Letters to the Editor
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This goes beyond access
What makes the issue of getting good food to people without easy access to fresh --- let along organic --- fruits and veggies doubly difficult is how little cooking people do in this country since the rise of fast food. A lot of people in urban areas (and, especially, younger folks on their own who have never really had to create and live on a budget) seem to think that the cheapest way to eat is fast food, or perhaps TV dinners. While that may be the case on a pure calories-per-dollar calculation, it only holds if you accept the proposition that more calories are always better. My understanding is that the nutritional problems of the urban poor in this country are rarely not having enough calories to subsist on; it's having little nutritional value connected with the calories they do get. And it is absolutely possible to eat an abundant and healthful diet for MUCH less money than one would spend on, say, two reasonably filling fast food meals per day. That healthful diet, though, bears little resemblance to what you're getting from the fast food places. To eat cheaply and healthfully, you're talking buying lots of whole grains and legumes in bulk, the sorts of fruits and vegetables that are really cheap and abundant in season (corn, carrots, berries, and zucchini in summer; greens, sweet potatoes, and squash in the winter), and if you're not vegetarian, eggs and a limited amount of meat that is used thoroughly (whole chickens that can make several meals if you make stock out of the bones after roasting, for example).
People don't have much connection to their food these days. I think there are a number of factors at work here --- the decline of agrarian lifestyles, the time crunch of long commutes and long hours, and, yes, the availability issue this article highlights so well are all among them. One of the biggest, though, is that cooking as a basic skill is in great decline, and without that skill, it's difficult or impossible to eat a diet that is both cheap and healthy. The dichotomy isn't really, as an earlier writer posited, between a $5 mango from Whole Foods and an apple from the bodega (and for the record, I know I've paid more for apples or bananas from corner stores than I've paid for mangoes from Whole Foods, though I used to get mangoes so cheaply at the Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta that I can't bring myself to buy mangoes on a regular basis now that I've moved up north). It's between a Big Mac and something you cook yourself. CSAs --- the relationships between independent farmers and consumers mentioned in the article --- are a great start; making cooking the universal skill it used to be would be another big step.
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Another Example of Institutionalized Racism
My Mexican-American Los Angeles neighborhood does indeed have fewer organic and "whole food" offerings than the ritzier neighbhorhoods, but to say that we don't cook or aren't interested in healthy choices is offensive and ridiculous. A key difference is the way we approach making a meal. Often buying groceries is more than an "in and out" affair. In addition to the florescent-lit megaliths which stock aisles upon aisles of sugar and starch, there is a bounty of small privately owned stores. In preparing a menu, many people in the neighborhood will hit up not only the huge grocery mart, but a produce stand, a bakery, and a corner bodega.
The Mexican diet is known for its inclusion of fresh fruits and vegetables, and it is a blessing that we Southern Californians have easier access to such foods than our northern compatriots.
Luckily capitalism seems to be favoring our neighborhood and those like it, regardless of government intervention. To compete with our friendly bodegas, the chain stores are now carrying soy milk, decent (if not organic) produce, and traditional ethnic spices. I have a feeling many people would react with surprise to find that the 5-dollar papaya they bought at Whole Foods is vending for 2 for a dollar in my part of town.
It is important to remember that it's the white folks who came up with microwaves, tv dinners, and potatoes=vegetables, while the Mexicans were busy feasting on nopales, papaya, and agave.
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RE: The South Central Community Garden
To address the concerns that many have been voicing regarding the South Central garden, I strongly suggest doing a bit more research online. The situation there is not nearly as simple as a "greedy developer" versus the earnest gardeners. While I was inclined to think so at first (with so much evidence of such greediness taking place everyday, how could I not) the truth is much more complicated and frustrating. Unpaid rent, blatant racism (not of the variety one would assume), and grand standing politicians make the plot a bit more intricate.
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Excuses, excuses
"Even when large retailers are eyeing an urban locale, nuts-and-bolts concerns such as complex zoning laws, high land prices and few available lots" -- this is a bogus argument. Ever been to a seriously depressed inner-city neighborhood, especially one that's predominantly African American? The first things you notice are the vacant lots and empty storefronts, the wholesale abandonment of the neighborhood rather than investment in it. There is no scarcity of available commercial-zoned land in our cities' food deserts. There is an abundance of it, much of it, I'd wager, available for a song. And just one affordably priced supermarket in the middle of one of these food deserts would pull customers from as far as two or three miles away, so ability to turn a profit is not an issue; such a store would do staggering volume, much greater than a comparable store in an affluent neighborhood thick with supermarkets, simply because of the absence of competition.
No, these are not the reasons why large supermarket chains are not situating stores in inner-city neighborhoods. The only legitimate reason I can think of is fear of crime. I can think of many illegitimate reasons, but they would not reflect well on the supermarket operators.
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Re; South Central Community Garden
Allison,
I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the facts on the South Central Community Garden and so did a search online as you recommended and it seems that, very broadly, the history is that the community turned abandonded land into something worthwhile and very meaningful for the area and provided food for below-poverty-line families and now that the land has become valuable, the developer who was paid $4.5 million for the city and bought it back for $5 million years later, wants it back. Good article here http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3200&IssueNum=138
And the developer seems like a nice chap all round: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/13/124849/669
"[Landowner Ralph] Horowitz noted that the farmers were squatting on land zoned for warehouses and factories. The landowner said in a telephone interview that he was paying $25,000 to $30,000 a month in mortgage and other land costs.
"We've made, in the last three years, enough of a donation to those farmers," he said. "I just want my land back."
Horowitz accused the farmers of ingratitude, saying they had sued him and their supporters had picketed his home and office.
"I feel that the gardeners have been on the land for 14 years, almost 15 years for free. After 15 years, you say thank you," he said."
If there's something I am missing in all of this, I am happy to be educated otherwise. Just seems like a tragedy to me to bulldoze a thriving urban garden, the biggest in the country for a Wal-Mart warehouse. Sigh.