I have been considering the accessibility of vegetarianism and similar diets to those affected by issues that come from poverty, specifically the issue of food deserts, and how we can make food more widely attainable. I have been a vegetarian for about seven years now and knowing the negative effects on the environment of the methane produced by cattle, I have always considered being a vegetarian an easy change with massive benefits to the environment. Yet after reflecting and researching the topic, I have come to the realization that being able to switch to the diet and still remain healthy is a major privilege that comes from both wealth and location. The Food Empowerment Project states that there are around 2.3 million Americans who don’t own a car and whose closest supermarket is over a mile away. Wealthy neighborhoods are also shown to have three times more supermarkets than poor neighborhoods and within that, the lack of access predominantly affects poor black and brown communities. If you are unable to transport yourself to a supermarket or cannot afford to shop there, your options are cheap fast food chains with high concentrations of fat, specifically fatty meat. Even if you order something presumably meat-free like French fries or hashbrowns, your serving is still most likely cooked in lard. Besides the environmental impact of the lack of resources, this high concentration of fat in cheap American fast food is one of the main contributors to the obesity problem evident in poorer populations of the country. The search for healthy vegetarian options becomes even harder when you consider someone in the previous circumstances with additional children to feed or a prior health or dietary restriction. So if you are living in a situation where you can’t afford store-bought vegetarian groceries, how can you possibly be expected to live a sustainable lifestyle? My question is - how can we make vegetarian options and local groceries more affordable and accessible for those living in poverty? I have come up with a couple of ideas, such as investing more of our tax dollars into accessible food or trying to find vegetarian protein alternatives that can still be bought for around the same price as meat. Yet, even with these suggestions, I know that the issue of accessible groceries is one of systemic poverty that cannot be combated with a couple of simple solutions. So I am posing the question to the community: how can we all individually work to make healthy food more accessible on a wider, systemic level?

https://foodispower.org/access-health/food-deserts/- My source