In America, a food desert, (others call it "food apartheid") is defined as geographic areas where residents have few to no convenient options for securing affordable and healthy foods — especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, food deserts are not few and far between. More than 23 million people are deemed to belong to one, more than half of them low-income, living in food deserts.
The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the (1)____________ within the country’s social safety net — especially in the case of food security. The (2)______________ rise in unemployment, lost access to school meals, and volatile food supply chains all contributed to wreaking havoc. Even worse, food insecurity among households with children tripled from February 2020 to May 2020.
Food deserts may be overlooked because the North American Industry Classification System lump together small corner grocery stores (which often primarily sell packaged food) in the same category as grocery stores, thus (3)__________ the statistics. Residents living in food deserts also have a hard time finding foods that are culturally relevant and that meet their dietary restrictions (gluten free, etc...).
Food insecurity rate is highest among households with incomes below the poverty line (34.9%) and single-mother households (28.7%). Latino or Hispanic and Black households experienced food insecurity rates of 15.6% and 19.1%, respectively—disproportionately higher than white households (7.9%).
However, there are structural issues with the food desert concept. For one, most people shop beyond their neighborhood for food. Food deserts also don’t consider digital delivery services, which reduce the relative importance of one’s physical location. Those living in low-income, low-access areas were more likely to shop for food near their workplace than their home. This access strategy — (4)____________ multiple (5)__________ into a single excursion, or “trip chaining”—is disregarded by traditional food access mapping and analysis.
Many communities increase healthy food access through other options that (6)_________ small grocers, community and school gardens, farmers’ markets, and other methods ignored in the classification of food deserts.
With food insecurity once again (7)___________ a real threat, it’s an ideal time to update the concept of geographic food access for today’s digital economy and consider new policies, as opposed to cookie-cutter ones. That will marry the need to increase people’s buying power with their ability to get the food they need.
EXERCISES
1. Put the words in the blank spaces
a. skewing b. errands c. raging d. shortcomings e. bundling f. posing
g. comprise
2. Find in the text the synonims to the following words or expressions:
UNSTABLE DISREGARDED VIEWED AS
STANDARDIZED
3. choose A, B, C from the following questions
1. what is "wreacking havoc" in paragraph 2 in blue?
a.- instill fear
b.- cause inconvenience
c.- cause chaos
2. what is "lump together" in paragraph 3?
a.- share costs
b.- group together
c.- arrive at the same time
3. what is "for one" in paragraph 5?
a.- personally
b.- the first reason is...
c.- in the direction of
#englishreadings #b2c1exercises #englishclasses #fooddesertsinamerica #healthyfood
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