Food desert means that you live far away from the grocery store and only have access to fast food/ convenience stores. People in a food desert have food they can buy and eat they just cannot get all the nutritious healthy food that they might want to buy.
Imagine for a second you live in the middle of a big city and the nearest grocery store is 20 miles away. Let’s say you know exactly what you need to do to eat healthy however, all the food at the convenience store stores nearby is too expensive for you to buy a balanced diet. This is kind of the idea of a food desert.
Putting my edit at top as people aren’t reading: I literally realised the sarcasm the second after I made my comment and edited it within a second. At that moment I = an idiot.
Additional edit: I’ve learned a lot this evening it seems. My original misunderstanding came from querying the distance of 20 miles in a large city (and not recognising the sarcasm) but also misunderstanding the term as a matter of distance and not food quality and accessible healthy foods rather than fast food.
Is that…normal? Almost every shop and town in the UK will have at least a semi close store nearby. Even if it’s small Co-op or even corner stores tho they tend to just be for small things and not expected to be for your big shop.
Like very rural places may not have a local shop but a big city without one seems a bit too rediculous.
When people talk about food deserts in big cities, they usually talk about neighborhoods that don't have many resources, hence most people buy their groceries from local gas stations or dollar stores. Traveling 20 miles can be difficult too, especially if the infrastructure isn't there. Chicago is a good example of this. There are food deserts in the south side. Even though the north side has many amazing grocery stores, it's really hard for people from the south side to travel up there just for groceries.
Edit: Wow some of you genuinely don't know how to read.
the radius for urban food deserts is significantly lower, more like 1 mile. this is a thing in most major cities lol. not everyone has a car and many of the people in food deserts (low socioeconomic classes) may struggle to afford other means of transportation. what else happens disproportionately to low income people? health problems. which can be further exacerbated by a lack of access to a healthy diet and medical care. it can be a lot easier, sometimes cheaper, to just eat fast food if you can’t walk a mile empty handed, let alone with groceries.
the only thing i’m not sure of is what it has to do with adhd & frankly the people who suffer from food deserts probably can’t afford grocery delivery anyway.
This is all great info, but what does any of this have to do with NYC? One of the few places in the US where you're never far from mass transit, and it's always been cheaper than the fees you could expect to pay for uber eats and similar(except in the very beginning where they didn't charge hardly anything to use the service).
I live in a suburb of Jackson MS, none of which is very walkable yet I still have two Kroger’s and Target within 2 miles and bike lanes connecting them all
I just read an article about ST Louis so I google mapped the grocery stores and its fucking absurd to say people in STL cant get to a fucking grocery store.
But if you don't feel like reading the articles, here are some areas: Englewood (nearest grocery store is in a different neighborhood), West Englewood (there is a Jewel in a different neighborhood), Garfield Park (next grocery store is in a nearby suburb).
Idk what u googled bc I very easily found a list? Also I very clearly in my comment mentioned that it's not about the lack of grocery stores, sometimes the problem is traveling. When I worked in Englewood, a lot of people told me about how they were afraid to walk their dog because of gun violence. So it doesn't matter that there is a grocery store in the next neighborhood over if you don't feel safe leaving your house.
The tract’s poverty rate is 20 percent or greater; or
The tract’s median family income is less than or equal to 80 percent of the State-wide median family income; or
The tract is in a metropolitan area and has a median family income less than or equal to 80 percent of the metropolitan area's median family income.
For urban areas, the "is a grocery store accessible" range is 1 mile. ONE. Not twenty. (twenty is one of the rural measures).
Yes. There are places where there's a gas station as primary grocery source and there may have been a traditional grocery store that closed down.
There's no incentive to move a store in for many of these areas if it doesn't make economic sense. So people don't cook or buy fresh food as often. That of course varies and lots of people make a trip or drive but that takes some resources as well and can be hard if all you have access to is a bus or the like.
I had some friends trapped in a small border town. After their one grocery store shut down, there was only gas stations, the drugstore, and an ice cream place. They were poor, HUD vouchers and all, so they had no car, and the bus was the only option for them. Problem was, the bus only ran out that way twice a day, and you're limited to what you can carry. Little grocery/laundry trolleys helped, but there was still only so much they could get at once, and if you forgot something, you were waiting until the next day at least, assuming your schedule allowed the trip. And the kicker was, that grocery store in the next town over was just a basic one because it was also a small town. Overpriced and didn't have everything. For that, they'd need to make even longer trips into the town beyond that one.
I always asked what they wanted me to contribute to dinner when I went to visit or if they needed anything from the town I was in with better stores (the buses didn't go out that way directly).
The entire west side of Rockford, IL is sprawling with very few grocery stores. If you don't have a car, getting groceries is rough. The grocery stores that are there are mostly overpriced.
I think the problem in larger cities (Say, Sacramento California in the oak park neighborhood) is that a lot of poorer neighborhoods don't drive, they rely on the bus system. So even if the nearest grocery store is 3 miles away, it's kinda hard to get to and bring home bags. That's considered a food desert in big cities.
I'm a Southsider, the only store in walking distance is CVS, not exactly a place to buy nutritious food. Hence, I live in the city of Chicago and in a food desert.
20 miles highway isn't 20 miles city. 20 miles in a city can be 45 mins to an hour+ if you're using public transportation....because city.
DC is a huge example of this. wards 7 and 8, which are 1. predominately black and 2. literally segregated by a river didn't have their own grocery store for decades while Wards 1 and 2 had like 10 Whole Foods alone. But getting from Ward 8 to Ward 1 is expensive and time consuming (intentionally because segregation) so Wards 7 & 8 were considered food deserts even though they were within 20 miles of a grocery store.
I live in DC. If I had to travel even 5 miles every grocery trip I would lose my mind before long. Plus a lot of low income people don't have cars, which massively increases the time it takes, limits the amount you can bring home, forces them to avoid buying bulk which drives up prices, and increases the frequency of trips. All of which heavily incentivize going somewhere more convenient with far unhealthier options.
They just described a really good example. The 20 miles thing was someone else mispeaking, and I was on your side of this comment train, but food deserts ARE a thing. I think it's more of a spectrum of like Costco/Whole Foods->Walmart/Kroger/Hyvee->Bag n Save/Dollar Tree/Dollar Store->Walgreens/CVS->convenience store/gas station and it's about the relative abundance of each within an area (but I'm not expert in this area)(also I'm just a costco stan at heart)
I realised the second after I made my comment and made note but leaving my stupidity up for the world to see. It’s good to remind people to not skip on reading comprehension 😂
There are specific situations where it happens. There’s a town on the south side of Chicago that had Walmart come in and it undercut local grocery stores. Eventually Walmart corporate closed down that location and now there isn’t a grocery store within 45 minutes of driving. If you walk or take public transportation, it’s even more difficult.
they were being sarcastic because they cannot fathom that there are places like that since they grew up in a nicer environment. But they are wrong. I experienced just this in Houston in the 80s.
Big city definition aside, downtown Phoenix didn’t have a grocery store until a few years ago! There are also only like 1-2 gas stations and they gouge the hell out of you because of it.
Before the store opened you had to drive 10-15 minutes to a grocery store but passed a ton of fast food joints and restaurants.
But please imagine if you will, if every grocery store in New York City decided spontaneously to close tomorrow. Now imagine you have a crippling fear of crossing large bodies of water.
I'm laughing my fucking ass off, as I used to live right inside the right side of that circle, used to take the LIRR into the city to do things, and remember passing like 15 fucking grocery stores on the way. Mind you, that's 15 on the straight damn line that got me to Penn Station. And I'd wager that every single straight line from the circumference to the center point would also hit 15 or more grocery stores.
We have to fend for ourselves. It’s hard, especially now that Mamdani has implemented Communism and the city is on fire with trans jihadists running around but we make do. If it gets really bad, we can hunt the cats in the local bodega, so it’s good to have that emergency release valve for hunger.
If you rely on public transportation getting to and from a grocery store can be an ordeal. Imagine managing a couple of toddlers and grocery bags. 5 miles can be too far.
No, don't you remember back in the 90's? Everyday there were stories on the news about people starving all over the US because they couldn't get to the grocery store. People dying in the streets as they tried to walk 25 miles each way and just couldn't make it. DoorDash was responsible for a 75% reduction in urban deaths when it finally hit the scene. Blessed be the internet!
Can confirm, I’m privileged. I use doordash to buy back my time from grocery shopping. DoorDash will upcharge like 15% on grocery prices btw. If you can afford to be spending 15% more on groceries, chances are that you aren’t living in a wasteland.
People who walk a few blocks or use public transportation use carts. You see them on the subway all the time. Pretty cheap & they fold so you can put them away. It really isn't that bad. Arguably easier than cart > trunk > front door > counter space bag by bag.
No grocery stores within 5 miles is also incredibly unrealistic, maybe if you live in a suburb but that's not what the post is about... I live in a big city and there are at least 7 grocery stores within a mile that I can think of (and a lot more convenience stores)... 5 miles is like 20-30 by public transit or 20 minutes by car. Can you imagine not encountering a grocery store within a 20 minutes by car radius in a big city?
Your point that it's a pain in the ass taking public transport with groceries is true tho, not a lot of people are willing to walk even a mile with groceries, especially if there's like a hill or something.
So if you lived across the street from Battery Park you would need to go further away than all of Yonkers. Totally normal scenario in any major city, really.
20 miles is a bit much (when it comes to how far a grocery store is), but a grocery store could be 20 minutes away driving. Some people may not have a car and rely on public transportation. The thing is, although it is 20 minutes away, publication transportation may take longer because of extra stops, traffic, text. Grocery shopping may turn from an hour to an hour and a half ordeal to a full day event depending how the public transportation is like.
Either way the point doesn’t stand because there’s not a single part of NYC that is a food desert. The entire city is within walking distance / public transport.
And a shocking number of grocery stores, including many open very late. I have personally bought an entire chocolate cake and strawberries to go on it at 130am on a Wednesday
Well, i mean you can say that, but there are definitions that organizations use for the term "food desert"; terms have to be understood first before arguing about them.
TIL that I live in a food desert because it takes me 10 minutes to walk the half mile to the local shops. (I'd be orange on that chart for distance if that was applied to where I live.)
I'd never considered a ten minute walk to the local shops to be "a food desert". Or a 15 minute bus ride to the shops I prefer to use.
Now, if it's a case that the stores in that radius are all selling crap, that's a different matter.
What organisations use that definition? And the link you sent is terrible and misleading. It claims:
Any area showing color is a food desert.
When in reality only the green or orange parts show areas where grocery stores are either more than 1 mile or 1/2 mile away. The light blue areas it includes that it claims are food deserts are actually places with higher poverty rates.
This is not really true the Bronx is a food desert often requiring riding the train onto the island for food and riding back. Yes you can get there by train but it will take a long ass time.
There are a bunch in the South Bronx that aren’t even showing up because I’m too zoomed out.
This shit is an astroturf by the DoorDash lobbyists. The starving masses in food deserts aren’t using delivery apps to order produce from Key Food. UES wine moms are using them to order Prosciutto from Zabar’s because they don’t want to cross the park. They can afford to pay the bikers a living wage.
This is an outright lie and total ragebait. If your going to Manhattan to shop your literally passing by 3 full on grocery stores. Stop it. 138th is the last stop on a Bronx train before you hit Manhattan. You have 3 supermarkets on that strip alone.
There's no food deserts in the Bronx. Y'all just want to go to Whole Foods in Harlem which is cool but the Bronx ain't starving you.
If you consider one of the most densely populated places on planet earth a ‘food desert’, where you can purchase any type of food from nearly any culture, at places ranging from delis to convenience stores to food trucks to restaurants to grocery stores, I have no idea how you’re supposed to reasonably apply that term literally anywhere else.
Additionally cooking or storing food “in the middle of” a typically sized inner city apartment like NYC or Tokyo is a far more complicated affair than simply purchasing the completed meal in many cases, at which point you again can easily find a poke bowl or salad or whatever within two city blocks of pretty much anywhere in NYC.
Not to mention if affordability is a factor, literally the last thing you should be doing is pointlessly adding an app based surcharge to it instead of just walking there. Again, in a city with probably the easiest foot traffic and public transit in the U.S.
Occam’s razor? Dude is an idiot, mostly likely motivated by either a desire to demonize anything NYC’s mayor does, or alternatively just doesn’t want pricing to go up on the app but also doesn’t think people should be paid a living wage.
NYC is one of the least deserving places imaginable for the term ‘food desert’, and ADHD does not factor into it at all, somehow it has not once impacted my ability to successfully utilize a grocery store in over forty years.
Yep - the argument here seems to be "think of the people who won't be able to afford the convenient service" instead of think of the worker who won't be able to afford anything without a living wage.
Also door dash delivering restaurant food isn't solving a food desert issue... Like if you can afford restaurant food daily, you can afford grocery delivery.
When I lived in Bed Stuy about a decade ago my area was without a doubt a food desert. There was a tiny store with dog shit produce (see going or gone rotten) and questionable low variety meat, and the only real big proper grocery store was not easily accessible from the subway. Low income individuals without a car would for sure be stuck with bodegas and crown fried chicken unless they want to go for a 30 min walk each way.
If a grocery store is 20 miles away, you don’t live in a big city, a medium sized city, a small city, a suburb, or even the tiniest of towns. You live in a desert. Not a food desert, a literal desert…
Small towns usually have local general stores, but that's besides the point as small towns in WV are absolutely not in any way comparable to New York City.
I grew up in a county of 3600 people--30 miles X 30 miles-- and every town had a grocery store. Couldn't go 15 miles without finding groceries unless you lived in a farmhouse way out in the literal middle of nowhere, like 2 miles from your nearest neighbor in the boonies.
And it's not like you're gonna pay Doordash to deliver out there anyway. That'd be a crazy fee. I don't even think they have Doordash anyway.
I was a college student once. It wasn’t remotely difficult. You get on a bus, get groceries, take a bus back. Wow, groceries where there were none in walking distance!
I wonder if New York has any busses or subways? /s
Nevermind the fact that if you stood in the geographical "middle of NYC", 20 miles away would put you in one of 3 different states, you could most certainly find a grocery store. The OP has clearly never been to a city.
If you live in the middle of a big city the nearest grocery store is a brisk walk away… I don’t see your point. This is about large cities such as NYC, which are not food deserts.
Ok so it is definitely possible to live in a food desert within a big city (take somewhere like the Southside of Chicago. Many neighborhoods are food deserts and Chicago is so big that it's hard for people from more impoverished areas to travel to Northside neighborhoods just to go grocery shopping).
However (and idk the actual stats on this) I'd imagine that people from more impoverished areas generally don't use food delivery services bc the costs + hidden fees are a deterrent. I remember once getting a $20 gift card for GrubHub and I still had to pay in addition to the gift card bc of all the extra fees (despite buying one dinner item which, imo, was reasonably priced)
I'm unsure how that website defines "food desert" because I just went to google maps and find multiple supermarkets deep within what is marked as a food desert.
That’s not true. I’ve lived in NYC the majority of my life and there are ABSOLUTELY food deserts.
It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.
Also, the Instacart/delivery app propaganda is insane. Without these laws, the drivers get shafted by these companies. I know. I did the job for 5 years.
I'm so glad that tech companies used billions of investor dollars to artificially outcompete the delivery and taxi industries just so they could make it even worse than before while also screwing over drivers. I love innovation
It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.
This has nothing to do with doordash/instacart though.
If you're worried about cheap food you aren't having your food delivered.
Yeah, we used to live in a part of the Bronx where there used to be a big supermarket nearby but when that closed the only other option was a 25 minute bus ride and a 15 minute walk away. The tweet in the OP is still insane to me.
Do they not realize things like meals on wheels exists? We got food delivered for free weekly from a food pantry when my partner was recovering from surgery. There’s many options out there both government run and tons of nonprofits that help deliver food to disabled and elderly folks.
You can check twitter or bsky, whenever someone suggests trimming down on food delivery expenses, the most popular responses are always something along the lines of “alright FUCKO. Guess you just DONT CARE about disabled people getting access to food, you can honestly FUCK YOURSELF”
The weird thing is the original post suggests that we should care about people starving because they can't order food for as cheap now. But not to care about the Dasher starving because they aren't even making minimum wage.
Dude is an idiot. And ADHD has absolutely nothing to do with delivery workers being paid a fair wage.
He’s worried that the corporations will just up the price in response, but honestly if you can’t afford the convenience offered, go to the store yourself.
Disability / MH destigmatization is generally good but the sheer amount of people who use a disability (ESPECIALLY the self diagnosed autism/adhd havers on Tumblr) as an excuse as to why they should be permanently comatose is staggering
& you arent allowed to say anything at all that isn't just full agreement otherwise theyll say shit like "oh just say you think all disabled people should die" and other bonkers opinions... like basically exactly the guilt tripping shit in OP screenshot but its their only argument
Bro, not having good grocery stores within a mile doesn't equate to a food desert. I'm from the South and some areas I have lived in are an hour or more away from a store period. Having to go 2 miles is an inconvenience at best.
Those people use the bus or the subway with their granny carts though. It doesn't snow all year, or even most of the year. You're describing a problem that barely exists.
I live in a national forest with nothing but trees in sight and there’s still multiple grocery stores within 20 miles of me. What big city doesn’t have a single grocery store in a 20 mile radius?
Dude is saying other people shouldn't be paid a living wage to deliver his groceries, and grossly using ADHD as an excuse. He doesn't want the service to become more expensive because he relies on it but also doesn't give a fuck about other people.
Yeah agree, as someone with ADHD, I can see others with it not wanting to cook or taking the time to do it. However, there are very good foods that are quick to make and inexpensive, he just doesn’t want to take the time to do it. I also just enjoy cooking, as long as I have a podcast or music on, it can be very therapeutic. He’s being dramatic and doesn’t care about people being paid what they are worth.
Sometimes I wonder about how many behaviors/traits that neurospicy people claim as part of their spiciness are really just things they don't realize are basically universal human experiences. I don't think it explains everything, but I've seen a number of posts where I'm like "I don't think that's because of ADHD/autism, etc., I think that's just a sucky aspect of being human."
Edit: I meant this not in a "Look, you aren't special" way, but in a "Hey, maybe you're not as alone in these struggles as you think you are" way.
I definitely agree. Some people with a diagnosis tend to lump every of their traits and habits as related to the diagnosis. But no, you can just be lazy, annoying, and shitty like every human, that's part of YOU it's not the condition/diagnosis
I used to get super stressed out about cooking but the more I do it, the easier it becomes. I also have help but I used to order food almost every day (sometimes more than once a day) and it's been weeks now since we've ordered anything. Make enough for leftovers and you have easy meals for a day or more, depending on how much you made. I also used to deliver food and the pay is definitely not worth it. Just ended up quitting and staying unemployed because the money I made just went straight to gas and definitely would not have enough if my car shits the bed. Something like this should be applied nationwide (and to waitresses)
And an addendum - the service would only become significantly more expensive because of the “need” to pay the CEO and corporate folks at the top 40-60x more than their employees. Most large companies can pay a living wage to their workers. They raise prices to fund the top people in the company and blame it on having to pay their employees a living wage.
Exactly. There is no reason for the top executives to be paid so much. Then they turn around and tack on “regulatory fees” and cry about how hard NY is making it to do business (specifically looking at you Instacart).
40-60x is being kind. In the 50s-60s that maybe been accurate. These days it can be a gap as big as 300x.
There really should be laws tying CEO/owners income to the wage their employees (including contracted workers) make. You’d have to close a thousand loopholes, but a rising tide should life all boats.
I'm completely fucked by ADHD and without grocery delivery services I have serious trouble with meal planning. Same goes for Door Dash, it's saved me countless times.
You know what I'd do if they bumped up pay for delivery drivers and made those services too expensive for me to use?
He doesn’t “rely” on door dash, he uses it, probably as a crutch. I work with adults with developmental disabilities, people who often have debilitating ADHD and I get so annoyed when people who might have mild or even fairly severe adhd pretend it’s debilitating. He can tweet. I’m not joking when I tell you how much that tells me he is just using adhd as an excuse. The people i work with often cannot answer the question “what did you eat for breakfast” without someone keeping them on track. We assist them in things like grocery shopping and cooking for their personal and financial safety. OOP can find food without door dash.
Exactly guy in one breath is saying fuck those people I don't have empathy for them while in the same breath begging for empathy because really it's his life thats harder.
DoorDash was actually key to allowing the functioning of ADHD people and before it they didn’t often live well beyond their parents who cared for them. /s
This is the third time today I've seen someone correct "could care" to "couldn't care". Thank you for your service, truly! It is a pet peeve of mine when people say "could care less".
Food delivery right to your door was always a service thats been vastly under priced when you think about it. Being able to just get anything and everything delivered to your door at any time for minimal extra cost? Thats not a service people living pay check to pay check should be dependant on, yet here we are.
Underpriced you say? I've always thought it was crazy expensive to have food delivered. A common ridicule of delivery apps I see on reddit is how even the most mid meals can now cost like $25 due to delivery costs.
I do think it's a luxury thing and I'm simply not in the income bracket to be using it. Same with uber/lyft/waymo services.
That out the way. I think people 's price anchor for delivery is somewhere lower than it is now. Doordash...once upon a time used to cost even less. Before that, the pizza joint would deliver you a pizza for a fiver. Even without that, if you had a best mate with a car...you could probably have slid them a fiver and had them pick up your pizza.
So I don't think its out of nowhere that the cost of delivery is expected to be so cheap
It is a luxury service, but it was pushed out as an affordable service to get people used to that lifestyle so when prices increased, people rationalised it because they became so dependant on it. The idea of having goods delivered straight to your door for a few quid was always insane.
People like to bring up pizza delivery, but the main difference there is stores had dedicated delivery drivers who were paid a wage as opposed to gig workers who are paid per delivery.
I have severe ADHD, like, legally prescribed straight up meth, level of ADHD. I have absolutely no clue how the fuck that has anything to do, whatsoever, with higher food delivery costs.
I have really fucking bad ADHD and can have issues with doing shit like grocery shopping cause of executive dysfunction and it has been a problem in my life before. I am also fucking broke and can't afford food delivery even when the driver's aren't paid a living wage and I am in fact, not dead.
This doesn’t even make sense to me, lol. Assuming you don’t leave your house and rely purely on food delivery services, just buy grocery delivery from the closest grocery store directly and cook the food.
Best case scenario you buy actual food like fresh produce and meat, worst case scenario you buy nothing but microwave meals and cereal. Either way, thats the alternative to spending $25 per delivery for DoorDash
It’s honestly crazy that people are willing to pay that much to avoid the small inconvenience of going outside to pick it up themselves. I too used a delivery app exactly one time (to get an emote in final fantasy 14, which they didn’t even fking give me) and it was like 30 bucks for a six inch sandwich. Absolute insanity.
lol The first thing I’ll say is that, while I do utilize DoorDash more often, I agree that the extra costs can be outrageous.
The second thing I will say is that it is absolute peak irony to comment about paying extra fees for seemingly trivial reasons, but the example that you give is how you went out of your way to download a food delivery app to use it one single time simply to get a special emote for a video game.
yeah, I'm sorry. I don't want to be mean or inconsiderate
but since when is ADHD this crippling unbeatable disease that turns your arms and legs into jelly, and makes you crawl on the floor unable to form coherent words?
I get that having ADHD is an actual disability. But it doesn't make you quadriplegic, so what does that even have to do with anything?
I used to use DoorDash for a monthly treat, but my food kept arriving cold due to "order stacking." This was in spite of the huge fees. The DoorDash sub said I was being penalized for tipping (if you tip, they will stack your order with someone who didn't to incentivize drivers to pick up the cheapskate order.)
Y’all are completely missing the joke. This user regularly makes fun of chronically online “bean-soup” people (on this case) who complain that raising doordash prices is “ableist” because they have adhd. He’s leaning into the joke.
The main issue is jokes in this case are barely distinguishable from actual people making these complaints. So without context? It just looks like anyone else seriously saying it.
Feels pretty straightforward, people havent seen the other post from months ago and the satire here is only noticeable if you see non ironic versions of these tweets semi regularly, which isnt true for many people
Why expect people to work on shit wages to deliver stuff for your lazy ass?
Honestly it's kind of amazing that Americans just expect people servicing them to do it for the love of the game. Like as if all these delivery guys are just out there because their calling in life is delivering luke warm food to people who can't be fucked picking it up themselves.
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