8 ms·

There are food deserts, they are the places where residents will spend hours taking public transit just to go to the grocery store because they are too poor to

There are food deserts, they are the places where residents will spend hours taking public transit just to go to the grocery store because they are too poor to own a car. This fucks with your life, it will be a challenge to get to the store every week and fresh produce will expire too quickly, so you need to stock up on preserved and canned goods. And when you get home after work and fridge is empty and the kids are hungry, you will end up going to a McDonald’s or Gas station or whatever is close and just picking what you can get. If you can’t believe this, then you have lived too privileged of a life.

jariel 7y ago
"If you can’t believe this, then you have lived too privileged of a life." I 'don't believe it' because it's false. There are no actual 'food deserts', it's just a misleading term that the USDA: "In 2010, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that 23.5 million Americans live in "food deserts", meaning that they live more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas, and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas" 1 mile in suburban areas? This is not an 'hour on a bus'. In rural areas people must have cars. There is no evidence presented that this is a causal factor in any ability to access fresh food - in actual reality, science suggests quite the opposite. There is definitely no causal evidence that 'The Dollar Store' drives poor nutritional habits. Conversely - there is very clear evidence of at least the economic value of 'The Dollar Store' - and if you closed them, you'd cause an uproar and make poor people's lives even more difficult. Ironically - only a group of completely out of touch 'privileged' people would even consider shutting down dollar stores. If you asked poor people the answer would be 'absolutely not' and they would be materially much worse off. If they really want to do some economic and behavioural science, they can open up fruit & veg markets in these supposed 'deserts' and see what happens. What will happen is that they won't generate enough business to survive, unfortunately. Which would imply there's a host of other factors at play: "Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts." [1] Healthy food does not generally cost more than unhealthy food [2], the issue of 'Food Deserts' is only marginally relevant and the widespread availability of 'Dollar Stores' is not relevant at all to nutrition. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/12/political-incorrect-paper-day-food-deserts.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/12/po... [2] https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/12/e004277.full?sid=820d6e1a-280e-47a6-b8c5-498bfa4657e3 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/12/e004277.full?sid=820d6e...
- SaxonRobber 7y ago
  Living in a rural or suburban area doesn’t mean you have a car. There are plenty of poor people who don’t own one or have limited access and must share. At the Indian reserve by where I grew up almost no one had a car, they had to walk and bus into town 2hrs each way to get what they needed. I have met others with similar situations, single mothers who lost the car when their husband left, or families where the breadwinner works a second job and the rest of the family needs to make do without a car.
debateyourself 7y ago
Food deserts exist iff residents prefer to eat sand. Read OP's post. Opening a grocery store won't significantly change the resident's dietary choices.

jariel 7y ago

"If you can’t believe this, then you have lived too privileged of a life." I 'don't believe it' because it's false. There are no actual 'food deserts', it's just a misleading term that the USDA: "In 2010, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that 23.5 million Americans live in "food deserts", meaning that they live more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas, and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas" 1 mile in suburban areas? This is not an 'hour on a bus'. In rural areas people must have cars. There is no evidence presented that this is a causal factor in any ability to access fresh food - in actual reality, science suggests quite the opposite. There is definitely no causal evidence that 'The Dollar Store' drives poor nutritional habits. Conversely - there is very clear evidence of at least the economic value of 'The Dollar Store' - and if you closed them, you'd cause an uproar and make poor people's lives even more difficult. Ironically - only a group of completely out of touch 'privileged' people would even consider shutting down dollar stores. If you asked poor people the answer would be 'absolutely not' and they would be materially much worse off. If they really want to do some economic and behavioural science, they can open up fruit & veg markets in these supposed 'deserts' and see what happens. What will happen is that they won't generate enough business to survive, unfortunately. Which would imply there's a host of other factors at play: "Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts." [1] Healthy food does not generally cost more than unhealthy food [2], the issue of 'Food Deserts' is only marginally relevant and the widespread availability of 'Dollar Stores' is not relevant at all to nutrition. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/12/political-incorrect-paper-day-food-deserts.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/12/po... [2] https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/12/e004277.full?sid=820d6e1a-280e-47a6-b8c5-498bfa4657e3 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/12/e004277.full?sid=820d6e...

SaxonRobber 7y ago
Living in a rural or suburban area doesn’t mean you have a car. There are plenty of poor people who don’t own one or have limited access and must share. At the Indian reserve by where I grew up almost no one had a car, they had to walk and bus into town 2hrs each way to get what they needed. I have met others with similar situations, single mothers who lost the car when their husband left, or families where the breadwinner works a second job and the rest of the family needs to make do without a car.

debateyourself 7y ago

Food deserts exist iff residents prefer to eat sand. Read OP's post. Opening a grocery store won't significantly change the resident's dietary choices.