by Amanda Schneider
Imagine all the grocery stores in your area slowly but surely going out of business because their customers cannot afford conducive to a healthy diet. The result is a phenomenon called food deserts. You may be wondering what this term means… or thinking to yourself, “DUH. It’s like a desert. No food.“ You may be surprised to learn, however, that food deserts don’t necessarily imply a complete absence of food. A region is considered in a “food desert” if there is little to no access to nutritious and healthy foods. While the area can have a booming fast food industry, without fresh produce and other nutritious food, it is somewhat worthless on the food pyramid.
The Cuyahoga County Planning Commission assessed our region‘s access to full-service grocers and found that it has become increasingly difficult for families to have stable access to the foods they need to support a healthy family. They took into account a “food balance” ratio that shows the distance of fast food outlets compared to full service grocers. The best ratio would be 1:1, meaning you could travel the same distance to get to either destination. The current ratio in Cleveland is 1:4.5, so residents of the city have to travel 4.5 times further to find healthy food options. This issue is compounded by decreased access to reliable transportation in lower income communities.
The Urban Planning department of Cleveland State has found that from the 50 acres of land devoted to public gardens, about a $1.5 million profit was generated. There is a lot of momentum around urban community gardens because they provide low-cost access to fresh produce. Not only could local food solutions vastly decrease the distance needed to travel to get to healthy food in underprivileged neighborhoods, but schools that have community gardens can also use them to teach their students about healthy food choices and science.
Food deserts are not a necessary evil. We have the ability to change our region’s situation by being smart about it. Community collaboration and cooperation is, of course, essential. To get involved with the fight against food deserts, look into CityFresh, the US Department of Agriculture’s Community Food Program, or the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition.
Tags: cleveland, food deserts