It's particularly surprising since the story references "rural food deserts" and cites the USDA "number living 10 miles from a grocer" statistic, but doesn't pu

It's particularly surprising since the story references "rural food deserts" and cites the USDA "number living 10 miles from a grocer" statistic, but doesn't put 2 and 2 together. The USDA publishes that stat because of its food desert definition: "more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas, and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas". Now, the USDA definition sound weirdly broad to me. I apparently grew up in a suburban 'food desert' which encompassed most of the town, including several extremely rich subdivisions. Since it was a suburb with practically no traffic or stoplights, that means "desert" applies to a ~15 minute walk or ~3 minute drive to the store. And in a town with brutal winters and minimal public transit, even the sub-poverty-line families outside that 1 mile radius completely relied on cars. So looking into this has made me more skeptical of "23.5M Americans live in food deserts". (Ironically, people did what this story promotes: bought short-lifespan foods at the close store, and expensive or bulk goods >10 miles away. The USDA just needed to apply its rural definition to that suburb.) But the USDA at least has the right idea: access is defined by time and effort, not distance. Time is fairly obvious; walking, public transit, and driving in traffic are all slower. More subtly, my experience living 20+ minutes from groceries in a rural and an urban setting is that it was much more pleasant with a car than on foot. With a car, you can freely get heavy or bulky stuff, stock up for longer, go after dark when you're tired, or shop in summer and winter without spoiled groceries or frostbite. There's no way to write this story effectively without understanding that 10 miles can be 10 minutes, or that for farms outside these small towns everything is 10+ miles away. Hence the people in New Mexico saying that a grocer right in town is still less good than driving 45 miles to a better store: you're already planning major trips to get goods regardless.