5 ms·

I'm 2 miles to the nearest convenience store and 5 miles from the grocery store I choose to go to and I do not consider that to be a "food desert", it's just a

by _chu1 3y ago

I'm 2 miles to the nearest convenience store and 5 miles from the grocery store I choose to go to and I do not consider that to be a "food desert", it's just a drive down the road. It is quite easy to grow your own produce to eat, and kids want to do it now because it reminds them of Minecraft.

runako 3y ago
Yeah, 2 miles is ~80 minutes round trip on foot for a healthy person. 5 miles is over 3 hours round trip on foot, carrying groceries back. This is not accessible. If a person is poor enough to qualify for food stamps, is it reasonable to expect them to have enough land and resources (fertilizer, etc.) to grow enough food for a family, while also earning a living? Should that be the only option? Finally, of the group of people who do not have reliable access to cars, the poor are a significant portion. "Just jump in your car and drive down the road" is not an option for millions of Americans. But yes, if you are relatively well-off, there's no such thing as a food desert. If you have a few tens of acres of land, a tractor, and car, even being 50 or 100 miles from a store is not a problem. SNAP isn't for those people.
- _chu1 3y ago
  Sure, but nobody does that because you're clearly doing something wrong or have done something wrong if you live in a rural area with zero access to a car and nobody who could give you a ride. Counties with rural areas provide public transportation for these people. If you're literally on the brink of starvation, I don't think growing tomatoes is that hard.
  - runako 3y ago
    > Counties with rural areas provide public transportation for these people. Maybe in your state, but this is definitely not universal in America.
piva00 3y ago
> it's just a drive down the road. It is quite easy to grow your own produce to eat, and kids want to do it now because it reminds them of Minecraft. That assumes: having a car, and having some arable land + time on hand to grow and care for crops. Those are big assumptions, you need money to have a car and land, poor people lack... Money.
mattzito 3y ago
Well, 5 miles down the road makes it not a food desert, so there we go. I suspect this is targeted more at urban areas - in NYC there are a ton of neighborhoods where the local grocery store options are limited to bodegas, most of which carry primarily or entirely processed and pre-packaged foods. Nothing wrong with that inherently, but lack of access to fresh produce and meats makes it more difficult for families to eat healthy. Many of those neighborhoods are gentrifying, or near neighborhoods that are, and the higher income folks that move in can afford to have someone instacart or uber eats better quality groceries from a few neighborhoods over, an option not available to people on EBT. For Uber it makes sense because the physical distance is likely not substantial, which allows the economics to work for the drivers, particularly if they can do it on an e-bike or scooter. In rural areas I would be concerned that the round-trip drive times are less appealing - I've already seen a lot of discussion on the dasher subreddit about how rural restaurant delivery is less preferable because of distance and a perception that tipping is not good relative to the effort required.
- ghaff 3y ago
  There are relatively few full-blown grocery stores in cities and the US often seems to mostly lack the scaled-down markets (eg Tesco’s) that are in between a convenience store and a full-fledged supermarket that exist in many urban areas. When I visit Cambridge in MA the only real options seem to be a few Whole Foods and a couple Trader Joe’s scattered around and some specialty markets. (May be some other options here and there.)
- dahfizz 3y ago
  > Well, 5 miles down the road makes it not a food desert, so there we go. Not true. Unless you live in a truly rural town with less than 5000 people, you are counted as "urban" and any more than 1 mile from a grocery store is a food dessert. I am 5 minutes from a grocery store and technically in a food dessert. Its silly.

by _chu1 3y ago

runako 3y ago

Yeah, 2 miles is ~80 minutes round trip on foot for a healthy person. 5 miles is over 3 hours round trip on foot, carrying groceries back. This is not accessible. If a person is poor enough to qualify for food stamps, is it reasonable to expect them to have enough land and resources (fertilizer, etc.) to grow enough food for a family, while also earning a living? Should that be the only option? Finally, of the group of people who do not have reliable access to cars, the poor are a significant portion. "Just jump in your car and drive down the road" is not an option for millions of Americans. But yes, if you are relatively well-off, there's no such thing as a food desert. If you have a few tens of acres of land, a tractor, and car, even being 50 or 100 miles from a store is not a problem. SNAP isn't for those people.

_chu1 3y ago
Sure, but nobody does that because you're clearly doing something wrong or have done something wrong if you live in a rural area with zero access to a car and nobody who could give you a ride. Counties with rural areas provide public transportation for these people. If you're literally on the brink of starvation, I don't think growing tomatoes is that hard.
- runako 3y ago
  > Counties with rural areas provide public transportation for these people. Maybe in your state, but this is definitely not universal in America.

piva00 3y ago

> it's just a drive down the road. It is quite easy to grow your own produce to eat, and kids want to do it now because it reminds them of Minecraft. That assumes: having a car, and having some arable land + time on hand to grow and care for crops. Those are big assumptions, you need money to have a car and land, poor people lack... Money.

mattzito 3y ago

Well, 5 miles down the road makes it not a food desert, so there we go. I suspect this is targeted more at urban areas - in NYC there are a ton of neighborhoods where the local grocery store options are limited to bodegas, most of which carry primarily or entirely processed and pre-packaged foods. Nothing wrong with that inherently, but lack of access to fresh produce and meats makes it more difficult for families to eat healthy. Many of those neighborhoods are gentrifying, or near neighborhoods that are, and the higher income folks that move in can afford to have someone instacart or uber eats better quality groceries from a few neighborhoods over, an option not available to people on EBT. For Uber it makes sense because the physical distance is likely not substantial, which allows the economics to work for the drivers, particularly if they can do it on an e-bike or scooter. In rural areas I would be concerned that the round-trip drive times are less appealing - I've already seen a lot of discussion on the dasher subreddit about how rural restaurant delivery is less preferable because of distance and a perception that tipping is not good relative to the effort required.

ghaff 3y ago
There are relatively few full-blown grocery stores in cities and the US often seems to mostly lack the scaled-down markets (eg Tesco’s) that are in between a convenience store and a full-fledged supermarket that exist in many urban areas. When I visit Cambridge in MA the only real options seem to be a few Whole Foods and a couple Trader Joe’s scattered around and some specialty markets. (May be some other options here and there.)
dahfizz 3y ago
> Well, 5 miles down the road makes it not a food desert, so there we go. Not true. Unless you live in a truly rural town with less than 5000 people, you are counted as "urban" and any more than 1 mile from a grocery store is a food dessert. I am 5 minutes from a grocery store and technically in a food dessert. Its silly.