Tag: processed food

Food Deserts in the City (Part 2)

  • For many inner-city neighborhoods, access to fresh produce is difficult if not impossible because there are no supermarkets. Farmers' markets attempt to fill the gap, but they're not as convenient as supermarkets. (Photo by Pat Blochowiak)

The loss of supermarkets in cities from L.A. to Detroit to New
York has left many people without access to fresh fruits and
vegetables. In some places, farmers’ markets are helping to fill the
void. But Julie Grant reports that there are still a lot of
barriers to finding healthy food in many inner cities:

Transcript

The loss of supermarkets in cities from L.A. to Detroit to New
York has left many people without access to fresh fruits and
vegetables. In some places, farmers’ markets are helping to fill the
void. But Julie Grant reports that there are still a lot of
barriers to finding healthy food in many inner cities:


When family physician Patricia Blochowiak moved to this
neighborhood six years ago, she didn’t anticipate a problem
finding fresh foods:


“I had thought that since I had a grocery store within walking
distance of my house that I’d be able to get my groceries there.
And it isn’t the case.”


Blochowiak is afraid she’d be sued if she said what she really
thinks about the quality of fruits and vegetables in her
neighborhood grocery store.


JG:”You don’t want to say what you thought? You’re shaking your head no.”


“No.”


So the neighborhood doctor started driving to a nearby farm
market to buy her vegetables. The market building has been on
this corner for 75 years in East Cleveland. This area was once
home to millionaires and to the world’s first industrial park.
These days much of it looks dilapidated, abandoned. But
Blochowiak says she can get free-range eggs, cauliflower from the
next county over, and apples from third generation family
farmers. It’s great for her. But she says a lot of other people
can’t get here:


“It’s very disappointing. You really see first-hand, that those of us
with cars, we can get where we want to go. But those without
cars have a difficult time. So you have to take several buses, or
you have to find a friend who can drive you, or you have to walk
long distances, and for people with a lot of small children, for the
elderly, it just doesn’t work.”


Dr. Blochowiak is president of the Cleveland Academy of Family
Physicians. She says people, especially children, need fresh
foods to perform at their best. But like in inner-cities across
the nation, it’s tough to find and buy fresh fruits and
vegetables.



Even here, at her farm market, farmers can only provide
vegetables in certain seasons. Walking by the market,
Blochowiak runs into an old friend. William Muhammad tries to provide produce year-round:


“Yeah, it is difficult. It’s very difficult to get produce.
Normally, I always have a stand in the wintertime. I have pies
now, but I always have another stand in the winter with produce.”



In the off-season, Muhammed buys produce from a wholesaler and
sells it here at the farm market. But as more retail groceries
close, the wholesalers are also closing:


“It’s difficult to get anything. All you can do is buy where you
can. It’s too difficult for me.”


Grant: “So what do you do?”


“Right now, I don’t know what to do yet. Next month, I’ll see
what I could work up.”


One thing they’re trying to do near the farm market is grow their
own food. Blochowiak has worked on a community garden nearby in
hopes of providing more fresh produce to the neighborhood.


But there’s concern here that such efforts are barely tipping the
scales. They’re not a dependable, accessible source of fruits
and vegetables for most people. Kevin Scheuring sells spices at
the market. He says a lot of people forego fresh fruits and
vegetables and opt for mac and cheese or canned food from the
convenience store because getting fresh food in the inner city is
such a tough row to hoe:



“Not that they wouldn’t make a better choice if it was easier.
Again, you’ve got to get on a bus with a bunch of groceries and
go really far away and haul stuff, especially in the winter. Or
you can just go – ehh – maybe tomorrow and just go down the
street and buy a can of beans or something. And call it a day.”


Scheuring says a lot people want to do better for themselves and
their families, but it’s just becoming too difficult to get to
the few remaining places that do sell fresh food in the inner-cities.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

PB &Amp; J SAVES THE WORLD

  • Bernard Brown says making a peanut butter and jelly (or PB and fruit) sandwich is better for the environment than eating a burger or chicken nuggets. (Photo by Jennifer Szweda Jordan)

What could be more American, more humble, than a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich? And yet one activist suggests a PB and J a day could help slow
global warming. Jennifer Szweda Jordan recently visited the founder of the
PB and J Campaign:

Transcript

What could be more American, more humble, than a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich? And yet one activist suggests a PB and J a day could help slow
global warming. Jennifer Szweda Jordan recently visited the founder of the
PB and J Campaign:


(Brown:) “So we just spread some peanut butter on your banana bread.
Would you like to try it?”


(Jordan:) “Yeah. Yeah.”


Bernard Brown is trying to get people to see the peanut butter and jelly
sandwich in a new light. On his website, there’s a saintly glow behind a
graphic of the sandwich. He thinks eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
could just save the planet.


Brown estimates that eating one peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch
versus, say, a ham sandwich, or a burger, saves nearly three and a half
pounds of greenhouse gas emissions and 280 gallons of water. In Brown’s
kitchen, he waves a peanut butter covered knife. He explains why he’s using
this comfort food to change the world:


(Jordan:) “Why peanut butter and jelly? Like it’s a pretty processed, highly
processed kind of…”


(Brown:) “Yeah, it’s because it’s the most familiar food I could think of that
didn’t have, that was sort of purely plant-based and wasn’t animal-based at
all. It’s one of these things like people might be scared by words like vegan
or vegetarian. But there’s absolutely nothing alternative about peanut butter
and jelly.”


What’s more, some experts suggest Brown’s not, well, nuts. A Princeton
bioethicist says if 100 million Americans – that’s one of three of us – traded a
burger for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it would make an impact on
the environment. And if we made the same choice three times a week, it
would make a huge impact.


Those who worry that Brown’s dietary suggestions might make a huge impact on the
waistline, take heart. A serving of two tablespoons of peanut butter does have nearly 200
calories and 16 grams of fat. But the fat is not the worrisome saturated type and there’s
some evidence that eating a small amount of nuts each day might reduce the risk of heart
disease, and even prevent cancer.


Of course, Brown and nutritionists still suggest partnering a low-sugar peanut butter with
whole grain breads, and low-sugar jellies, or even fresh fruit. And Brown hopes people
consider moving beyond the peanut butter and jelly:


“On the website, we go into other different, other foods people could try – a
bean burrito’s a good example. Black bean soup. Falafel. We even tried
mentioning tofu. I’m not sure if it scares people away.”


Brown really wants to win over people by keeping the campaign from
becoming a crusade. He says that even a vegetarian like him is turned off by
overly radical, moralistic or bloody efforts against meat-eating, or for saving
the world:


“I think have a lot of messages that, ‘Things are very scary, you must change
your life.’ And so, it’s to try to come in with a softer approach, I think. The
ideal is to reach people who aren’t reached with more intense messages.”


Brown hopes to disarm you with playfulness. And what could be more playful than
playing with your food – turning peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into
people?


(Sound of fast typing)


On a laptop computer, Brown calls up a slide show he’s made of a
gingerbread-style cutout couple, peanut butter and jelly boy and girl. They’re
making a snowman and chatting. When PBJ boy gets a little sad, his
companion wonders why:


“He’s concerned that maybe global warming will mean there won’t be
conditions for making snowmen in the future.”


(Jordan:) “Can you read this one? They’re very sophisticated?”


(Brown:) “PBJ Girl says, ‘Well, anthropogenic climate change is a serious
problem. It should only affect the climate gradually. I’m positive we’ll able
to build a snowman next year.’ And then PBJ boy says, ‘Well, I guess that
makes me feel better, but what if our grandkids never see snow?'”


The girl says if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it might stay snowy in
the winter. Then she backs up Brown’s claim that it’s easy enough to do: just
have a sandwich that looks a lot like her and visit the pbjcampaign.org
website.


PBJ boy and girl are just the beginning.


(Sound of jingling cookie cutters)


Brown has a jar full of more cookie cutters like those he used to make the
boy and girl. He figures a wider variety of peanut butter and jelly creatures
could act in slide shows and carry out other environmental messages.


Brown’s not just limiting his work to online skits. He’s also trying to build a
calculator into his site so visitors can register the number of peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches they’ve eaten. Then he can track the impact. No
matter what, though, Brown plans for the campaign to remain light, fun, and
easy to swallow.


For the Environment Report, this is Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

Related Links

Guide Educates Consumers on Food Additives

Americans are eating more and more processed foods. And that means that food labels are getting longer, as manufacturers add new ingredients to their products. But labels may not tell consumers much about those additives or how much the food was processed. To help educate themselves, consumers can now turn to a new guide to food ingredients. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Frenkel has more: