Category Archives: Food Desert

A Shocking Reality

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Prior to watching A Place at the Table, participating in class discussions and visiting the neighborhood of Port Richmond, I didn’t realize the magnitude of the struggles faced by residents of food deserts. A food desert is defined as an area that lacks adequate access to affordable and quality fresh food items. These areas lack supermarkets and places where fresh fruits, vegetables and meats can be purchased. Instead, these neighborhoods are filled with fast food restaurants and bodegas, where a bag of chips or cookies can be easily bought in volume for an inexpensive price.

After watching A Place at the Table, I was left speechless. It is heart-wrenching to see what these families go through on a daily basis. I find it unfathomable that people in this country could possible go hungry, considering the over-production of food and amount of waste. A common problem that many families in the film face is known as “food insecure.” When you are food insecure, you do not know where your next meal will come from, if there even is a next meal. That is extremely frightening! When food is easily accessible, it is typically of poor quality. As stated in the documentary, the price of fresh fruits and vegetables has risen by 40% since 1980, while the price of processed foods has declined by 40%. The significant shift in price levels undoubtedly affected food choice. Low income families are forced to choose quantity over quality. Expensive produce and meats are sacrificed for chips, canned foods, cookies and anything else that will give more for less. Unfortunately, the end result is a higher incidence of obesity, diabetes, and lifelong health struggles.

As we took a tour of Port Richmond, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of supermarkets as compared to my own neighborhood, which seems to have too many. I did observe one, but it was destroyed in a fire and there is no immediate intention to rebuild it. That leaves the residents in this neighborhood without easy access. In order to shop in a large supermarket, the residents will have to find a means to travel outside of their neighborhood. There is a market located on Port Richmond Avenue that sells fresh produce, but sadly that was the only one that I saw. Fast food restaurants, however, are plentiful.

Watching the documentary and visiting Port Richmond afforded me the opportunity to see, first-hand, the problems facing our local communities. I didn’t realize these very real struggles existed so close to home.

A World Without Sunday Dinner

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We really don’t think about how many things we take for granted in this world nowadays, especially food. After watching “A Place at the Table” it really opened up a new light for me in terms of food deserts across the country. For instance, when you think about Sunday dinner it doesn’t seem as a big deal to you. You value food as an every day privilege as expected three times a day; however, imagine your life consisting of consuming three bags of potato chips a day and that being the source of your daily nutrition. The problem across the country today is that many people are ashamed of acknowledging this problem, along with our government. They constantly talk about trying to resolve this problem but never really seem to make such difference.

As stated in the documentary, across the country today, one of out every six Americans say that they don’t have enough to eat. Along with this issue many families are food insecure, which means that they don’t know when their next meal is coming. Can you envision waking up everyday hoping and praying that you will be able to put some sort of food on the table for your children? This is an underlying problem especially in Mississippi. When I first heard that this state holds the highest obesity rate as well as well as has the highest food insecurity in America I was surprised. I thought to myself how could that be? I soon learned that this is occurring because a lot of residents in Mississippi don’t make enough money to buy healthy foods, therefore they have to resort to junk food such as donuts and chips. The price of healthy foods has gone up about 40% since 1980, which is why it’s so hard to acquire nowadays especially for people who receive a small salary. Throughout the years, while the price of healthy foods boosted up, the price of processed foods shot down about 40%. One of the primary reasons for this and the growing rate of obesity is the farm policy that we run by – which indicates what we subsidize and what we don’t subsidize. All of the natural and healthy options that are laid out in the supermarkets are all subsidized while the junk food that’s now sold at almost every deli, gas station, and supermarket is unsubsidized. The 23.5 million Americans that live in food deserts nowadays just eat what’s available to them, which is ultimately not much. Since these low-income families have to resort to eating junk food due to the unavailability and high costs of healthy food, obesity continues to grow. The government has set up a food stamp policy across the nation that is based on your total income. Even though food stamps may help a family for the first week or two of the month, they cant be the consistent source of food that’s needed for a family of at least 4. A very large issue with food stamps that a woman experienced in the movie was that as soon as she started to make some money that was above the maximum salary needed to receive food stamps, she could barely put any food on the table for her kids. The problem is, is that it’s a lose-lose situation nowadays. Either you don’t have a high paying job and receive food stamps that put some sort of food on the table, or you get a job that no longer qualifies you for food stamps which poses an even bigger struggle when acquiring food. I believe that one of possible solutions that should be more addressed would be to lower the cost of these healthy and nutritional options rather than just implementing supermarkets in these food deserts. Just because the healthy and nutritional options all of a sudden become available doesn’t mean that these residents can purchase them or are willing to change their eating habits. The government should start more programs that will provide and distribute free healthy food options to those in need. After watching this movie I became much more intrigued with the subject and hope to learn more about it throughout the semester.

An Eye-Opening Experience

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Today’s generation does not appreciate the true meaning and value of the ability to have dinner every night. According to the film A Place at The Table, 1 out of every 6 Americans are food insecure, meaning they do not know when their next meal will be. The film traces families struggling to survive and feed their family while living in food deserts. Viewing this was not only eye opening to me, but shocking. Prior to this film, my research, and my studies in school I was completely clueless about the current state of our nation regarding food and hunger in America.

This problem stems from our American history, dating all the way back to the Great Depression’s emergency programs. Through these programs, the USDA farm subsidies made it profitable for food industries to produce processed foods. There were no subsidies placed on fruits and vegetables, but instead corn, which is the basis of all processed foods. This not only made processed foods easily attainable to the general public, but it made them inexpensive compared to healthier, organic foods. Since then, the price of fruits and vegetables has gone up, and at the same rate, the price of processed food has gone down.

This information actually made our class tour of Port Richmond more interesting and beneficial to my studies especially when I learned that the empty lot we passed, was the location of a burned down super market that is not being rebuilt. This sparked my memory of the film and Rosie and Barbie’s families which made me realize the great struggle they would be facing if their nearest super market, (which isn’t even in close proximity to their homes in the first place!) burned down and was not being rebuilt. This also made me realize the great potential the addition of a super market to food desert would be to rebuilding the community and potentially decreasing the hunger faced by many Americans today.

Food Deserts Are Everywhere

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Food deserts are something I never really thought was a problem, but after witnessing and learning about how it effects everyone in the community, it is more then just a community problem. Food deserts are most common in low income and low access communities. The USDA found out that there are nearly 23.5 million people in the US are living in food deserts and more then half of them are apart of low income families. To be considered living in a food desert you have to be more then 10 miles away from available and afordable fresh fruits and vegetables. The price of fresh fruits and vegetables in local markets or grocery stores are not cheap, instead of buying a bunch of grapes for $3 why not buy a bag of chips for only 50 cents. However, some people do not even have a choice, they can only buy those bags of chips or cookies. But with food deserts becoming more common and it being harder for families to get fresh foods it is challenging to keep a healthy diet. Not being able to afford or get to fresh fruits or vegetables caused the obesity rate to double in the past 20 years. The USDA is always trying to find new and healthy eating habits to lower the obesity rate in america but with food deserts becoming more frequent it is more challenging to have everyone try to follow their guide lines to a healthy diet.

Touring Port Richmond over the week made me see and notice things I would never get to see. There was one store that was completely empty that used to be a supermarket that now closed down. Even though there are a lot other supermarkets and farmers markets on the block that is just the first of many to close down. Instead of opening more farmer markets or grocery stores that provide fresh foods I also noticed that more and more chain fast food restaurants have been opening, in Staten Island especially there is a fast food restaurant on almost every other block. When I was on vacation this summer in Aruba, we had to pass the towns where the locals lived to get to our hotel. The airport was on the opposite end of the island so we had to drive through almost the whole island which is only 20 miles long. On the way to the hotel I noticed there was not a lot of grocery stores or farmers markets, I only saw about 3 or 4 farmers markets and 2 local grocery stores that sold fresh food. Even in Aruba there is fast food chains everywhere rather then more grocery stores.

In 2008, New York’s Mayor Bloomberg opened up the idea of Green Carts to help put an end to New York’s food deserts.The Green Cart is a stand on a sidewalk corner that only sells fresh fruits and vegetables in places with little access to them. Most of the costumers that shop at the green carts are from low income families that make under $25,000 a year. Since Mayor Bloomberg established the Green Cart over 500 permits have been issued to owners running Green Carts in New York. 350 opened in the Bronx and Brooklyn, 150 in Manhattan, 100 in Queens and 50 in Staten Island. Since the Greens Carts opened there has been a 71% report increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Food Deserts

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After visiting Port Richmond and watching the film “A Place at the Table”, I have realized that food deserts are present through out the nation and the inhabitants that live there face many issues. It is devastating that people do not have enough money in order to purchase food for their families and when they do they must travel long distances to super markets. Many low income communities only have bodegas and little grocery stores that do not offer many selections.

In the film “A Place at the Table,” it was not shocking that obesity and hunger are closely related because when one does not have a lot of money to spend on food it minimizes their choices to food that is cheap. Normally the cheap options for food are processed foods like chips, cookies , canned and boxed food. It is hard for a person on a budget to buy fruits,vegetables and meats because they are expensive and do not last long. This is the reason why people begin to eat high calorie foods because it might suppress their hunger longer.

While walking through Port Richmond I noticed there was no super market. I soon found out the one there had burned down and was never replaced. This is surprising because all of the people in this community have been either buying their food at local stores or traveling to other communities. The one local store we walked into did have a variety of fruits and vegetables and also a smaller selection of meat. But as we walked forward I noticed it was one of the only stores that sold such a variety because the strip in Port Richmond was only a few blocks long.

I feel that I have learned that food should be more valued by people in the United States because there are many people that are starving throughout our nation and need our help.

Food Deserts in America

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This past week in my Citizen’s Appetite RFT, my class watched a movie titled A Place at the Table (2012). This movie made me realize how many food deserts exist in the United States even though this country produces more food than it possibly needs. The standard definition for a food desert according to Oxford Dictionaries is an area where it is hard to have access to and buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. A disturbing fact that I learned is that 1/6 Americans are reportedly hungry; this results in 50 million Americans being hungry today. Every president has claimed that they would combat hunger and that we are growing as a society but, the total number of Americans reportedly hungry has risen each year. The United States sadly ranks the worst among the IMF Advanced Economy of food insecurity.

Food deserts affect many low income areas throughout the United States and many people living in these areas are either having a hard time feeding there families or they are becoming obese. This is because food deserts consist mostly of Ma and Pa shops, which rarely sell any fruits and vegetables, and fast food restaurants. These places mainly sell cheap processed food’s made from corn; this leads to higher obesity rates. Americans buy these food items because it is cheaper and also because fruit and vegetable prices have risen. Many people have to either walk very far or spend a lot of money to go to a supermarket that is out of town. These barriers lead people to buy more processed foods and their health is affected as a result of this. Research shows that not getting nutrition your first three years of your life can lead to neurological problems and many other lifelong risks such as diabetes. One last disturbing fact is that 1/3 three children born in the United States from the year 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes.

The movie A Place at the Table (2012)  has made me realize that not many people have access to the nutritious food that I eat every single day.  Hunger and failure to ingest proper nutrition has lead to many health issues in a country that has more than enough food to feed its entire population. As Americans in this great country we need to figure out a way reduce the number of hungry people in the United States and we find out way to reduce the amount of food deserts.

 

Discovering Port Richmond

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I’ve lived in Staten Island my whole life. I’ve been to almost every part of the island in my 18 years here, including Port Richmond. However, there is so much I didn’t know about this historic place that’s only 10 minutes away from where I live. Between my basketball games and my brother’s I have been to the Port Richmond area countless times and yet I didn’t know anything about it. As I walked through Port Richmond through the guided tour set up by Wagner College, I learned about the history, the food, and the challenges of the area. Historically, one of the highlights was the Dutch church and graveyard that was one of the first built on Staten Island. A second highlight was the large arrow that pointed to water, that in faded writing read the word “Ferry.”

The image2food side of Port Richmond was also very interesting. Almost 20 restaurants line the streets of Port Richmond Avenue. Among these restaurants there were many Spanish and Chinese cuisine restaurants. There was even an Irish Pub. One of the restaurants was something quite uncommon, a bakery that also serves many different types of dinner dishes. In the shop there is not only cake, ice cream, but also chicken entrees and pizza pies! Although this may seem unconventional, it is quite interesting.

Another one of the restaurants we stopped into was a newly image3opened one, which specialized in tamales, it’s decorations actually made me want to eat there more. It’s amazing how many different elements can go into a “where should we eat” decision. The idea that a restaurant being nicely or culturally decorated can make a person want to eat there is very interesting to me.

A lack of restaurants is definitely not a problem for the area. Along the way we stopped into two markets that provided fresh fruits and vegetables. Seeing these places made me very happy because I know that these fresh foods are available to people that live so close to an area that lacks fresh food, Arlington. Arlington has not yet been declared an official food desert, but it is on the road to becoming one, something that the community and those in charge can hopefully change.

In these markets I also saw a lot of spices hanging on the walls. These made me think of how spices have impacted history and the age of exploration. Some of the spices hanging up I had never even heard of, I guess I need to expand my spice knowledge! image1Even though Port Richmond did have these markets with fresh foods, they did recently lose one. A fire took away one of the supermarkets and I don’t believe there are plans to have it replaced. Another problem with the area would be the arsenic and lead within the soil at Veterans Park. Even though this issue is under control, there are still other problems facing the area, such as the garbage littering the streets, but the community is working hard to change that. Port Richmond is a rich community with a lot of history and day by day it will grow stronger and better.