets people down though. atm we live near the coast, so fish are abundant and very cheap.
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Linking obesity to poverty is absurd on its face. Compared to the poor in most nations outside of the US, the only thing our poverty stricken are bereft of, is the education to make choices that aren't ridiculous, and the need for vigorous physical activity. I've personally never met a long-term homeless person with a serious (or even notable) weight problem, unless they were wheelchair bound, and I've lived in a lot of cities.
I have.0 -
So have I.0
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Not really sure what the relevance of homeless people to the thread is. I'm sure I could look up and see, but at the moment I'm puzzled by it.0
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Not really sure what the relevance of homeless people to the thread is. I'm sure I could look up and see, but at the moment I'm puzzled by it.
This whole thread is all over the place debate wise. Like several different debates going on at once.0 -
That is true.0
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Think that was my fault. I was trying to explain that in my experience interim housing provision (as in, you're not on the streets and you have a room there for a short-term period while you get your feet and progress to more stable accommodation) doesn't always have cooking facilities beyond a microwave and a toaster. Rules may prohibit residents from purchasing and installing their own equipment, because of fire risks.2
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Not really sure what the relevance of homeless people to the thread is. I'm sure I could look up and see, but at the moment I'm puzzled by it.
Extremes are needed to prove points when nothing else will work.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Not really sure what the relevance of homeless people to the thread is. I'm sure I could look up and see, but at the moment I'm puzzled by it.
I believe that I started the initial jab. My point was that even our poor have an exceptional standard of living, when compared to anywhere else in the world and in history, if they can become obese to begin with. The homeless part was put in to show that those who truly "have not", tend to not be among the demographic that are having serious weight issues.
It ties into the fact that the correlation between poverty and obesity only exists in western civilization, and only in the last half century or so.3 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Not really sure what the relevance of homeless people to the thread is. I'm sure I could look up and see, but at the moment I'm puzzled by it.
Extremes are needed to prove points when nothing else will work.
When talking about systems and general trends, extremes are more anecdotes0 -
Interesting date from about 4 years ago. It seems that most very low-income people aren't eating fast food very much, compared with higher wage earners. Or if they are, they're not truthful about it with pollsters.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/163868/fast-food-major-part-diet.aspx4 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's one thing to put yourself out there to walk through that. I would think that you'd tend to think differently when you have to drag 2 or 3 kids through it or think about maybe leaving them alone and unsupervised at home to go to the grocery store.
There are too many statistics on innocent bystanders being hurt for a parent to even think about putting a child at risk.
I was a child... age 10-180
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