Annotated Bibliography: Annotated Bibliography Of Food Deserts

Annotated Bibliography

1. Introduction A food desert is a location in which a wide variety of nutrition food is not generally available (Wrigley et al. 261). Food deserts exist in places such as inner cities and isolated rural areas (Morton and Blanchard 1). The purpose of the paper supported by this annotated bibliography is to argue that food deserts do not exist because of discrimination against the poor, but because of forces related to supply and demand. This hypothesis ought to be kept in mind when considering each of the sources (Just and Wansink; Wrigley, Warm and Margetts; Jetter and Cassady; Epstein et al.; Schafft, Jensen and Hinrichs; Bitler and Haider) described in the annotated bibliography.

2. Annotated Bibliography

Bitler,

argue against, which is the position that the dietary choices of the poor are a reflection of availability, not of internal orientation. Jetter and Cassady conducted a statistical analysis of the food baskets of Americans in different income groups and found that individuals on food stamps purchase, on average, $36 per week less of food than individuals who shopped in a grocery store in a wealthier neighborhood, and who did not use food stamps. Jetter and Cassady used these data to reach the conclusion that what they construed as “healthier foods” (that is, the foods more likely to be available in the upscale grocery store) are more expensive, and therefore that the poor cannot afford to eat well. This result is specious, because (a) it failed to control for the actual contents of the test subjects’ baskets and (b) it conflated the cost of grocery baskets with the healthiness of food. Jetter and Cassady were attempting to lend empirical credence to the claim that food deserts force the poor to buy less nutrition food. In doing so, however, Jetter and Cassady failed to consider basket contents. If, for example, an individual on food stamps spent $200 on eggs, chicken breasts, beans, rice, and fresh fruit and vegetables, then surely such a choice would be healthier than an individual who spent $200 on candy bars and soda. Jetter and Cassady’s logical fallacy was to assume that the contents of the

Wrigley and Margetts’ study involved a poor neighborhood in the United Kingdom in which Tesco built a large grocery store. Wrigley and Margetts had advance notice of the Tesco plan and were therefore able to survey the food consumption habits of area residents both before and after the area’s status as a food desert. The study was notable for a number of limitations, one of which was that Wrigley and Margetts asked only one question of nutritional importance, which was about fruit and vegetable consumption before and after the Tesco opening. Wrigley and Margetts did not collect data on overall calories consumed, macronutrient profiles, grocery items, or many other even points. Although Wrigley and Margetts found that there was a statistically significant increase in fruit and vegetable consumption after the opening of the Tesco, the authors counted all fruit juices with 10% or more juice as fruit, so it is unclear whether the increase was due to an increase in the consumption of whole foods or merely of juice. Additionally, the absence of data on any other aspect of food consumption suggests the possibility that Wrigley and Margetts either actively suppressed data that did not support their hypothesis (which is that the grocery store would lead to a positive change in food