Food Deserts: How Far Are You From A Fresh Apple?
October 5, 2015
A Looks at the Realities of the Underprivileged
In every corner of the country a frightening trend has been happening in our poor rural and urban areas, food deserts leave families without access to nutritional foods and every day necessities, and the results are already affecting every one of us. Food deserts are defined by the USDA ‘urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.’ More specifically the residents have to live anywhere from 2-6 miles from a true grocer in urban areas, and the majority of people living in the area must live below the federal poverty level and have limited means of transportation, private or public, in order for it to be classified a food desert. Today there are over 23.5 million people in America that are currently living in a food desert, a large amount of them families, and that number is growing rapidly.
While this tragedy effects quite literally millions of families, it is seldom talked about, and the majority of America has no idea what in the world a food desert even is. In this blog post we will discuss some reasons for food deserts, results of food deserts, who food deserts affect, and new and innovative ways communities are rising up to help one another and end this crisis.
Indianapolis is the Worst City in the Country for Food Deserts
A not so fun fact for residents of the largest city in the state of Indiana, Indianapolis ranks dead last in the country for the amount and severity of food deserts found within its’ city proper. As a matter of fact nearly 50% of the east side of Indianapolis is classified by the USDA as a food desert, as shown in the graphic below. To add on the that are some disturbing statistics unique to the food deserts of Indianapolis, 40% or more of the residents make 200% or less of the federal poverty minimum, meaning they make less than half of the federal poverty level. As is expected at that income level, those families typically do not own vehicles, leaving them to either walk, bike, or rely on Indy’s notoriously spotty public transportation to get to and from the nearest full grocery store, making an hour long chore for most people a multiple hour long endeavor for people who are just trying to supply their family with fresh foods and vegetables. With the closing in 2014 of the four Double 8 Food locations around the poorest areas of Indy, residents found it almost impossible to find an affordable source of nutritional foods within multiple miles, and many of these residents, including a significant amount of senior citizens, are feeling hopeless and without option as their only source for food becomes fast food franchises and the junk food that is available at the gas station.
So What?
The simple reality is that if you live in a suburb, or even in a typical urban neighborhood, you don’t live in a food desert, or maybe not even close to one, and that may make it hard for you to connect to this sad truth. It is hard to understand the severity of this when you are not living it, and that is perfectly fair of someone. Most of us spend our lives with the assumption that when you want to get quality meat, vegetables, whole grains, or fruits you (or your parents) drive to the grocery store and stock up for the week, that’s that, the fridge is stocked for some time to come. Fair enough, but what happens when you don’t have a car, and that grocery store that’s ‘just around the corner’ is in reality a mile and a half away, and there isn’t a bus route by you so you’re only choice is to walk to the store, get a weeks worth of food for you and your family, then walk a mile and a half back with 30 pounds of groceries? You might think it is definitely a burden, but it’s a mile and a half, you walk further than that with a backpack every day! Right, now imagine doing that once or twice a week, after working a full time job, for years on end, through the 100 degree weather in Summer, and even worse the 0 degree weather in Winter. The thing is, you’re lucky in these neighborhoods if your family can even do that, most families don’t have the time to do that, so the only option now is fast food or whatever you can find at the gas station or corner store. Well when that is the majority of your diet you will obviously have an increased rate of obesity and all of the health problems that come with it, diabetes, heart attacks, higher rates of cancer, and so on. When a significant portion of the population has higher rates of health problems, we as a society all pay for it when they make their trips to healthcare facilities, add on to the matter that if the are below the poverty level the chances of them having insurance are near 0, so their healthcare costs largely get passed on to the tax payer. So I can assure you, even if this is a problem you have never heard of or don’t even really care about, it is certainly affecting you and will continue to do so for decades to come.
Well, What Can I Do?
The natural question following all of this information is ‘okay, well now what?’ How can you as an individual create any meaningful change to combat this problem? It’s a tough question to answer, as there is no one way, each community is different and requires a different solution, some more severe than others. The very first thing you can do is educate yourself further on the matter, at the bottom of this post I have multiple resources you can access to gain a better picture of the food desert crisis in America that are all free to access and go further in the issue. After that I suggest learning of the food deserts specific to your area, be that urban or rural, and learn about their specific causes and problems; the solution for a food desert on the east side of Indy will likely not be the same as that of a small town in rural Indiana 100 miles north. From there, it is totally your decision, write to your local politician or congressmen to try and call attention to the issue, get it known on social media, recruit others in the community to call awareness to it, these are all things you can do from the comfort of your own house. If you are more of a hands on individual I would recommend this video:
The single biggest thing communities are getting together and doing to fight food deserts is urban gardening, as it is cheap, practical, economic, and green. Getting a small group of people together, and taking a small plot of land in a public area or a private/abandoned lot (with permission) and planting rows of edible vegetables and fruits has become a trend that’s sweeping the nation. You do not need much space to build raised beds to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, etc. in, you can do it in a park, an alley, on a rooftop, on the side of a building even. Urban gardening is the single most prevalent solution to dealing with food deserts, and it makes sense why. The costs are negligible, and you are allowing fresh and nutritious foods directly into the hands of community members at low or no cost, the only serious investment from you is time.
With all that said, how you choose to end your local food desert is 100% up to you and the people you organize with, there is no one size fits all solution, but getting out there and making attempts to better the community will always be more beneficial than letting it sit there and sink further.
For More Information:
- http://indyfoodcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Indianapolis-Food-Related-Initiatives-Assessment-A-SPEA-Capstone-Project.pdf
- http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/indianapolis-ranks-worst-nation-food-deserts-67800/
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=jicYbi-8ZNU
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