{"id":12400,"date":"2014-05-21T15:48:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T20:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=12400"},"modified":"2014-05-21T15:48:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T20:48:39","slug":"im-a-desert-dweller-almost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2014\/20140521-12400.htm","title":{"rendered":"I’m a desert dweller (almost)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever heard of a food desert?<\/p>\n

The term refers to areas where access to fresh food is scarce.<\/p>\n

I learned about food deserts in school and acknowledged that such places theoretically exist, where people (especially those without access to reliable transportation) have a hard time purchasing fresh foods – especially fresh fruits and vegetables.<\/p>\n

I thought of Lincoln’s downtown, where there are few grocery stores and where many of the residents (okay, my context is almost entirely based on being a student and employee at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln) don’t have cars. <\/p>\n

Surprisingly, when I looked at the USDAs data (check out your location here<\/a>), I discover that Lincoln’s downtown is NOT a food dessert, but where I grew up IS.<\/p>\n

This despite the fact that I spent my childhood and certainly my teenage years walking or riding my bicycle to the Walmart Supercenter or Super Saver (the most amazing grocery store EVER) that were less than 2 miles away. Huh.<\/p>\n

Then again, the criterion for limited access in urban areas is that a large (>33%) proportion of the population is not within 1 mile<\/b> of a grocery store. So I qualified. I hoofed it 1.5 and 1.8 miles respectively to Walmart or SuperSaver. <\/p>\n

Oh, and I just forgot, there were a couple of HyVees too. One at 1.4 miles and one at 1.6 miles or so. Yep, I guess I was in a food desert. Strangely enough, I felt like I had the best access to food I’ve ever experienced in my life. Imagine that.<\/p>\n

\"Wichita
\nI live and work towards the center of this map, right next to or on the green “food deserts”. The red squares are the supermarket complexes nearby.<\/em><\/div>\n

Now that I’m in Wichita, I’m one street away from a food dessert. <\/p>\n

I have one grocery store complex (Walmart Neighborhood Marketplace and Dillons) at 2 miles (an easy enough biking distance); another complex (Walmart Neighborhood Marketplace, Dillons, and ALDI) at 3.2 miles (for me, still a decent biking distance); and a third with all three stores at 3.9 miles. I struggle to come up with the store that’s within 1 mile of the majority of my census tract – but we’re still definitely not deprived.<\/p>\n

So, I’m almost a desert dweller, officially. In reality, I’m not so sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever heard of a food desert? The term refers to areas where access to fresh food is scarce. I learned about food deserts in school and acknowledged that such places theoretically exist, where people (especially those without access to reliable transportation) have a hard time purchasing fresh foods – especially fresh fruits and … Read more I’m a desert dweller (almost)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12400"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12426,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400\/revisions\/12426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}