Really appreciate this framing about access to food. I hope it becomes mainstream soon enough to help a majority of people to understand their lack of access is NOT their fault as others will have them believe. Ty for this work Isaias!
Brilliant! That is a great way to think about food inequality. I hadn't focused on this before, but you opened my eyes to what I experienced growing up in a rural area which was a major producer of food. Many people in the area worked on the land or in food processing, but if you went into the local shops, the food quality was poor - shrivelling vegetables, poor choice of fruit and vegetables, mostly processed foods...
Exactly! These are always important observations to take note on and how they reflect back to our larger wide of access of who has access to food and why things look a certain way.
It's illegal to dumpster dive in the States? What the hell??(I'm Canadian, I know a LOT of people who dumpster dive, especially students) But yeah, I like the term food apartheid a lot. Food "desert" are mostly caused by corporate greed and monopoly where I live, and these companies want clients who will buy their inflated prices without complaining which means upper middle class families who don't want to be around the poor. In my city there are lots of smaller local gardens and markets with lower prices to try to fight this, but it's not a perfect system since they are only there for the summer and early fall, and not all areas have one.
While technically being legal in all 50 states there is a unique catch, especially when it comes to private property! If you jump a fence, walk through a gate, or in any way walk onto private property to dumpster dive, then you may be trespassing. Many stores have back areas that are still considered private property. The exception would be any stores that have their trash on a public city street. Many corporations have police or security guards that walk around to make sure and other corporations have also locked their trash bins to prevent people. Private property would make any dumpster diving illegal without the permission of the owner of the company or building, and you could get a ticket or be arrested. I used to go dumpster diving in college at Berkeley and it was normalized in the area for people to search for food but there were times I encountered people saying I shouldn't do it because police can be called on me.
What are you thoughts on the food boxes like imperfect? I feel like these could be provided for families who live in food apartheid areas but are instead sold at a premium to people who are well off and can “feel better” about how they spend their $$$….
Great question! Back a few years ago there was this article released about Imperfect (fruitguys.com/blog/fruition-of-the-ugly-truth/). It had claimed that Imperfect was taking food from food banks that would've gone to the food banks. And the issue is that Imperfect claimed they have the infrastructure to pick up any food deemed ugly. While food banks did not have the appropriate / infrastructure to pick up produce consistently. It's a very interesting discussion that I want to talk about more because the article's critics share some unique stories. On another hand Imperfect came from capitalism in terms of creating another revenue share in the third market
Food apartheid is definitely better wording in my opinion.
Same here as when I learned about food desert in college I was wondering if there were other words to discuss this subject of matter.
Really appreciate this framing about access to food. I hope it becomes mainstream soon enough to help a majority of people to understand their lack of access is NOT their fault as others will have them believe. Ty for this work Isaias!
Brilliant! That is a great way to think about food inequality. I hadn't focused on this before, but you opened my eyes to what I experienced growing up in a rural area which was a major producer of food. Many people in the area worked on the land or in food processing, but if you went into the local shops, the food quality was poor - shrivelling vegetables, poor choice of fruit and vegetables, mostly processed foods...
Exactly! These are always important observations to take note on and how they reflect back to our larger wide of access of who has access to food and why things look a certain way.
It's illegal to dumpster dive in the States? What the hell??(I'm Canadian, I know a LOT of people who dumpster dive, especially students)
But yeah, I like the term food apartheid a lot. Food "desert" are mostly caused by corporate greed and monopoly where I live, and these companies want clients who will buy their inflated prices without complaining which means upper middle class families who don't want to be around the poor. In my city there are lots of smaller local gardens and markets with lower prices to try to fight this, but it's not a perfect system since they are only there for the summer and early fall, and not all areas have one.
While technically being legal in all 50 states there is a unique catch, especially when it comes to private property! If you jump a fence, walk through a gate, or in any way walk onto private property to dumpster dive, then you may be trespassing. Many stores have back areas that are still considered private property. The exception would be any stores that have their trash on a public city street. Many corporations have police or security guards that walk around to make sure and other corporations have also locked their trash bins to prevent people.
Private property would make any dumpster diving illegal without the permission of the owner of the company or building, and you could get a ticket or be arrested. I used to go dumpster diving in college at Berkeley and it was normalized in the area for people to search for food but there were times I encountered people saying I shouldn't do it because police can be called on me.
@@queerbrownvegan oh I see, thank you for explaining!
What are you thoughts on the food boxes like imperfect? I feel like these could be provided for families who live in food apartheid areas but are instead sold at a premium to people who are well off and can “feel better” about how they spend their $$$….
Great question! Back a few years ago there was this article released about Imperfect (fruitguys.com/blog/fruition-of-the-ugly-truth/). It had claimed that Imperfect was taking food from food banks that would've gone to the food banks. And the issue is that Imperfect claimed they have the infrastructure to pick up any food deemed ugly. While food banks did not have the appropriate / infrastructure to pick up produce consistently. It's a very interesting discussion that I want to talk about more because the article's critics share some unique stories. On another hand Imperfect came from capitalism in terms of creating another revenue share in the third market