Food Deserts

Have you ever wondered how a person can be food insecure and overweight? Is it caused by ignorance or something more? What about the disproportionate number of people with diabetes who live in poverty? Is poor nutrition caused by choice or circumstance? 

Food deserts exist in many rural and urban areas of our country. These are area where quality fresh foods are unavailable and over priced while convenience foods are promoted. Could you feed your family exclusively with purchases from the gas station down the street? Thousands of people in this country are doing just that. If you are like me you have a choice where you shop. I routinely buy produce at one store, dry goods at another and meat at a third. I have the luxury of searching for the best quality, the best price and the most ecological and healthful choice. Sometimes I buy organic. I support local farmers even if it costs more. These are middle/upper class decisions. 

This book describes the plight of people stuck in food deserts and explains the difficult decisions with which they are faced. More importantly, it gives the history and an explanation of their formation, describing how a first world country can have malnourished citizens and citizens who choose between feeding their children and feeding themselves. 

Luckily, people are working to change this. Many inner-city farmers markets now accept food stamps. Urban gardens and community agriculture are providing options for families that previously had none. However, inequities remain. Working together we can work toward a day when no one starves and no one goes hungry in the richest country in the world. As the great philosopher said "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he never goes hungry again." From the bottom up our people are learning to fish and rejecting the fish-like byproduct meals that corporate interests are offering. There is hope.

http://www.markwinne.com/