Food deserts were first described in the United Kingdom in the 1990s as low-income neighborhoods with no access to nutritional food. If you happen to be living where local residents do not have access to a supermarket or a store with fresh fruits and vegetables within one mile, you might be living in a food desert. Thus, individuals are forced to either eat at fast food restaurants or a convenience store with soda, chips, high carbohydrate meals leading to high incidences of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and increased adverse cardiovascular events such as acute heart attacks, strokes and mortality.
Food deserts affect more than 23 million Americans with a majority of low-income status individuals. So, geographic location as well as economic status determine where food deserts are; these food deserts create eating habits that end up with the consumption of food that causes inflammation in the body which mediates all disease. Thus, the importance of an anti-inflammatory diet comprises of fresh fruits and vegetables, in addition to no red meat, no processed food or chemicals. The best anti-inflammatory diet is the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in Omega 3 Fish Oil and other anti-oxidants well.
The list of anti-inflammatory food would include green-leafy vegetables, Chinese cabbage, beets, broccoli, blueberries, pineapple, salmon, walnuts, flax seeds, chia seeds, turmeric and ginger. Food deserts are characterized by residents who have little to no access of transportation, communities of color, low income communities, communities that are highly saturated with liquor stores and fast food outlets which serve high sugar, high salt, and/or high carbohydrate and processed food(s).
Unfortunately, instead of dedicating more funding for food security, there have been budget cuts of more than $150 billion dollars in programs such as SNAP ( Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), Meals on Wheels and Medicaid. Other factors such as social determinants of health (such as low income) heavily co-exist and affect access to healthy diets in the Food deserts!
A fresh approach to this critical problem of food deserts could help save billions of dollars in preventable healthcare!
Solutions would include making nutritious food available even in smaller outlets and institutions to prevent many chronic diseases related to poor nutrition in food deserts. At the same time, minimizing the huge amounts of wasted food in America as to create less disparity in different socioeconomic communities. According to the Guardian Report, roughly 50% of all produce in America is thrown away which translates to 60 million tons a year, or 150,000 tons of food a day! In other words, 30-40% of the entire US food supply is being wasted, reaching a value of $160 billion dollars in wasted food! The American family of four would average $1600 dollars worth of discarded food products.
Additionally, this enormous amount of wasted food is contributing to global nitrogen pollution, thus having a direct relationship to global warming, and its impact on the environment. Bacteria in organic waste products produce methane gas which is 25-72 times more potent than carbon dioxide and contribute to global warming. Thus, minimizing the wasted food would not only help solve the food desert but eliminate hunger in more than 50 millions in America, and save our environment. This will decrease nitrogen emission from wasted food products which contributes to floods, hurricanes and wide spread destruction with increased frequency here in the United States and around the world.
Simple solutions of minimizing food waste should be implemented to fight hunger and acute or chronic diseases resulting from poor nutrition. Having a number of large refrigerators to keep food fresh and safe for consumption, have available transportation to access the healthy food (especially in the food deserts), is pertinent in order to provide access to high-risk communities. This also will increase food security and boost our national security by keeping our country safe from devastating consequences related to climate changes such as hurricanes and coastal flooding.
After eliminating hunger in America, statistically, there would be still so much food left, which can be donated to food-starved places around the world like Africa, for example, as it is estimated that there are 795 million people in the world who are undernourished. This kind gesture can avoid so many conflicts, uprising, and instability which are caused by people that are hungry and cannot find food to eat. It would be a win-win strategy.
Successful companies in Europe that handle the food waste recovery use mechanical separation technology as food items can be also utilized for feeding animals as well. Some innovative companies in Europe are using food waste in energy companies which use thermo-mechanical technology to process food waste and packaging into dry stable bio-fuel!
There is an increasing trend in hospitality industry to have Green Restaurant certification to be environmentally friendly with food waste recycling policies. We can work together implementing these solutions, ending hunger, preventing disease, saving billions of dollars in food, using technology for food waste management to feed more people and animals, reducing risks of devastating environmental and geopolitical changes, and turning food waste management into a great business strategy here locally and globally!
