New Tool Shows Where Greatest Needs For Healthy Food Are In The City
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The mission to make healthy food available to city residents reaches another milestone.
Pat Warren reports on a new tool that shows where the greatest needs are.
Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future has it all mapped out.
At age four, Teon Davis has developed a taste for fresh fruit--a taste Joyce Smith developed in her 40s.
"It was kind of hard to find it in my community," said Smith.
The Food Depot supermarket at Belair Edison Crossing has made healthy food choices convenient for families in what might otherwise be considered a food desert.
"You have to be proactive," Smith said.
Living in a food desert means your nearest supermarket is more than a quarter mile away, median income is at or below 185 percent of the poverty level, more than 30 percent of the people don't have cars and availability of healthy food is low.
"In many of our corner stores in Baltimore in a study done a few years ago, there were only two things available in the produce department--onions and potatoes--because they both have long shelf life," said Dr. Robert Lawrence, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future has mapped out locations that qualify as food deserts, giving the city another tool in attracting grocers.
"For someone who's looking to enter that industry or looking for new locations, we've mapped it out for you," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
That, and activists like Joyce Smith are out to change that red desert landscape.
"If you go to a supermarket, if you go to the store and they don't have the kind of produce that you want, you go speak to the manager. You become your own advocate," said Smith.
And an advocate for countless others.
The report has food maps, details and statistics for every one of the city's 14 council districts.
The report also maps food deserts with life expectancy and death related to cardiovascular disease.
