Reply to Why is there a shortage of grocery stores and fresh food options in Wards 7 and 8?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]It is also very interesting that relatively poor Hispanic/Asian/Caribbean communities don't suffer from 'food desserts'. I lived in one, but there was plenty of ultra cheap produce around. Food desserts are much more nuanced that poor/rich.[/quote]

I imagine that some sociologist/anthropologist has analyzed this, but my guess is that the history of slavery in this country has a lot to do with the food choices that multi-generationally poor AA populations make.  Enslaved people were given the leftovers of the available food in the antebellum South---which is why historic "soul food" is things like chitlins (pig entrails)---plus, southern country cooking  (for both white and black populations) deals with vegetables by either breading and frying them (okra, squash), boiling them in fatback lard until they are limp (collards and green beans), or combining them with tons of butter and sugar (sweet potatoes). and then serving the foregoing with tasty but not nutritionally substantive carbs such as mac n cheese or biscuits.  Those eating habits were carried out of the South during the great migration.  When you never had the healthiest habits to begin with---shifting into processed foods and sugary soft drinks is a natural shift.

Poor immigrants from tropical climates grew up with a ready availability of fresh fruit.  I help out with a local homeless shelter, and it is noticeable how the Latino and Asian clients stock up on the bananas first.[/quote]

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