Blog #7

Darcy Freedman & Bethany Bell, “Access to Healthful Foods among an Urban Food Insecure Population: Perceptions versus Reality” 

Little has been done to gauge nutritional education, but from the statistics that Freedman and Bell have looked at, it is seems as though people have a very accurate perception of what kind of access to healthy food they have. Both the perceived reality and the actual reality is that people living in low-income areas do not have the same kind of access to healthy food as those living in higher-income areas. Part of this reason is because low-income areas are more likely to be populated by convenience stores and small markets as opposed to big chain grocery stores. Big chain grocery stores contain a much healthier variety of food than the aforementioned stores. 

Carrie Draper & Darcy Freedman, “Review and Analysis of the Benefits, Purposes, and Motivations Associated with Community Gardening in the United States”

Firstly, the resurgence of community gardens will encourage those in the community to have direct knowledge and experience about how food is produced. This will lead people to be more inquisitive about where the food they purchase in stores comes from. By producing fruits and vegetables, community garden participants consume more of these as well, according to the text. In addition, in youth-oriented gardening programs, youth participants have a more varied preference for different types of vegetables than those youth that were not participants. Community-wise, these gardens also function as a ‘safe space’. They are safe areas in the community and even encourage communication between members of the community that normally may not communicate with one another.