# Food desert map - fairly absurd **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074 "2015-10-09T20:42:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/41 "2015-10-17T01:01:32Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The whole idea of food deserts is to try to absolve the poor of any responsibility. They come up with horrible statistics like how 1 in 5 children is at risk of hunger. When it is pointed out that the children who are risk of hunger are actually eating more calories than those who are not, they then come up with the ridiculous idea of a food desert. The reason poor people are fat is not that they enjoy fattening food but that they live in food deserts where only fattening food is available. As you point out, if the poor wanted fresh fruits and vegetable then the stores would sell them. Food desert is a foolish term for a problem that does not exist so the busybodies can feel good about themselves. Right. If there were really a significant number of people coming home to their families and saying, “Well, I tried all five food places and none of them had fresh vegetables, so I guess it’s fried chicken again. Come and get fattened up!”, then I would expect entrepreneurs to catch on to that and come up with some sort of marketing plan. It wouldn’t even require _new_ businesspeople - after all, Joe’s Pawn Shop, Bill’s Payday Loans, or Mark’s Discount Liquor and Rims could set up a small veggie counter in a disused area of the store. They wouldn’t have to make a lot of profit on the stuff, just enough to make the space marginally profitable. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/42 "2015-10-17T01:06:55Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Ironically, I live slightly more than a mile from the nearest large supermarket but am not listed as being in a food desert, possibly because there is a food market 3 or so block from me that is fairly cheap but is only as large as a couple of convenience stores. > > I say ironic because a mile or so north of me is a green-lit section, which is across the street from a supermarket-sized WalMart Neighborhood Market :smack: It’s probably because the mapmakers used municipal boundaries, census tracts, or some other system of breaking down the map into “either/or” zones and were too stupid or naive to realize that people who live on the border of a census tract or whatever can, y’know, walk across the street to their technically “foreign” grocery store. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/43 "2015-10-17T01:22:32Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > It’s probably because the mapmakers used municipal boundaries, census tracts, or some other system of breaking down the map into “either/or” zones and were too stupid or naive to realize that people who live on the border of a census tract or whatever can, y’know, walk across the street to their technically “foreign” grocery store. This is probably not the case, as others have mentioned. The green areas don’t actually represent food deserts per se - only areas that have a significant percentage of people who supposedly lack food access. This means that someone on the “edge” of a green zone might not actually be in a food desert. Therefore, the green color is due to the artifacting inherent in using zone-based statistics. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/44 "2015-10-17T01:39:40Z")
I’ve got to admit to some confusion as to why “ethnic groceries” disallow a food desert. They have a target market that does not consist of people shopping for everyday foods of American cuisine. Convenience stores that carry food don’t count either. Unless you consider being able to buy a can of Beefaroni for $2.67 when regular grocery stores sell it for $1.00 as a reasonable alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Jamicat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@Jamicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamicat)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/45 "2015-10-17T02:42:56Z")
Omg, I live smack in the middle of a food desert. :eek: What the hell is this supposed to say? I checked all the boxes and all the over lays are on me. In a 1/8 - 1 mile radius there are about 100 places selling food. From the veggie stands, supermarkets, walmarts, drug stores, mom pop stores, restaurant chains… But, just one gas station. It’s a \*\*gas desert \*\*if you ask me… almost like mad max over here. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/46 "2015-10-17T02:58:27Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I’ve got to admit to some confusion as to why “ethnic groceries” disallow a food desert. They have a target market that does not consist of people shopping for everyday foods of American cuisine. Because not every place is the same. In some places, the population is not predominantly people shopping for “everyday foods of American cuisine”. And you might be surprised at how much “everyday foods of American cuisine” ethnic stores carry - seems like every kind of ethnic butcher/supermarket carries certain cuts of meat (steaks, pork chops, chicken) but the sausages are different and the ethnic places carry meats you wouldn’t find in a American supermarket. ``` I myself cannot figure out why an area with butcher shops, fish markets ,grocery stores and fruit and vegetable stores might be a food desert simply because they are separate stores rather than departments of a single store. I get that it makes it easier to make the map to just use supermarkets, and to break it up by census tracts but at some point, you've made it useless for determining actual access to food. Even by the map's own definition there are problems-the only green spots I could find in NYC are in Staten Island but I know there are low-income parts of Brooklyn and Queens that aren't within a mile of a supermarket. I guess they must be on the edges of tracts where the majority of the land or population (can't tell which) are less than a mile from a supermarket. ``` ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/47 "2015-10-17T07:09:09Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I guess they must be on the edges of tracts where the majority of the land or population (can’t tell which) are less than a mile from a supermarket. Again, the map is showing low income area with low car access where more than 100 households are more than a mile (or the other distance options) from a supermarket. They are not looking at distances of the census track on the whole. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/48 "2015-10-17T12:52:15Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > … > I myself cannot figure out why an area with butcher shops, fish markets ,grocery stores and fruit and vegetable stores might be a food desert simply because they are separate stores rather than departments of a single store. I get that it makes it easier to make the map to just use supermarkets, and to break it up by census tracts but at some point, you’ve made it useless for determining actual access to food… > [@even\_sven](#): > > …Supermarkets are determined from the 2012 list of stores accepting SNAP which have all common grocery departments (produce, dairy, meat, packaged foods, frozen foods, etc.) I assume that is the most recent complete data available… SNAP could be a reason. SNAP is what used to be known as “food stamps”, and I would expect that smaller stores would be less likely to go through all the government rigamarole to get set up to accept them. I remember reading about a local push to get the local farmers’ market to accept SNAP and how it wasn’t an easy thing to just set up, since ordinary people can’t just “accept food stamps”, even for food, without filling out dozens of pages of government forms. One could raise the question that a food store isn’t “affordable” if it doesn’t take SNAP, even if the prices are arguably sufficiently low and the food sufficiently nutritious. Those veggies look pretty cheap, but Random Poor Person can’t use his food stamps, so they might as well be half a million each since all he brought are food stamps. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/49 "2015-10-17T13:08:52Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > SNAP could be a reason. SNAP is what used to be known as “food stamps”, and I would expect that smaller stores would be less likely to go through all the government rigamarole to get set up to accept them. I remember reading about a local push to get the local farmers’ market to accept SNAP and how it wasn’t an easy thing to just set up, since ordinary people can’t just “accept food stamps”, even for food, without filling out dozens of pages of government forms. > > One could raise the question that a food store isn’t “affordable” if it doesn’t take SNAP, even if the prices are arguably sufficiently low and the food sufficiently nutritious. Those veggies look pretty cheap, but Random Poor Person can’t use his food stamps, so they might as well be half a million each since all he brought are food stamps. However, if that were the reason, the definition could simply refer to “stores accepting SNAP” rather than “stores accepting SNAP which have all common grocery departments (produce, dairy, meat, packaged foods, frozen foods, etc” - because while not all smaller stores accept SNAP, in some places many of them do. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/50 "2015-10-17T13:46:29Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The whole idea of food deserts is to try to absolve the poor of any responsibility. They come up with horrible statistics like how 1 in 5 children is at risk of hunger. When it is pointed out that the children who are risk of hunger are actually eating more calories than those who are not, they then come up with the ridiculous idea of a food desert. The reason poor people are fat is not that they enjoy fattening food but that they live in food deserts where only fattening food is available. As you point out, if the poor wanted fresh fruits and vegetable then the stores would sell them. The problem with your argument, as sources like _Food, Inc._ have noted, is that it doesn’t take into account the price differential between “fattening food” and “fresh fruits and vegetable”. You’re insinuating that poor people are simply too stupid and/or greedy to make healthy nutritional choices, and they could easily get supplies of healthy food if they only showed interest in buying it. The thing is, though, that poor people tend to have relatively little money to spend on food. If a whole meal of a burger and fries (already cooked) at a fast-food place costs about the same as a few fresh fruits and vegetables (that need to be stored and/or cooked) at a supermarket, you can see why the fast food is in many respects a better deal, despite its being less healthy and more fattening. The question we perhaps ought to be asking ourselves is _“why is a full prepared and cooked meal, including meat from livestock that have to be bred, reared, cared for, slaughtered and butchered in fairly labor-intensive and time-consuming procedures, cheaper and more readily accessible than small amounts of fresh produce?”_ ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074/51 "2015-10-17T20:20:15Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Again, the map is showing low income area with low car access where more than 100 households are more than a mile (or the other distance options) from a supermarket. They are not looking at distances of the census track on the whole. That may be what they intend, but it isn’t what they have. As I’ve pointed out, the one by me has, in actuality, ZERO households of any income, as it is an airport. If they’d just used only the retirement community, and left out the airport, then maybe they’d have a point. Well, except for that Fry’s supermarket across the street. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-desert-map-fairly-absurd/734074.md?page=2)