Here in Italy they are among the cheapest foods--aside from delicacies like cherries, a lot of fruits and vegetables are sold for about 1 to 3 euros a pound. Do they cost more in the United States? Are they less common? Or are all these just myths?
I've read about the issue of "food deserts" in the U.S. Is it true that fruits and vegetables are uncommon in supermarkets and the ones that are there are very expensive?
FOOD & DRINK^ This is the answer. Fruit and veggies are cheap and plentiful, it's just physical access to them is sometimes limited. Growing up, the closest grocery store to our house was about 20 miles away and took nearly half an hour to get there.
Now, out in remote areas like that, Dollar General stores have popped up and while they offer a limited selection of canned and boxed foods, most don't offer many or any fresh fruit/veg.
Iv noticed the past 2 years places that had no grocery store but only dollar general, the dollar generals have opened produce sections. Although not very big.
Mine recently got a produce section, and while it’s pretty small, everything is pretty fresh and well stocked.
Ours just added produce but even compared to the expensive grocery chains in the area it's very pricey. Like a $5 premade salad from the grocery store fills a mixing bowl and the $4 DG salad barely fills a soup bowl.
I'm not expecting it to last.
If the sign says “DG Market” then they will now have a small produce section, but at least in my area, if it doesn’t say market it’s still just a regular dollar general with no produce.
have never seen this
They are slowly adding them to the stores one by one. There's roughly 7 in and around my town and they're slowly being added
Fruit and veggies are cheap and plentiful
Eh. Depends. We have to scratch-cook our food and eat a heavily-produce-based diet b/c of medical reasons, and holy shit is it expensive to just exist.
I cook nearly every meal from scratch myself, and it doesn't seem significantly more expensive than buying prepackaged stuff. For a family of 3, I spend about $150/wk, and we eat really well. But I guess the difference could be considered large for lower income households.
In my experience, it's usually cheaper to cook from scratch vs buying premade/frozen. I always end up with more leftovers & it fills me up better.
Oh, interesting! I haven't bought much premade/frozen food myself in the last 20 years so I don't actually know for sure how it adds up, but it's certainly not a burden on my pocketbook to buy fresh, make meals from scratch, and have lots of leftovers.
However, dinners cost time as well as money, and I feel like it's probably pretty rare for people to have the time to cook fresh foods. Like, I buy/grow fresh tomatoes and garlic and carrots and basil and all that kinda stuff so I can spend an afternoon making my own sauce. I don't know how the cost compares to one of those premade jars of sauce, but I know it doesn't take nearly as much time to pop off a lid as it does to cut, sautee, season, blend, simmer, yada yada yada.
I agree on the time portion, but I've found crockpot (and to some extent pressure cookers) are great for when you're crunched for time or just don't want to stand in front of a stove or oven for an hour plus. It's also great for meal prepping in that crockpot recipes seem to make way more than baking or cooking on the stove, so you can freeze meals for those days/weeks you don't have any time. That really helps with my being over 40 & cholesterol being a wee bit high diet. I would generally just grab a burger or pizza, and being in retail, that was too often.
It also depends what you're buying.
If you're eating nothing but chicken breasts, you're gonna be paying a pretty penny more than someone who can eat whatever cut of meat is cheapest. If you're buying veggies and fruits that aren't grown locally and are out of season, you're gonna be paying more than buying what can be produced locally and is in season.
I don't know what the deal is around where I live, but thighs and breasts tend to be pretty close in price, and sometimes the breasts are cheaper.
I usually get my meat at Aldi, but they don't put their prices online. So, to use the Walmart closest to my house as a comparison, the lowest $/lb package of fresh chicken breasts is 4.7-6.1lbs for $2.67/lb. And the lowest $/lb package of chicken thighs is 4.7-6 0 lbs for $2.96/lb. Neither are on sale, both are the store brand.
That's the garbage part of the chicken anyway. Thighs are where the good meat is.
Chicken thighs are the real MVP!
It can also be hard to cook for one person without having any wasted food. Buying in bulk is cheaper, but harder to manage effectively for a single person. Families do have a slight advantage that way. Plus, if you have more than one adult who might have time to cook, that helps as well. If you’re a single person working 60+ hours a week, things get a lot more difficult, both in terms of the quantities you can buy before they go bad, and finding the time to prepare fresh foods.
In what general area do you live? We cannot bulk out our meals with rice, beans, or white potatoes, and we live in south Florida.
We do our grocery shopping at Aldi and Costco for the most part, with some side trips to Wal-Mart. We buy no red meats and buy conventional produce. And we spend considerably more than $600 a month on groceries for two adults.
In my experience, it's usually cheaper to cook from scratch vs buying premade/frozen. I always end up with more leftovers & it fills me up better.
I eat for less than $150 a month. I never ever buy a packaged meal or entree. Always just ingredients, cook them myself. When it's summer, I grow a few things, not to save money, but because gardening is good for my head, and I get much better quality that way.
Frozen veggies? They're just as good as fresh and a lot cheaper.
Cheaper, yes... depending.
E.g., at the walmart nearest to my house:
fresh broccoli crowns $0.099/oz. Frozen broccoli florets $0.097/oz. Bulk frozen broccoli "cuts" (i.e., lots of stems) $0.071/oz.
Fresh brussels sprouts $0.186/oz. frozen brussels sprouts $0.118/oz. Pretty significant price difference, but if you've ever had frozen brussels sprouts, you'll know why.
Fresh sweet potatoes $0.060/oz. Frozen sweet potatoes (cubed) $0.174/oz
As good? Never.
I'd do it if we had to, but thankfully we do not.
Edit to add: corn, peas, and green beans all do well coming from frozen, but we cannot eat those.
Yeah I agree vegetables are not cheap at all unless you stick to carrots and cabbage or any other root vegetable
Yeah.. when people say that it's cheaper to buy fruits and vegetables, I always wonder which specific fruits and vegetables they're eating. Are they surviving on potatoes and rice and calling those vegetables? Because at least where I live, bell peppers are a buck and a half each, and that's if you buy them in bulk.
Thankfully, we both like cabbage in basically all of its forms except for boiled. You could say that about all of the brassicas, really.
Edit to add: I would die young of cardiovascular disease, but I could eat Banquet pot pies for $4/day. I could not eat the chicken and vegetables that I currently eat for $4/day.
If you happen to have a Trader Joe’s near you (I know they aren’t everywhere) I find them to have the best bell pepper prices where I am. I have 9 Guinea pigs so I buy a stupid amount of produce lol
We do, although they tend to be one of the more expensive options. But, it's close enough to be worth double checking for that specific thing!
This. It’s a common issue in cities where supermarkets will close down. I have seen this happen. (I assume because rent is too expensive.) So supermarkets become very few and far between. If you live in a city without a car and can’t walk or easily take public transit to a supermarket, what you do? You buy the food that’s available, and it’s not fresh vegetables.
Often food deserts have convenience stores and gas stations that sell junk food, soft drinks, beer, and nicotine products, and that’s pretty much it. If they want to buy veggies and meat they have to pay to take a bus.
Yep. I used to live in a place like this. Lower middle class suburb near a military base, filled mostly with blue collar and immigrant families. We had a gas station/convenience store nearby (you could technically walk there, but it was iffy). They sold bananas and some mealy looking apples, but that was it for fresh produce. There's also now a dollar store in the area (don't think they sell any non-perishable food though), and a few fast food places but that's it.
A few years after we moved in they built a Walmart Grocery store a few miles away, but that was short lived and closed down. If you wanted to buy actual groceries you had to drive 20+ minutes to a grocery store. Most of my neighbors only had one car or were elderly and didn't drive, so it made getting groceries difficult. We were lucky enough to have the time and an extra car so I'd often take my neighbors grocery shopping or pick stuff up for them when I went to the store.
The area is gentrifying, but last time I was there it didn't look like the food options had gotten much better.
I used to walk a good ways to get my groceries, and carry them home in a backpack. Definitely couldn’t get a whole lot at a time that way, but for just one person, it was doable.
Yeah, I’ve definitely done that before! As a kid I remember having to walk/take the bus to the grocery store with my grandma and it was such a pain. She’d carry a few bags, and I’d stuff my school backpack with anything that fit.
Then one day we found one of those little personal rolly carts by the dumpster (kinda like this one). We cleaned that little cart up and it was a game changer, lol!
I lived in a food desert in Baltimore and we technically had a grocery store. It was probably about the size of a 7/11. All they had was canned and prepacked goods, meat that looked like it was on the verge of going bad, and a basket on the counter with some apples and bananas. It was really bad.
meat that looked like it was on the verge of going bad
When the first of my social group moved to SE Atlanta, they went to the Piggly Wiggly (don't quote me on the exact chain), and there were packages of raw meat out on a table with a fan.
ETA: this was like 20 years ago. It's fine now.
Also it really, REALLY depends on where you live and the CoL in the area you're in on whether or not fruits and veggies are "cheap." Even in places that aren't food deserts, with one big box grocery store (Walmart), fresh produce and even fresh meat is more expensive than just buying something frozen or alternatively just loaded with carbs.
Yes, this is the problem. In these "food desert" areas you find a lot of obesity because people mostly only have access to processed foods.
because people without transportation mostly only have access to processed foods.
Ftfy
Keep in mind that food deserts are urban or suburban areas where the store is more than a mile away or rural with no access within 10 miles. The vast majority (90+%) of people have access to cars.
Only a mile? Under that definition, many suburban neighborhoods like mine would technically be considered a food desert. I have two full supermarkets with nice produce sections 1.5 miles from my house (fully accessible by foot and bike) and probably a dozen other supermarkets, produce markets, and ethnic markets with good produce within a 5-mile radius.
Yes, only a mile. It is a real problem, but the measurements are stupid and unrealistic.
Yes. It’s a very silly definition for most due to that particular part of it. An overwhelmingly large majority of US households own a car and can readily get to a grocery store.
Yeah that definition is why articles always emphasize what a massive issue a “food dessert!” Is but in reality its not as massive a deal for most of the nation as academia tries to make it
I don’t think you can make the claim that 90% have access to cars without some stats on that. Especially in dense cities.
1mile is around 12-15min walk for a healthy person, both ways carrying groceries.
If you have a car it doesn’t feel like a desert. But if you don’t, anything more than a mile can be tough especially if you are elderly or disabled. That’s still why the poorest people have high obesity rates. They don’t have cars nor fast or easy access sometimes and they often work multiple jobs and have less time and energy to shop and cook.
The cause and effect isn't so clear cut. Smaller bodegas and convenience stores with more limited shelf space don't stock produce (or don't stock very much) not only because it's easier to keep processed foods in stock but because their customers prefer processed foods anyway. I know a lot of obese people living in the low income housing project in our town. Projects which happens to be directly across the street from a large fully stocked grocery store which actually specializes in fresh produce and "real" food (it's a locally owned chain which specializes in fresh food to better compete with larger national chains... Which are also nearby). Far too many of the residents of that housing project still buy ONLY processed foods despite fresh produce being abundantly available and affordable right on their doorstep. If a smaller store reliant only on the foot traffic from that project were to open up it would go bankrupt if it devoted too much of it's more limited shelf space to fresh produce and meats... while a competitor providing only processed foods would thrive.
Not saying the cause and effect doesn't go the other way too when such stores are the ONLY option. But even when they aren't the only option outside "food deserts" obesity and poor nutritional choices remain almost as large a problem. Food deserts may contribute to some people being forced to make poor nutritional choices but the poor nutritional choices of a lot of others contributes to the creation of "food deserts".
In order to eat fresh produce you need to have consistency in time, electricity and executive function. And we know poor people are more likely to work multiple jobs at crazy hours, have inconsistency with non essential bills like electricity and mental illness and poverty have a negative feedback cycle with one another.
You might have places like convenience or dollar stores, which don't typically sell fresh produce.
Might find it strange to learn that Dollar General actually has some locations that they've converted into smallish grocery stores. There are some that'll have fresh fruits and veggies along with a couple of aisles of frozen foods.
And the occasion where the only ones they have either gouge or already expensive and high end hipster stores.
They’re way cheaper in Italy ime. Like I bought produce that would have cost $20 in the US for 5 euros when I was there.
… in many urban centers, not outside, so you may find yourself going to a large supermarket in the suburbs to load up on healthy food.
The complaint rose: we have food deserts in too many cities and it’s a public health issue!
The largest cities like NYC have great vegetables
The US likely produces more vegetables and fruits than your country.
If you've read about food deserts, you'd learn that its just as much about accessibility, if not more so, than cost.
example: You live in an east-side neighborhood and rely on a bus that heads west to get downtown to work. Well, the bus only runs east to west. The grocery store is north. Not that far north, but still a fair distance. So now you have to hop a bus, then transfer, hop another bus, get tot he store, do your shopping, and then hop two buses to get back home all while hauling your groceries with you, and any kids you may have since you can't just leae them at home.
Whereas the gas station or convenience store is just across the street within walking distance.
Actual supermarkets ALWAYS have fruits and vegetables. The problem is that some people don't have easy access to a proper grocery store at all. But the vast majority of Americans do.
Fruits and vegetables that are common and in season are usually reasonably priced, although food prices have gone up a lot in the last few years, increasing food insecurity for poorer people.
This is the correct answer. When I lived in a rural area the closest place to buy food was a gas station about 3 miles away. The next closest was a grocery store almost 30 miles away.
Even out of season, we get fruit very reasonably priced, due to the Andean free trade agreement and trade with Chile, Ecuador, etc.
Some things. Not things like raspberries and peaches.
We get raspberries from chile too, they are just much rarer. Most of US raspberries come from Mexico though, so are more seasonal.
This right here. Access to produce isn't as much an issue as access to stores and affordable prices
No, the exact opposite is true. Our grocery stores in my city have fresh produce sections larger than the entirety of most European grocery stores.
Food deserts are more of a localized problem in specific areas of specific cities where there is residential mixed in with commercial, but where the commercial interests have outweighed the residential to the point that there are no proper nearby grocery stores.
cities AND small towns. you live out in the middle of nowhere and the closest market is 20 miles away but you can't drive that far, you're fucked
Where do Europeans get the notion that we don’t have fruit, vegetables, and bread in our grocery stores? There isn’t a grocery store in the United States that don’t sell these basic items.
One of those things where visitors come to the US, visit a 7-11, and think it was a grocery store?
And they only buy Wonder Bread and Coors Light, then proceed to generalize American bread and beer, respectively, based on those.
7-11 has fruits and vegetables, too.
Because in other countries the nearest equivalent of a 7-11 probably does sell fruit, vegetables, and bread? Especially if it's the only place in town.
Or are all these just myths?
The dude is clearly trying to clarify what this term means. The dude lives in a country smaller than Texas, he probably can't even fathom how far some people have to drive to get to civilization.
This is true. When I traveled around America, I was not only weirded out by how the weather can vary in a trip of a few hours (from the desert heat of Las Vegas to a cool summer day in Los Angeles), but how there were miles and miles of absolute nothingness and roads as straight as a spindle.
Far too often I see the answers here from Americans who, ironically, can't fathom that our normal is different than your normal. English isn't even a foreign users first language most of the time, I don't see why we can't assume good faith most of the time.
People talk about food deserts a lot on social media as an explanation for obesity rates in our country and since people don't talk about things going well the only thing you hear about online is the food deserts.
Plus there are a lot of people who prefer to believe any and every negative thing about the US that they hear.
The vast majority of obesity in America is because their calories in are greater than their calories out. What you're eating has way less impact than how much you eat.
That's obesity anywhere in the world.
There is something to the calculus that limited access to food creates a scenario where people buy the cheapest calorie dense foods available to them maximizes calorie count over the potential benefits of a more balanced well-rounded diet, but most of these people talking about this are on social media not poor people living in food deserts. They're people with food addictions lying to themselves and everyone around them.
You eat what is convenient and available to you.
If you can grab a cheeseburger everyday right outside the building after school or work, you will do that more than if it weren’t convenient and you pack on a few pounds every year. That doesn’t make you a food addict but it makes you unhealthy.
You can cry “willpower” all you want to pass the burger spot and eat an apple. That may work on an individual level but not in a community. If you plop down a bunch of fast food and no grocery stores, people eat more junk food. It’s not rocket science.
In no way am I disputing the effect of food deserts on health and weight. I've just noticed a lot of people who clearly aren't poor bringing up food deserts and the struggles of the poor to deflect from their own bad choices.
And it bugs me because I'm a working class individual who has lived in a food desert and knows people whose options are limited to the corner store, the liquor store and the hole in the wall and I don't like the way this conversation goes.
I don't like seeing a bunch of white women talk as if my destiny as a working class black woman is to be fat and unhealthy when they don't know anything about it.
Because they come here on vacation. They go to a 7-11 type convenience store, and think that's a grocery store.
They don’t understand our zoning structure. When they visit the cities and tourist areas they don’t see big grocery stores because they’re mainly near the residential areas. Or they think Walmart is our supermarket which only has a small food section in some Walmarts.
It just stupidity on their part really.
Did you see yesterday's post in TIL that the A&W 1/3 pound cheeseburger failed because a lot of people thought it was smaller than the 1/4 McDonald's quarter pounder. You know, 3 is smaller than 4. Some people don't understand fractions. These are the people in Europe who believe these things
Yeah, that "poll" was put out by A&W itself to try and explain why that burger was a colossal failure, so there was no conflict there. /s
And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Les miserables
A 0.113 kilogramer with cheese?
I certainly do Jules
The World may never know.
They believe anything as long as it makes America look bad
Propaganda that gets spread really pervasively. Even when the intention isn’t bad, the shit some Europeans believe can be pretty staggering.
Let’s not even talk about the massive agricultural industry of the US…the supply logistics alone is crazy. At my grocery store, I can buy food products from Asia, Europe, Latin America, not to mention fresh produce grown maybe a 3 hour drive from me.
In rural parts of the US there may not be a supermarket or a Walmart or the like within a reasonable distance.
As other comments explained better than I did, I was referring to how according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture over 10% of Americans have difficulty accessing fresh foods.
I was having a hard time explaining that, because in my experience here on the other side of the Atlantic, there is no way that anyone, no matter how poor, does not have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, because at least a small supermarket or greengrocer (a cheap store specializing in fruits and vegetables) can be found even in small towns. Then maybe they don't buy them, because poor nutrition and poverty are connected here too, but the availability is there.
But it is probably more of a distribution problem, due among other things to the larger size of American cities and greater distances between population centers.
It’s about transportation.
We have lots of stores selling fresh produce.
But if you’re poor, don’t own a car, and don’t have decent public transportation options to get to those stores… you might not be able to get to the nice, big grocery store, overflowing with produce, 5 miles down the road.
I think this is what us Euros don't consider until someone tells us, yea. I don't know the exact reasons why, but we never quite adopted the model of big "central" grocery stores, instead we have a ton of small to mid sized ones.
I've lived in a variety of European neighbourhoods and towns in three different countries and always had a grocery store or at least a small shop with fresh produce within max 10-15 minutes walking, the only exception was in remote places in the mountains (and even there, there would be some small farm shop at least). So the idea of "you need to get a way to go to the shop" wouldn't naturally occur to me at all!
Edit to add: I think this is also why some Europeans go to the US and confuse convenience stores with supermarkets - we are expecting 2-3 supermarkets in every neighbourhood. And I think convenience shops aren't as widespread here (we have them, but not everywhere - my home town wouldn't really have one, for instance).
It's generally not so much the existence of grocers as much as it is accessibility. So that would include things like:
A city neighborhood where there's a grocery store a mile away, but few people have cars, and there's no easy metro or bus route to get there.
A small town where the store only sells non-perishable fruits and vegetables (canned, frozen, etc.), and the closest store that sells fresh produce is in the next town that's a 30 minute drive away.
A neighborhood in an expensive city where poorer residents have to work two or more jobs to get by. As a result, many of them don't have time to cook for their families, and tend to rely on pre-cooked, frozen, or ready-to-eat meals instead.
Can you link that study? The only thing I can find is food insecurity, which is vastly different than a food desert.
I was referring to an old article in an Italian paper, but I see that the USDA has a very interesting interactive atlas:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/
Yeah, I think the question your asking and the data you just provided are really the same. Or the question is based off this pretty interesting atlas.
Is the question "Do Americans have access to fresh fruits and veggies, are they common and cheap?" The answer is yes.
If the question is "Do SOME Americans have trouble accessing everything easily?" the answer is yes, we are a car dependent nation after all.
If the question based on the atlas provided is "Are there areas of the USA that don't have big box grocery stores?" The answer is also yes.
Lets look at some of the stores that one would find fresh food at that is excluded from the atlas that cause some the low income and low access hot spots.
- Military Commissaries and Warehouse Club stores
- Drug Stores
- Dollar Stores
- Convenience stores
And the stores that are included.
- Supercenters
- Supermarkets
- Large Grocery Stores
If we cherry pick data about what we are going to include we are just pushing an agenda.
What is considered a "small store" in most European cities vs even American urban centers is much different.
I don't think a small store only selling fruits, like I saw in Barcelona, would at all be economically viable in the US. I imagine you would need consistent and large volumes to avoid having your fruit spoil. You have ac couple slow days and it would be economically devastating.
In Los Angeles, you'll see fresh fruit vendors throughout the city and tourist sites. You gotta find the guys cutting up fresh fruit to order and keeping it on ice though.
Probably the closest I could think of is the various Hispanic markets throughout Indianapolis which typically are quite compact. But even in the smallest markets they'll have a produce section, a butcher for fresh meat, 2-3 isles of dry goods and miscellaneous items, a pastry section selling pan dulce, and either a lunch counter or some lady in the parking lot selling frozen tamales (they're good!)
"have difficulty accessing"...this is the operative term.
This could include old people that can't leave the house, people in rural areas without cars, or any other person that has a barrier between them and a supermarket.
I doubt the takeaway from that is that 10% of the country is literally deprived of fresh foods.
Also, statistics like this are notorious for their broad scope of interpretation. I remember in college hearing once about how "20% of American children go to bed hungry."
What was the criteria? A question that asked "Do your children ever claim hunger as a way to get out of an early bedtime?"
Do you have a link to these stats from the Department of Agriculture? It would be interesting to see how they tabulated that number.
As to your question bout Supermarkets, Europeans will come here on vacation and go to convenience stores and think that they're supermarkets.
It is probably part of the same problem as food deserts: a tourist moves only by public transportation and has no way to get to real supermarkets.
Tourists to US cities aren't going to the poorer areas that are food deserts.
Think downtown Chicago with the bean and skyscrapers vs stereotypically poor south or west sides.
Totally different worlds just a few miles apart.
It’s not quite that, it’s the setup of how US supermarkets are in comparison to elsewhere in the world - we have large supermarkets (similar to ones I’ve seen in Italy), but most places do not have small, local corner stores or markets. I live in a large city and can easily take public transit to 4 or 5 supermarkets within a few miles of me, but elsewhere in the country most people drive because public transit is not robust or available. But some tourists will go into a convenience store and expect it to be like a small local grocer and think that all Americans get their food from there and it’s all processed.
Separately, there are food deserts - typically in urban poor or very rural communities where there are no supermarkets or supermarkets with an abundance of fresh food. In urban poor areas, theft and a lack of shopper money to sustain a major chain grocery store is typically cited as the reason for large supermarkets closing. In rural areas, the nearest Walmart or superstore (which has fresh foods) may be upwards of 30 minutes away and not convenient. Dollar General, a massive chain of low-cost convenience/grocery stores, is often the only local place for rural folks to get food. Dollar General has low costs that locally owned small grocers can’t compete with, forcing many small grocers to close. Dollar General’s fresh food options are significantly more limited than a typical grocery store. It’s a fascinating and depressing phenomenon.
On the contrary. Unless you’re going to New York or Chicago or other major cities, there is no public transportation.
It's a downstream effect of cultural and economic values. I live in Chile and in the poorest neighborhoods, even the corner stores sell some fruits and vegetables because they are such an ingrained part of the diet that not selling them is just inconceivable, especially tomatos, potatoes, lemons, carrots, and onions. In season, you'll apples, peas, green beans, corn, and more. Nothing like a full farmer's market, but something.
In the US, in areas too economically deprived and/or isolated to support large supermarkets, there often aren't any perishable goods at all in the small stores that do exist. People in those areas may work too much to have the mental energy to cook meals from scratch or simply the habit of eating fresh foods has been lost through intergenerational poverty.
Can I ask where did you get the idea that fruits and vegetables are uncommon in the US?
It's likely a misunderstanding of what a food desert is. A food desert isn't a place with empty supermarkets/grocery stores, it's a place with no supermarkets/groceries stores that are accessible to the population of a given area.
Fruits and vegetables are incredibly plentiful in the US as a whole, but that doesn't hold true for isolated rural or extremely underserved urban communities where your only option for food is a convenience store or a fast food franchise.
I'm just baffled that someone would think a first world country just doesn't have fruits and vegetables.
To be fair, OP didn't say that they definitively thought fruits and vegetables were nonexistent in the US. They asked a couple of different questions, including whether or not the things they'd heard were true:
Do they cost more in the United States? Are they less common? Or are all these just myths?
Which, to me, is a perfectly valid way to ask a question in a forum specifically dedicated to asking questions.
Do they cost more in the United States? Are they less common? Or are all these just myths?
Which, to me, is a perfectly valid way to ask a question in a forum specifically dedicated to asking questions.
It's even in the title of OP's post, "Is it true..." not "why is it the case that..."
You didn't know? America is actually a third world country with a gucci belt! /s
Even in rural areas it not that bad. Very few people in rural areas don’t have a car. So even if the grocery is 5 miles away it’s not a big deal.
Being five miles from a grocery store isn't isolated; I'm talking about places that are hours by car away from a supermarket, not minutes. West of the Mississippi, distances between someone's house and a standard grocery store can get immense.
And in urban areas, five miles might as well be the other side of the moon if you don't have access to reliable personal or public transport.
The things I read on this subreddit…
They are fairly cheap here, the issue is that there will be places that have no grocery stores that are accessible to people without a car. If 10-15% of residents in that neighborhood can't or don't drive, then they cannot easily access food. For many communities its common to have very large grocery stores that are not within walking distance for the vast majority of residence. This is more of a zoning problem than anything else. We have something called "R-1 Zoning" or "Single Family Zoning" where within these places no commercial activity is allowed, so small stores that sell produce are banned within that neighborhood.
You will also see them in rural areas where the population is not large enough to sustain a grocery store, so the stores they do have are far removed from any particular area and people from multiple communities drive to it.
Cherries are a delicacy in Italy? Mama Mia!
All small fruits such as strawberries, cherries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries (lol, I only now notice that in English the names of these is adjective + berry) are more expensive than the rest. Especially if, like cherries this year, there was a low production. We are still talking about a maximum of 4 euros per pound, not more.
We have berries and cherries here always, they are more expensive than other produce though. And they don't taste good all year lol just when they're in season.
I think that’s regional. PNW was an abundance of cherries in the right season for super cheap, for example.
"Food deserts" are a real thing, but they're different from what you're describing—they're basically a localized area without quick access to a grocery store.
Of the tens of thousands of supermarkets in the US all of them sell cheap fruits and vegetables, unless maybe if you're in someplace particularly remote.
Produce is plentiful and common in groceries, but there are some areas that don’t have true grocery stores/super markets easily accessible. They only have convenience stores selling mostly snacks and drinks (soft drinks and alcohol), perhaps some corner bodega style stores that might sell some more meal-like food, but still a small, limited selection and often very limited, poor quality produce if they have any.
Supermarkets in the US have an abundance of fruits and vegetables, more so than anything I’ve seen from any supermarket across Europe. The prices are similar if not cheaper in most cases.
So-called food deserts are places where supermarkets aren’t easily accessible.
You should know that the US has such an abundance of produce, we export it. We’re a major producer of fruits and vegetables. A lot of it you receive in Italy.
A normal American grocery has a large section full of fresh fruits and vegetables. In most stores where I live I would say it's about 10x20 meters of floor space. This picture of a Walmart produce section is very normal. Note that this section is only the fresh fruits and vegetables. All grocery stores will have other areas of the store devoted to canned fruits & vegetables, frozen vegetables, dried grains and beans, etc.
Food deserts are areas where residents don't have good access to a grocery store. Typically they are limited to "convenience stores" that mainly sell snack food. They may have some basic groceries like canned or frozen goods, but very few fresh items. The US government estimates that about 20 million people live in food deserts (the US population is 330 million).
No, its not like that.
Food deserts are generally dense but poor or very rural areas that don't HAVE good access to a supermarket in the first place. The local stores are corner convenience stores and, given the income level, people don't always have the best transport access.
On top of what everyone else is saying I just want to add that even in rural areas that fall under a “food desert “ region, a lot of people grow their own fruits and vegetables. It’s also not uncommon for people to have chickens for fresh eggs.
Some rural areas as well as some economically underdeveloped urban areas lack proper grocery stores that carry fresh vegetables, fruits, meat or dairy and only carry products with a short shelf-life.
But your standard supermarket carries plenty of fresh fruits, veggies and meat and dairy.
If you'd like to see for yourself go to Youtube and search Brit/Aussie/European reacts to Walmart/American supermarket.
The issue is that those food deserts don't have grocery stores: the closest thing within an hour without a car might be a corner gas station or a "dollar store" with a very limited selection of fresh food.
I live in a rural area. There is a box store near that has plenty and it’s not overly expensive but it’s also poor quality.
If you drive 45 minutes, you can find great quality, but it is expensive.
There’s no public transportation.
Many people buy frozen or canned because it lasts longer and add limited amounts of fresh.
People here also have gardens.
We have garden vegetables and herbs, citrus & fig trees, fresh fish and venison. Neighbor (across the bayou) has fresh eggs.
Trying strawberries this year and blackberries are pretty common in the woods or along back roads.
As healthy as all of that sounds, people also tend to cook everything in bacon fat and butter so….
Fruits and vegetables are common and cheap at supermarkets and grocery stores.
Food desserts are places where there are no such stores.
I live in Southern California, so prices are higher here than the national average (as they generally are on the coasts or in major cities). Looking at the weekly ad of the grocery store I go to, Roma tomatoes are $1 per pound (so about in line with what you're saying). A head of iceberg lettuce is 2 for $3. A lot of apples are $1 per pound. An organic cucumber is $1.25.
Food deserts, though, are areas there there are no nearby places to buy fresh food and where the median household income is a certain percentage of the poverty line. So typically these are poorer areas, both urban and rural. There are places to get food (like chips, snacks, other processed preserved type food), just not fresh food like fruits, vegetables, meat, etc.
No, but there are areas that are far away from a supermarket. That's what a food desert is.
No.
A "food desert" refers to a neighborhood that doesn't have a grocery store at all but only smaller stores like convenience stores that may not have a produce section or only have a very limited selection.
You're misinformed about what a food desert is. Please read this article from the USDA that will clear it up for you. Or even try Wikipedia's entry.
The produce department of your average American supermarket dwarfs the size of those in European markets and has abundance that you couldn't imagine. Cherries aren't a delicacy here, they're available 365 days of the year in many varieties from Bing to tart to Rainier.
Food desert:
A food desert is an area that has limited access to food that is plentiful, affordable, or nutritious.[1][2][3] In contrast, an area with greater access to supermarkets and vegetable shops with fresh foods may be called a food oasis.[4] The designation considers the type and the quality of food available to the population, in addition to the accessibility of the food through the size and the proximity of the food stores.[5]
In 2017, the United States Department of Agriculture reported that 39.5 million people or 12.8% of the population were living in low-income and low-access areas.[6] Of this number, 19 million people live in "food deserts", low-income census tracts that are more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas.[6][7]
Food deserts tend to be inhabited by low-income residents with inadequate access to transportation, which makes them less attractive markets for large supermarket chains.[8][9] These areas lack suppliers of fresh foods, such as meats, fruits, and vegetables. Instead, available foods are likely to be processed and high in sugar and fats, which are known contributors to obesity in the United States.[10]
Food deserts are about a lack of easy access to grocery stores, not what’s in the grocery stores. And they are a downstream issue of preferences - groceries close stores/dont enter the area because there isn’t enough demand for them. Thats a real issue to a degree because it makes it really difficult for those who do want to be healthy, but it’s ~mostly~ bad because it’s reflective of really unhealthy preferences.
It’s also like 6% of the population that lives in one, and they’re really not that far from grocery stores. E.g., the Wikipedia article on food deserts points to the town of Burlingame, Kansas as being 20.4 miles from the nearest true grocery store. That’s not, like, great, but it’s “only” a half hour drive away. If you have a car (90%+ of households) and a refrigerator (99.8% of households), you can make it work taking one trip a week lol
Fruits and vegetables are very common. You can even buy food at Wal-Mart! Imagine that!
I'm sure in some places it's less common. I live in a very urbanized area in an agricultural state so my view is probably skewed.
I've seen bison at Walmart
They got to shop too. Just don't get too close.
You're misunderstanding what "food desert" means
The issue is mostly that grocery stores aren't easily accessible in all areas. The small neighborhood markets either consolidated into large supermarkets or struggled to compete and went out of business. People with cars often have a choice of several grocery stores they can drive to, but anyone who's on foot may either walk several miles to the nearest shop or they'll go to a closer store that sells prepared or processed food but not fresh produce- Dollar General opens a new location every thirty seconds, typically in poor and underserved neighborhoods, but if I recall correctly they only recently started selling fruits and vegetables in a few pilot shops.
Then of course there are places in Indian Reservations where not only are grocery stores sparse, but the produce is absurdly expensive I've seen pictures of a basket of strawberries for sale at $20 (three hours of working at federal minimum wage!!!)
This has to be bait… in like every place in the US you can get just about anything same or next day delivered right to your door, groceries included lol
No.
Food deserts are when you do not have easy access to a Supermarket or Grocery Store. The only places you have to get food nearby are Gas Stations and Convenience Stores and these do not typically carry fresh fruit and vegetables or do not carry large varieties of them.
For example my town does not have a grocery store. We have 2 gas stations, one convenience store and a Dollar General. Dollar General has a small selection of fruit and vegetables but they get delivery once a week and typically sell out within two days. The others have lemons and limes for use with beer but not really any fruit or vegetables for eating. We have to travel 20 min to the next town to get to a small grocery store and have to travel 45 min to one of 4 towns to get to a supermarket.
As others have pointed out food desert doesn't mean lack of fruits and vegetables, it means lack of actual places to buy groceries or lack of easy access to the stores.
The areas you are referring to are so rural and empty that they don’t really have markets to begin with
Most Americans live very near to stores that sell an abundance of cheap and fresh produce
The problem is that our country is really really big, and we have a lot of “middle of nowhere” where there just isn’t economic incentive to build a supermarket in the first place
Question, what is a food desert to you?
Completely false for the entire US. Produce is cheap and extremely common at every super market and grocery store.
And yet food deserts still exist, because not community has access to supermarkets and grocery stores.
Food deserts are places where you can’t get those fruits and vegetables easily, but the reason they are deserts is because they are the exception. Most Americans have plenty of access to fruits and vegetables. You can live in the middle of Minnesota and still have regular, year round access to oranges from Florida, avocados from Mexico, and olives from California.
Food deserts are places without an easily accessible or any grocery store/super market. Typically in low income areas.
In most of the US, basic produce is in all food shops and mostly cheap depending on the type.
As someone who's grocery budget is 1/3 fruit and vegetables, no it's not true. All actual grocery stores have a produce section, and the larger ones will have a pretty large chunk of the store devoted to fresh fruit and vegetables. And it is reasonably priced considering we grow a lot of it within our own country. It only really begins to get pricey when you wish to purchase out of season items and they have to be imported.
A food desert is a localized issue where there are no grocery stores at all within a certain distance. Is it an issue worth addressing? Yes, but I wouldn't say it's exactly a common issue that affects the majority of Americans. Most Americans have access to fresh produce even in rural areas because most of us have access to a car.
I don’t think food deserts are real. Just something the media created. Plenty of fruits and veggies for everyone. I think our prices for fruits and veggies are less than yours. We pay around $0.50 to $5 per pound on average.
I see your flair says Oregon. You might check out your neighbor Nevada, especially a town such as Austin. That town is about 90 miles one way from a small, independent grocery store up in Battle Mountain, and it’s 68 miles in the other direction to a similar store down in Round Mountain. Austin has about two gas station convenience stores as sources of packaged food. If that’s not a food desert, I don’t know what is! (Source: I lived in Tonopah for almost six years and still live in rural Nevada now, but at least we have a Walmart in my town.)
Yeah, no. Come to a large urban city and you will find food deserts. My community became one after our neighborhood supermarket closed. The next closest market was a 20-30 minute drive away. Most of my neighbors didn’t have cars which meant that they had to take two buses to get to the market, which could be an hour or an hour and a half ONE WAY. They relied on corner stores that sold old meat and junk to survive.
We had the privilege to move to the suburbs. They didn’t.
Your comment is extremely privileged. Many black and brown communities are located in food deserts.
You say the black and brown communities are buying old meat and junk, I wonder why they are buying old meat and junk. Like, they are creating a demand for old meat and junk everytime they pay money for those things. They should expect more and have higher standards.
I think little corner store food markets are exactly like restaurants - they sell what sells. If people don’t buy their shitty food products then they go out of business and get replaced by a different business that sells better food products.
Maybe they should have higher standards and only patronize markets that sell higher quality food items? Put those shit sellers out of business, yes? Why can’t they have higher standards?
No. Every single supermarket has loads of fresh produce so that some of those goods will spoil before they can all be purchased. They're restocked weekly. They're also relatively inexpensive as the US produces massive amounts of it and imports out-of-season produce from neighbors like Mexico. Most everyone lives within convenient (for them) travel distances to numerous places with fresh produce.
There are places, generally within poorer urban areas, where a grocery store is a few miles away and people will call this a "food desert". For most people this is a non-issue because we have vehicles. Others use public transit (usually buses), bicycles, and scooters. For some people it's harder because walking and public transit take more time and limit how much you can carry. Allegedly, I live in a food desert but there are a dozen places within a 5 minute drive of my home.
In short, a food dessert is an area where some poorer people might have a difficult time conveniently accessing the wide variety of fresh whole foods common to nearly everyone else. The problem is, at best, overstated.
Not true at all. Fresh fruits and veggies are plentiful at supermarkets. Food deserts exist, but a relatively small population lives in them. As someone else mentioned, the problem with these areas is that there aren't any supermarkets available to buy fresh food. Urban food desserts tend to only have corner groceries, which are basically just convenience stores, while rural food deserts tend to only have dollar stores (Dollar General, Family Dollar).
Food deserts are areas that may have a corner convenience store, but no grocery store. Convenience stores in cities generally do not stock fresh fruits/vegetables.
A common misconception about them is that there are no grocery stores in food deserts thus people there consume no fresh fruits. Research actually shows it’s the other way around. There are food deserts because the people there don’t buy fresh fruits etc, so noone has an incentive to sell them.
Absolute myth. I’m not sure how this notion gets started. Remember Europeans are often just as ignorant about America as Americans are ignorant about Europe.
Common and cheap
A food dessert does not refer to an area where produce is highly expensive it refers to areas where supermarkets are scarce and less well stocked
It is also never used and the sole factor in why that area has nutritional issues.
You would know this if you bothered to look it up rather than rush to make a reddit post
The U.S. is one of the top agricultural producers in the world. We have plenty of access to the actual fruit and vegetables but some places don’t have grocery stores to sell them at, and we don’t really do farmers markets the same way Europe does.
Is it true that fruits and vegetables are uncommon in supermarkets and the ones that are there are very expensive?
No.
This is the first aisle of most Supermarkets
The reason you hear that is that your European brethren go into 7-11s and think those are our supermarkets, when really those are just convenience stores.
A supermarket has everything. A "food desert" is a place that's a long way from a supermarket. People with limited transportation options are left with only small stores to shop at, with little selection, and seldom anything like fresh fruits and vegetables.
The desert part is how hard groceries are to access. Grocery stores may not be near you at all. A lot of places do not have the bodega or grocery on your walk home setup like European cities do.
Imagine you have no car or scooter and the closest grocery is 20min away by car.
20min away by car is anywhere from ~8miles away from you if it’s a city or even suburb at 25mph, to ~16.7miles away from you if your 20min drive is on a 50mph highway.
Let’s say average bicycle speed is ~10mph for a normal person so in the suburb that bike ride might be 48min.
Good luck bicycling on a highway at all but on a highway route a bike ride would take 1hr 40min.
And how much can you carry in a bike?
Now if you re bussing? That 20min drive becomes 45min+ depending on the bus schedule. But wait, you gotta wait for it in the way back too so your trip might take hours. And again, how much can you carry? In college living in a city either no money, I used a suitcase to transfer groceries on the bus.
Walking? Let’s say a brisk ~3mph for an average person. That 20 min suburb drive becomes 2hrs 40min. Again good luck walking on a highway, it’s super dangerous. But that becomes 5hrs 30min. And how much can you carry?
It’s no wonder people turn to convenience stores and gas stations which don’t stock full groceries. Fruit and veg if they exist at all at convenience stores is also often pricier than at a grocery.
Holy SHIT now other countries think we don't have fruits and veggies in our markets? Where the FUCK do these rumors come from?
LOL
Expensive is a relative term. They are usually the cheapest food items to buy here. There has never been a lack of fruit or vegetable in any place I have shopped. Maybe different in a remote part of Alaska or Hawaii. My grocery store has fruit and veggies sourced from other parts of the world depending on the season. So it shouldn’t be any extra challenge to distribute them throughout the nation.
Edit: i’ll add that its possible there are some kinds that are popular in other parts of the world that are not popular here so you wouldn’t find here because there is no market for it. That is true everywhere though.
You're misunderstanding what a food desert is. Read up on what it means, and who it affects, then get back to us. You'll find it has nothing to do with the cost of healthy foods in supermarkets. Our supermarkets have just as big a selection as yours, if not bigger.
Overall, no one is going broke because of the price of vegetables.
But, yeah, there are areas that don't have supermarkets in walking distance, you may have to drive a bit. How much you have to travel before you're in a "food desert" is debatable. And...
This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. If you offer products and people don't buy them, you lose money and go out of business. If the products aren't there, people can't buy them.
Which of those two things (or what combination) are happening is a politically divisive discussion.
My personal opinion is that we need to bring cooking classes back to schools. Assuming people will pick it up outside of school has become a fallacy.
I think you've misunderstood what a food desert is.
Every super market is going to have fruits and vegetables in abundance, as long as they're in season (and some year round even out of season).
Food deserts don't have local supermarkets or grocery stores. They'll have small stores with processed, prepackaged foods but nothing fresh. And sometimes those will be the only options around.
The town I grew up in didn't have a supermarket when I was growing up until I was about 15/16. We had a small corner store that sold canned foods, so lots of folks ate canned vegetables and prepackaged foods. My family mostly grew our own and hunted and fished but for the families that didn't do that they ate what they had available. That's a food desert.
The vast majority of Americans have access to a much bigger choice of grocery stores and items (including produce) than any other people in the world.
America is the ultimate consumers paradise.
There are exceptions though.
The problem is that convenience stores, superettes, pharmacies, and gas stations tend to favor packaged foods to varying extents and charge a premium compared to full (super)markets, especially for fresh foods.
In remote locations this can happen, however its usually an issue with inner cities that may also have a population that is not well educated on the impact of a healthy diet.
These folks have never seen a farm, never had direct access to a full grocery store with a massive fruit and veggie isle. They have access to convenience stores and other food outlets, but this is mainly processed boxed and canned food. Other than that its fast food restaurants. When you grow up this way, you rarely have a desire to order a Caesar salad much less go find a store with veggies to do a chicken stir fry.
A lot of fruits & vegetables sit between $1 and $3 per pound even today. But the ones that used to be under $1 are now in that range, and many that used to be in that range are now $4 and up. You can pay $9 for a pound of grapes if you're not careful where you buy it. You'll probably still pay $4+ for most of the year even if you are careful. I've seen broccoli climb that high, if not lately. Even lowly cabbage is creeping toward $1 per pound, and I've seen potatoes exceed it at times (though, again, not right this moment as of this writing).
Fresh food gets less and less affordable by the year... and soon by the month. Even oranges sold by weight often come out to $1 per individual fruit, regardless. I'm lucky to get a dozen apples for $4... if they're small.
It's not THAT much more than what you see around you, from the sound of it. But, keep in mind, our wages have stagnated for almost 50 years at this point. We're functionally not making any more money overall than we did 30 years ago, but 30 years of natural (and unnatural) inflation has happened since then. Oh, and we also have to pay a lot more for housing thanks to the shortage from poor planning & regulation, and vastly more for healthcare. And we're still taxed not that much less than you are, despite not getting that healthcare most of you do.
So, produce - fresh food in general - is slightly more expensive, but our bills are much higher and our income much lower - or, rather, hasn't gone anywhere in over a generation. So the trouble affording fresh food is about more than just the price.
Oh, and unless we're going to eat just the produce, and eat it raw, we have to have time to prepare that fresh food. Which we don't, because we're all working longer hours than ever before, for less money.
The food squeeze is real. It's just more complex than an extra 50 cents for carrots.
No.
Fruits and vegetables are easily available at any supermarket in America at affordable prices. I could go in with just a few dollars and buy plenty of fruits and vegetables for cheap.
The issue with "food deserts" isn't that supermarkets don't have fruits and vegetables available, it's that there are areas without ANY supermarkets at all, and the only stores that are present are convenience stores, liquor stores, and dollar stores. . .none of which normally carry fresh produce.
The issue comes down to issues of poverty, urban planning, and transportation. . .as poorer neighborhoods (often with populations without cars that have to rely on public transportation) tend to be further from supermarkets and public transportation often is quite limited and makes getting to a supermarket difficult without a car.
Food deserts occur in poor urban and rural neighborhoods. Suburbs and affluent areas have abundant fresh fruits and vegetables and most have Farmer's Markets when its brought in fresh from the farm.
Nope never seen a fruit even though we are one of the biggest agricultural countries in the world.
Real grocery stores carry vegetables and fruits. They're cheap but not as cheap as they could be. "Healthier" versions of food are more expensive, however. Things that are low fat, low calorie, organic, and sugar free tend cost more and are smaller in portion sizes. Things that are high in fat, calories, carbohydrates, and sugar are sold in bulk and are more easily accessible and have a longer shelf- life.
I’ve never experienced a food dessert in NJ but we are densely populated with millions of people. I have many places to buy fruits and vegetables from including supermarkets, specialty shops, farmers markets and farm stands.
A food desert means that a full supermarket is not located in a certain area. These tend to be poorer areas where people also lack transportation options. It is difficult for them to get to a real grocery store.
No. It’s areas without grocery stores. Typically these are very high crime areas where the grocery stores will be driven out of business by repeated theft and vandalism or arson.
Where I live fruit and vegetables are plenty and not expensive. And farmers markets with fresh produce all the times
All grocery stores are full of fresh fruits and vegetables. It is true that there are some food deserts in very poor neighborhoods that lack access to grocery stores with fresh produce, but that’s not common.
Not sure exactly how common, but the fact that there is no product that contains non-starchy, non-lettuce veggies in a zero-preparation, easily consumable, delicious format means that everywhere is a food desert to me. Gotta go through the hassle of buy, prep, cook. There are no veggie powders that have been evaluated for accuracy of labeling by the FDA. It’s a travesty.
Fresh, good quality yes. Plenty of canned. A decent variety of frozen.
Quite expensive, especially if out of season. Not everyone has access to farmers markets either.
It’s also a storage thing. We don’t, as a rule, shop daily for that nights dinner. So fresh stuff can go bad after a week or so.
Food deserts mean there is no regular size grocery store in the area. There might be a smaller neighborhood market, but they tend to carry little to no fresh produce. If they do carry any, it will be more expensive than in a grocery store.
Many of the basic fresh fruit and veggies are not particularly expensive in regular size grocery stores especially if buying items that are in season.
only in certain areas. I'd say I'm in the opposite. it's a 15 minute drive to work and I pass 4 large grocery stores. One of which is known to sell rotting produce but the rest are good.
Not cheap I mean compared to the calories they provide, poor people need to fill up on cheap carbs
If there's something America isn't lacking, it's food.
A food desert means there's no supermarket around within a radius decided by some office somewhere. Most of these are in very rural parts of the country. In these areas your closest neighbor can be a 10 minute drive.
That being said, the vast majority of supermarkets are fully stocked with fruits and vegetables. In terms of seasonal items, we have become very good at importing things from all over all year round. For example, berries. You can find strawberries all year round, taste and price goes up and down but they're available. Seasonal items do taste better and are more plentiful in season.
Apples can be found all year round and are always in season. Tomatos, lettuce, onion, cucumber, garlic, potato, (avocado), carrots and many items can always be found.
Some very unique fruits are hard to source but if you're near a big city you can find anything for a price.
Costco, a store chain that sells things in bulk/large amounts always has excellent produce.
there are places in cities that don't have grocers in the neighborhood, so the closest place to get actual food is blocks away, and a lot of people in cities don't have a car. but to get to these places requires them to take a train and two busses because they can't walk home with a shit ton of food.
so even in places where you look at a map and say "oh this is only a 10 minute drive?" it might take an hour for someone without a car to get there and get back, not including shopping time. its insane.
so people in these places have bodegas and convenience stores, and those places mostly have foods that are full of preservatives, and the fresh food they DO offer can get old and bad real quick.
oh yeah, AND you have to account for transporting the fresh food into the city or out into the boonies. it makes the food cost more to the grocer, who then passes that cost to the customers. super markets and chains can do that because of the volume, but small independent stores don't have that kind of cash.
so the people int hese communities suffer. they don't get fresh food, they don't get healthier options even though they want it. people don't open small grocers because of the cost of food, rent, the fact that the neighborhoods are usually low income, and crime BECAUSE of the low income. among other reasons.
like i said, its insane. there are people who are trying to set up coops and food deliveries into food deserts, but it costs a lot and non-profits can't supply everyone you know?
Common and cheap. I’ve never had an issue buying fresh vegetables and they were always priced what I would say as fairly
Depends on where you are. For some communities, it’s an unfortunate reality. I think part of the problem may be an internal control issue. It takes resources to manage a produce section of a grocery store because unsold fruits and vegetables go bad, and that’s the sort of thing that can drive up inventory costs (I’m not an expert on this subject, FYI, so hopefully someone will correct me where I’m wrong). So, if you have a grocery store in a poor community, you’re incentivized to keep costs low because you’re not bringing in a ton of revenue. Know what doesn’t go bad as fast as produce? Snack cakes, canned goods, and processed stuff that you get in boxes. Add to that the fact that this stuff doesn’t take a lot of know-how, effort, money, or time to make. So people in poorer communities tend to favor those products over actual vegetables (because you may have, for instance, a single parent working two jobs, who has, maybe, 30 minutes to feed his or her kids?).
Case in point: There’s a Food Depot right up the road from me. The produce department is about the size of my living room and has just the bare essentials, and the rest of the store is rows upon rows of snack cakes, cans of soup, ketchup, and boxed mashed potatoes. (And other stuff. I’m exaggerating a little, but still. Shit’s bad, yo.)
For Americans with a car getting to a store or farmer's market that sells fresh fruits and vegetables is not a big issue. Some things are always pretty cheap while others might be kind of pricey except certain times of year. Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables are widely available.
If you do not have a car then food deserts become an issue. A regular grocery store might not be very near you. The time and cost of traveling to a store might be prohibitive. If you are low income without transportation getting to a store can be challenging.
If you have enough money you can order canned vegetables or produce boxes from online companies that will be delivered to your home. This can be more expensive than going to a store.
Some people grow their own vegetables in a backyard garden. Two of my neighbors have big vegetable gardens.
Even the most remote mountain town PR has a supermarket
No clue where you got that, most big stores will at least sell canned veggies.
Now finding a store with good veggies and fruit may be hard, but chances are there's one nearby.
Myths and miperceptions. Every supermarket has a produce section. What it really is is that there are certain areas where residents don't have supermarkets within a certain distance of their homes...that's what makes a food desert. Those who live in these deserts with no car, a disability, or no online access have more difficulty procuring groceries.
Quality of a store's produce varies: a Walmart Supercenter may not be as fresh as a Giant or Kroger, so someone may travel further for fresher, or less expensive. Or they just do without and shop at a dollar store that doesn't have produce. Maybe someone's lucky and they live near a farm, farmer's market or a neighbor that sells vegetables they've grown. Often they're cheaper than a store.
As for expense, here's what's in a typical produce aisle at a supermarket near me. You be the judge.
I read one article that claimed food deserts are really 'information deserts'. It said that people in those areas have access to fruits and vegetables, but choose not to eat them because they don't understand what foods were healthy vs unhealthy, due to not having been taught that kind of thing in school.
Food deserts are areas without a nearby supermarket, like within a few miles. Supermarkets carry a full assortment of fruits and vegetables, almost certainly more that most Euro country ones would carry.
Supermarkets always have them. Neighborhoods don't always have supermarkets. Sometimes the only source of food in a neighborhood is a gas station selling chips, candy, soda, and a few microwaveable foods.
They're common and cheap.
The issue with "food deserts" is that there are no supermarkets. You might have places like convenience or dollar stores, which don't typically sell fresh produce.