5 ms·

You're underestimating how many people live in food deserts and basically don't have access to fresh food. That might seem like a nitpick against a larger argum

You're underestimating how many people live in food deserts and basically don't have access to fresh food. That might seem like a nitpick against a larger argument, but I think it serves as a good example for why you need to take a close look at the environment that these people exist in as a whole, and that it likely goes beyond their innate habits or those of just their immediate family in childhood.

bombcar 3y ago
I wonder about that, even in the worst ghettos I've ever been in (I'm talking worse than bars on the door, but you have to ask the shopkeeper for what you want through a small hole and drawer) they've had some fruits and other forms of fresh-adjacent food. I don't know how many people buy them, but a banana seems an easy snack.
anigbrowl 3y ago
The food desert concept is way overblown. They exist to some degree, but a lot of people choose to buy shit food when it would be equally convenient and affordable to buy something good. People walking around with 32oz (~1 liter) soda cups are not unable to find anything else to drink, they're sugar addicts.
- Zetobal 3y ago
  It's probably out of a study from the institute of healthy food.
- digging 3y ago
  Surely such a misanthropic shifting of blame to the poor themselves is well supported by research?
  - bongodongobob 3y ago
    Who is blaming the poor? They are too poor to drink water? That makes no sense.
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      Blaming food choices is often blaming the poor, ignoring that nutritious foods tend to be more expensive. Even pure water can be pricey if you live in an area with degraded lead pipes.
      - bongodongobob 3y ago
        That's almost nowhere. Drinking soda instead of water has nothing to do with poverty.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        I specifically wrote 'when it would be equally convenient and affordable to buy something good'. I've spent a lot of life in poverty; if anything, it made me more rigorous about not eating trash. I took some cooking/nutrition classes in high school, but I'm not expert on it by any means; I have just never liked processed/sugary foods other than in small quantities or rare occasions like a party. I'm expressing skepticism about the assumption that food deserts are such a big problem because I've always looked for and found ways to get decent food. The specific example I had in mind with my original comment was from a place I used to live where I would see a guy who bought microwave lunch and a giant cup of soda at a 7-11 every day, even though there was a small grocery store with some fresh produce, a good selection of packaged foods, and large hand-made tasty sandwiches at the same price as the guy's 7-11 lunch literally across the street on the opposite corner.
  - rufus_foreman 3y ago
    "Improved food access through establishment of a full-service food retailer, by itself, does not show strong evidence towards enhancing health-related outcomes over short durations." -- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28566095/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28566095/ "Initiatives to build supermarkets in low-income areas with relatively poor access to large food retailers (“food deserts”) have been implemented at all levels of government, although evaluative studies have not found these projects to improve diet or weight status for shoppers" -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899338/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899338/ "Living in a food desert census tract was not significantly associated with BMI" -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615612/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615612/ "Using a prospective controlled quasi-experimental design we evaluate the impact on Body Mass Index, fruit and vegetable intake and perceptions of food access, of increasing neighborhood supermarket provision in one community in Philadelphia. This increase in provision was one part of the wider public-private Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative. The intervention moderately increased perceptions of food access, but did not lead to changes in fruit and vegetable intake or BMI." -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201352/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201352/ "We found no evidence that the absolute or relative accessibility of supermarkets, fast food restaurants, or mass merchandisers were associated with individual BMI change" -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5895451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5895451/
jwells89 3y ago
Additionally, for several decades Americans have lived in an environment that makes time feel like a precious resource which must be stolen back any way possible, which companies are all too happy to play into with food products that sell themselves chiefly on the idea of convenience. This then shapes the collective palate to prefer processed foods over fresh alternatives. Also, even when suburbans have decent access to fresh food, it’s often not favored because trips to the supermarket are an ordeal that only happens every ~2 weeks and fresh food doesn’t fare as well on longer timespans like that. Fresh diets work best for those who can walk to their grocer.
- nick222226 3y ago
  Even further, Americans are so heavily marketed on junk food we don't know what is what. We're told that fruit is a sugary treat, bananas are 'belly fat food', and I have no idea how to cook beans to make them interesting to eat. (Not that I have tried or thought about it recently - I'm sure I could with a minute of applied brain time) Meanwhile sugary cereals like Heritage Flakes, and honey loaded granolas are what we think is healthy.
Aunche 3y ago
People who value fresh produce are going to go out of the way to get it. If enough people do this, environments will adapt to that demand. NYC Chinatowns used to be quite poor and discriminated against, but they were still able to establish their own supply chains that provides cheaper and fresher vegetables than anywhere else in the city because vegetables are a quintessential part of Chinese cuisine. Food deserts, like gentrification, is a concept that assumes that demand follows supply, which is the opposite of how things actually play out in real life.
- superb_dev 3y ago
  So people who live in a food dessert secretly don't really want any vegetables?
  - abe_m 3y ago
    If people in the area generally wanted vegetables, someone would sell them. So the most likely case is that the vast majority of people in food desserts don't really want vegetables.
    - superb_dev 3y ago
      That's just too black and white. The other replies to the comment I replied too have much better explanations than I could give as to why
      - abe_m 3y ago
        We have a few convenience stores in my city that have started offering a small selection of fresh foods, something like a little basket with a few apples, oranges, and bananas. Some of them have expanded out into a full produce section. Others removed them entirely. Some are holding steady with the small basket. The stores are delivering what people are willing to buy in their areas.
- freedomben 3y ago
  I've been heavily involved in a city council before that was trying to attract stores (especially a grocery store), so I'm pretty familiar with how it works, and this mostly incorrect. In fact, people going out of their way to get the produce elsewhere works against a new store, because the stores see that as cannabilization should they open a new closer location. The decision to open new stores is mostly based on "number of daytime wallets in the area," which itself is mostly tied to the other existing businesses in the area. For example, for one major grocery chain, they wouldn't even consider it until we had 50,000 daytime wallets. For a commonly known gigantic home improvement chain, they wanted 100,000. It doesn't matter how badly people in the area want it. It just comes pretty mathematically with growth. If you already have a grocery store that doesn't carry fresh produce, you can (sometimes) improve things by speaking with the store management, but beyond that you're pretty much out of luck unless you are willing to open your own store.
Avshalom 3y ago
No one is buying keratin/biotin "hair and nail" supplements because it's a 45 minute bus ride to the nearest place to buy lettuce.
tomcar288 3y ago
A single fruit tree can yield 100-200 lbs of fruit (apples, pears, oranges, etc), conservatively. All you need is 40$ for a fruit tree and some water, and some space, and 5-10 years. Plant 5 of those and now you've got 500 to 1000 lbs of fruit per year. If the free market refuses to provide what people want, then we can create our own food and let the execs wonder why they keep loosing market share every year.
- sitzkrieg 3y ago
  this math adds up only until tried
- FredPret 3y ago
  You just described exactly how everyone in an ideal free market should behave. Fruit is a tough one though: there are many hidden costs in providing it at scale. The 7 year waiting period is huge; add cost of the land, picking, transport, and spoilage. Fruit are fragile and stay fresh for a very short time. There’s a reason fruit companies have tiny margins: here are the numbers for Fresh Del Monte: https://valustox.com/FDP https://valustox.com/FDP
paxys 3y ago
"I don't have a grocery store near me so I'm going to buy a vagina scented candle" – no one ever.
tomcar288 3y ago
azurestandard or other wholesale companies sell large bags of orangic beans for just 50$ for 25 lbs (even in CA!). That's nearly 25 days worth of food for just 50$, much much cheaper than going to McFatBurger everyday.

bombcar 3y ago

I wonder about that, even in the worst ghettos I've ever been in (I'm talking worse than bars on the door, but you have to ask the shopkeeper for what you want through a small hole and drawer) they've had some fruits and other forms of fresh-adjacent food. I don't know how many people buy them, but a banana seems an easy snack.

anigbrowl 3y ago

The food desert concept is way overblown. They exist to some degree, but a lot of people choose to buy shit food when it would be equally convenient and affordable to buy something good. People walking around with 32oz (~1 liter) soda cups are not unable to find anything else to drink, they're sugar addicts.

Zetobal 3y ago
It's probably out of a study from the institute of healthy food.
digging 3y ago
Surely such a misanthropic shifting of blame to the poor themselves is well supported by research?
- bongodongobob 3y ago
  Who is blaming the poor? They are too poor to drink water? That makes no sense.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Blaming food choices is often blaming the poor, ignoring that nutritious foods tend to be more expensive. Even pure water can be pricey if you live in an area with degraded lead pipes.
    - bongodongobob 3y ago
      That's almost nowhere. Drinking soda instead of water has nothing to do with poverty.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      I specifically wrote 'when it would be equally convenient and affordable to buy something good'. I've spent a lot of life in poverty; if anything, it made me more rigorous about not eating trash. I took some cooking/nutrition classes in high school, but I'm not expert on it by any means; I have just never liked processed/sugary foods other than in small quantities or rare occasions like a party. I'm expressing skepticism about the assumption that food deserts are such a big problem because I've always looked for and found ways to get decent food. The specific example I had in mind with my original comment was from a place I used to live where I would see a guy who bought microwave lunch and a giant cup of soda at a 7-11 every day, even though there was a small grocery store with some fresh produce, a good selection of packaged foods, and large hand-made tasty sandwiches at the same price as the guy's 7-11 lunch literally across the street on the opposite corner.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  "Improved food access through establishment of a full-service food retailer, by itself, does not show strong evidence towards enhancing health-related outcomes over short durations." -- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28566095/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28566095/ "Initiatives to build supermarkets in low-income areas with relatively poor access to large food retailers (“food deserts”) have been implemented at all levels of government, although evaluative studies have not found these projects to improve diet or weight status for shoppers" -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899338/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899338/ "Living in a food desert census tract was not significantly associated with BMI" -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615612/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615612/ "Using a prospective controlled quasi-experimental design we evaluate the impact on Body Mass Index, fruit and vegetable intake and perceptions of food access, of increasing neighborhood supermarket provision in one community in Philadelphia. This increase in provision was one part of the wider public-private Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative. The intervention moderately increased perceptions of food access, but did not lead to changes in fruit and vegetable intake or BMI." -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201352/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201352/ "We found no evidence that the absolute or relative accessibility of supermarkets, fast food restaurants, or mass merchandisers were associated with individual BMI change" -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5895451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5895451/

jwells89 3y ago

Additionally, for several decades Americans have lived in an environment that makes time feel like a precious resource which must be stolen back any way possible, which companies are all too happy to play into with food products that sell themselves chiefly on the idea of convenience. This then shapes the collective palate to prefer processed foods over fresh alternatives. Also, even when suburbans have decent access to fresh food, it’s often not favored because trips to the supermarket are an ordeal that only happens every ~2 weeks and fresh food doesn’t fare as well on longer timespans like that. Fresh diets work best for those who can walk to their grocer.

nick222226 3y ago
Even further, Americans are so heavily marketed on junk food we don't know what is what. We're told that fruit is a sugary treat, bananas are 'belly fat food', and I have no idea how to cook beans to make them interesting to eat. (Not that I have tried or thought about it recently - I'm sure I could with a minute of applied brain time) Meanwhile sugary cereals like Heritage Flakes, and honey loaded granolas are what we think is healthy.

Aunche 3y ago

People who value fresh produce are going to go out of the way to get it. If enough people do this, environments will adapt to that demand. NYC Chinatowns used to be quite poor and discriminated against, but they were still able to establish their own supply chains that provides cheaper and fresher vegetables than anywhere else in the city because vegetables are a quintessential part of Chinese cuisine. Food deserts, like gentrification, is a concept that assumes that demand follows supply, which is the opposite of how things actually play out in real life.

superb_dev 3y ago
So people who live in a food dessert secretly don't really want any vegetables?
- abe_m 3y ago
  If people in the area generally wanted vegetables, someone would sell them. So the most likely case is that the vast majority of people in food desserts don't really want vegetables.
  - superb_dev 3y ago
    That's just too black and white. The other replies to the comment I replied too have much better explanations than I could give as to why
    - abe_m 3y ago
      We have a few convenience stores in my city that have started offering a small selection of fresh foods, something like a little basket with a few apples, oranges, and bananas. Some of them have expanded out into a full produce section. Others removed them entirely. Some are holding steady with the small basket. The stores are delivering what people are willing to buy in their areas.
freedomben 3y ago
I've been heavily involved in a city council before that was trying to attract stores (especially a grocery store), so I'm pretty familiar with how it works, and this mostly incorrect. In fact, people going out of their way to get the produce elsewhere works against a new store, because the stores see that as cannabilization should they open a new closer location. The decision to open new stores is mostly based on "number of daytime wallets in the area," which itself is mostly tied to the other existing businesses in the area. For example, for one major grocery chain, they wouldn't even consider it until we had 50,000 daytime wallets. For a commonly known gigantic home improvement chain, they wanted 100,000. It doesn't matter how badly people in the area want it. It just comes pretty mathematically with growth. If you already have a grocery store that doesn't carry fresh produce, you can (sometimes) improve things by speaking with the store management, but beyond that you're pretty much out of luck unless you are willing to open your own store.

Avshalom 3y ago

No one is buying keratin/biotin "hair and nail" supplements because it's a 45 minute bus ride to the nearest place to buy lettuce.

tomcar288 3y ago

A single fruit tree can yield 100-200 lbs of fruit (apples, pears, oranges, etc), conservatively. All you need is 40$ for a fruit tree and some water, and some space, and 5-10 years. Plant 5 of those and now you've got 500 to 1000 lbs of fruit per year. If the free market refuses to provide what people want, then we can create our own food and let the execs wonder why they keep loosing market share every year.

sitzkrieg 3y ago
this math adds up only until tried
FredPret 3y ago
You just described exactly how everyone in an ideal free market should behave. Fruit is a tough one though: there are many hidden costs in providing it at scale. The 7 year waiting period is huge; add cost of the land, picking, transport, and spoilage. Fruit are fragile and stay fresh for a very short time. There’s a reason fruit companies have tiny margins: here are the numbers for Fresh Del Monte: https://valustox.com/FDP https://valustox.com/FDP

paxys 3y ago

"I don't have a grocery store near me so I'm going to buy a vagina scented candle" – no one ever.

tomcar288 3y ago

azurestandard or other wholesale companies sell large bags of orangic beans for just 50$ for 25 lbs (even in CA!). That's nearly 25 days worth of food for just 50$, much much cheaper than going to McFatBurger everyday.