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can somebody ELI5 how "food deserts" work (or don't) in the USA? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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I've heard this term a couple of time but never actually looked into it, and it is such an alien concept to me right now. I apologise in advance for sounding dumb here.

I can understand slums and favelas having a harder time getting access to fresh food, but how come entire government-recognised and incorporated neighbourhoods with electricity, water and all those more complex services can't have small grocery stores for basic healthy things like rice?

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[–] 28 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

Grocery stores essentially don't exist in large areas of cities (and increasingly in rural areas as well). Instead there are places like CVS and Dollar General that don't sell fresh food at all, they only sell prepackaged processed (overpriced) junk. Since public transportation is very poor here, people who don't live near an actual grocery store don't have many options.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Where does the local produce even go to in the case of rural areas? I assume they do a lot of monoculture, but there's always space for a chicken or a dozen in large enough farms, and other fresh stuff one can sell to their village people.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    Are you outside of the US? It might be hard to explain, I used to deliver post to a rural American 'town', they had folks who sold chicken eggs by putting them in a cooler by the highway with a box, you could leave money in the box and take eggs. I never saw anyone do this. There was no centralized location to sell produce in this 'town' so I assume you either ate it or threw it away. Many American rural areas have no infrastructure to facilitate community gatherings or farmer's markets.

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