Foodways of the urban poor

• Published in: Geoforum 2013-08, Vol.48, p.126-135
• Main Authors: Alkon, Alison Hope, Block, Daniel, Moore, Kelly, Gillis, Catherine, DiNuccio, Nicole, Chavez, Noel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activism; Arid Zones; Bgi / Prodig; Chicago, Illinois; Choices; Cost; Culture; Diseases; Food; Food deserts; Food movements; Food supply; Food systems; Health policy; Health Problems; Human geography; Illinois; Intervention; Justice; Low income; Low Income Areas; Low Income Groups; Neighborhoods; Obesity; Planners; Policy making; Population geography and social geography; Poverty; Prices; Public health; U.S.A; Urban areas
• ISSN: 0016-7185; 1872-9398
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.04.021

•We seek to understand food choices of low-income people in Oakland and Chicago.•The primary barrier preventing access to healthy food is cost.•Most food desert residents shop at chain and discount stores outside their areas.•Respondents know about healthy food and understood eating as a cultural practice.•Foodways of the urban poor are culturally mediated in the same way as among affluent groups. In the past decade, progressive public health advocates and food justice activists have increasingly argued that food deserts, which they define as neighborhoods lacking available healthy foods, are responsible for the diet-related health problems that disproportionately plague low-income communities of color. This well meaning approach is a marked improvement over the victim-blaming that often accompanies popular portrayals of health disparities in that it attempts to shift the emphasis from individual eaters to structural issues of equitable development and the supply of health-inducing opportunities. However, we argue that even these supply-side approaches fail to take into account the foodways – cultural, social and economic food practices, habits and desires – of those who reside in so-called food deserts. In this paper, we present five independently conducted studies from Oakland and Chicago that investigate how low-income people eat, where and how they shop, and what motivates their food choices. Our data reveals that cost, not lack of knowledge or physical distance, is the primary barrier to healthy food access, and that low-income people employ a wide variety of strategies to obtain the foods they prefer at prices they can afford. This paper speaks to academic debates on food systems, food movements and food cultures. We hope that progressive policy makers, planners and food justice activists will also draw on it to ensure that their interventions match the needs, skills and desires of those they seek to serve.