This week's readings discussed the social injustices surrounding food systems. Socio-economic and racial disparities exist in the world of food, and the disparities are large. I have seen the disparities in Tallahassee. In my first semester in DURP, I took Healthy Cities, Healthy Communities with Dr. Miles. One of the projects in the class was to do a NIMS assessment surrounding a city park. I was assigned Walker Ford Community Center, near FAMU's campus. The community is situated in a low-income area of Tallahassee. The NIMS assessment required that I assess how far the nearest grocery store was, as well as the quality and price of products available. The nearest grocery store was the Winn Dixie on South Monroe Street, which was one mile away. The distance Dr. Miles gave us for how far an individual is typically willing to walk was one quarter of a mile. Beyond the far distance, the store did not offer many of the healthy options listed on the NIMS assessment. We then had to find the closest store that sells food. This was a convenience store which had a very limited selection, and zero healthy options. There were no fresh fruits or vegetables available. There were many fast food restaurants in the area. Most food options available in the area were unhealthy.
This week's readings also discussed the availability of culturally appropriate food. There are a couple of tienditas and an international food market, which offers mostly middle eastern and Mediterranean food, on Monroe Street. There are also a couple of Asian food markets in town. However, I am not sure whether these stores are located near the appropriate cultural population centers. In regards to culturally appropriate food, what if the food is not healthy? Is this still considered a good thing in terms of food access?
Sara, you’ve brought up a point that I’ve also wondered. What if the food that I’m culturally accustomed to eating is considered unhealthy; what do I do in this case? When I reflect on my West Indian culture, there are cultural meals that public health officials would consider healthy and others they would not. However, when examining the nutritional value of cultural foods we don’t seem to take into consideration the other factors at play. For example, while I was visiting Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa, I noticed the serving portion for every meal was quite large and it consisted of a large portion of rice and a protein. It was very difficult for me to consume all of the food on my plate. Every American that was on this trip gained at least 10 pounds over the course of 6 weeks. Yet, the Ghanaians didn’t gain weight. The main difference between the Americans and Ghanaians were the Ghanaians mostly walked everywhere they went and the majority of jobs called for manual labor, thus they were able to burn off the food they were consuming, unlike the Americans, we were driven everywhere and spent the majority of the day sitting behind a desk conducting research. In this particular example, would the culturally appropriate meals for Ghanaians be considered unhealthy?
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting observation Patrice. When I thought about whether or not culturally appropriate food was healthy, I was more concerned with offending that person's heritage because culture is something people hold close to their identity. When I think of my Ecuadorian best friends household I can never be too certain that their oil cooked meat and white rice are 100% the best diet - but, given their financial instability it provides the amount of calories they need to get through a working day while retaining the food they are most comfortable with. Daily routine does have a big role in whether or not these cultural foods are appropriate for a given area then and that person's lifestyle - depending especially on what their life style demands of them physically.
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