Letters to the Editor
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Whole Foods
I think you rank on Whole Foods undeservedly: I live dead center in a Dominican neighborhood in upper Manhattan (207th Street)- we often schlep to Whole Foods for the obvious reasons (59th Street) - including their prices - we've compared the price of veggies and fruit to our local C-Town and Whole Foods is very competitive. Their high-end meats are expensive, but no one needs $19 a pound steak to stay healthy. As to the rest of the article, I think the problem is less the availability of fresh foods and more the proliference of fast foods - I see too many people lined up in McDonalds - and lots of them are overweight, if a visual confirmation means anything. I also think a big part of the problem is ignorance: how many times have I seen junk food paid for with food stamps (not that they're stamps anymore)? I see what my neighbors eat and a lot of it is not healthy. We have a green market on Saturday mornings on Isham Street (all locally grown foods) - and the usual (white) suspects are out there buying up the fresh goodies, while many of my Dominican neighbors seem uninterested - if my empirical input is worth a dime.