In New Orleans, an Actor Turns Grocer

[astridmyrna]

Comments

[the_physicist]

thanks for posting! very informative! and shocking! i would never have thought that cities in America wouldn't have supermarkets and grocery shops wanting to open up on every street corner, like i am used to from the city i live in. sounds like this plan is a good one to start changing that, i hope it's successful and can expand into other areas.

[gambitia]

Food deserts are a huge problem* in America and almost exclusively affect low-income and/or otherwise underprivileged people.

I really hope this plan takes off too! I want to own a farm at some point in the future, and while I'm really only looking to provide enough food for myself and future family, part of me thinks it would be great to go bigger and provide produce to nearby food deserts.

*They may not be recognized as one by the general public, but I think that they have a huge detrimental effect on the health of communities. They also highlight specific failures in our food/agricultural systems, which is problematic throughout.

[skellington1]

The problem may not be recognized by the populace at large, but it's certainly regarded as a giant problem by public health professionals and authorities, so I'd say "a huge problem" isn't just a matter of opinion.

[gambitia]

Good to know that at least public health people and authorities are on it! I learned about food deserts from reading about how fucked up American agriculture is, so most of my knowledge about it comes from the angle of "How screwed up is it that a head of lettuce costs more than heavily-processed Twinkies?", not a social and/or medical bent.

[skellington1]

They're aware of it. Doesn't mean they're in a position to DO anything about it. I suspect real change is a long time coming.

[gambitia]

TBH, at this point, I will take "There is a general consensus that there is a problem that needs to be solved." I don't think our government could solve a sudoku puzzle at this point. I think change will have to come from the outside--from people like Pierce.

[serendipity_15]

I'm a public health grad student right now and food deserts are talked about a lot in the greater context of health disparities and social determinants of health, of which, I would argue, food deserts fall into.

[natyanayaki]

ITA.

[serendipity_15]

The USDA has an informative website that that shows food access through out the US, low access areas and food deserts are a problem through out the country, even in very urban areas where you would think that wouldn't be the case.