Why Twitter is Wonderful and Rachel Ray is Not

I'm becoming more politically active (I signed up to be a precinct delegate on Monday, which was fun...that is if you think trying to turn in paperwork while 5 loud-mouthed candidates attempt to talk louder than the other about the challenges of their respective races in 2010 is fun) so I thought I'd try to see if my Michigan Senators were on Twitter. A quick search of "Stabenow" revealed this:



















If you squint, you'll see a number of tweets referring to a certain post on a site that's new to me, Moonbattery, where it's revealed that Stabenow and Rachel Ray had a lot to say about nutrition and so-called "food deserts."

Rachael Ray, the peppy television cooking queen, met with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, [yesterday] afternoon to chat about child nutrition and obesity…

During their roughly 10-minute chat, Ray told Stabenow she'd like to see more federal funding for programs that increase the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables to families in urban "food desert" areas like Detroit, as well as a return to fresh-cooked lunches in public schools.

Clearly, neither Ray nor Stabenow have ever been to Detroit, nor do they know much about the food available there. Distinct from being a "food desert," Detroit boasts one of the best places around to get fresh, wholesome, and incredibly cheap fruits, veggies, meats, wines, and even plants to start one's own garden on a weekly basis. This apparently super-well-kept secret from Ray and Stabenow is in fact the very well-known and prominent Eastern Market.

As the Eastern Market website puts it,

As many as 40,000 people flock to Eastern Market for its Saturday Market to enjoy one of the most authentic urban adventures in the United States. The market and the adjacent district are rare finds in a global economy - a local food district with more than 250 independent vendors and merchants processing, wholesaling, and retailing food.

At the heart of Eastern Market is a six-block public market that has been feeding Detroit since 1891. Every Saturday it is transformed into a vibrant marketplace with hundreds of open-air stalls where everyone from toddlers to tycoons enjoy the strong conviviality served up along with great selections of fruits, veggies, fresh-cut flowers, homemade jams, maple syrups, locally produced specialty food products, pasture and/or grass-fed meat and even an occasional goose or rabbit.


Is a 6-block public market with specialty foods boasting 40,000 weekly visitors the very definition of a "food desert?" In a supreme display of farcical absurdity, Ray and Stabenow ostensibly assert it fits the bill.

I'm not sure what criteria they are using to define something as a "food desert" since it clearly cannot mean the absence of easily-obtained fresh fruits and vegetables, since clearly Detroit does not suffer from a dearth of such foodstuffs.

I'm assuming they are labeling places "food deserts" that do not have some prescribed number of grocery stores to frequent at any time in case someone needs to make a last-minute shopping trip. While that may be inconvenient, it is hardly desert-like. I shop once a week for all my family's food needs. I save gas, time, and money doing so. Is there some reason I should be compelled to believe Detroit residents are incapable of the same time and money management skills? I think not. I just cannot imagine why Ray and Stabenow are led to think so.

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4 Comments:

  1. I can see that. Why, just the other day I had considerable difficulty procuring an automobile from the vehicle desert that is Troy, MI. Disconcerted and depressed, I attempted then to visit the cheesy meat-head bar desert called Royal Oak for a drink at the alcohol desert called Mr. B's. No luck. Perhaps I shall catch a plane at the aircraft desert better known as the Metro Detroit Airport and head to the restaurant desert also known as Manhattan.
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  2. Food deserts are areas within cities that lack supermarkets. The whole city of Detroit is not a food desert--just pockets of it. If you don't have a car, and the nearest grocery store is more than a mile away, then you're living in a food desert.
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  3. @Anonymous - I think that is utter nonsense. I did not have a car for over a year. The nearest grocery store to my home was a mile away. I rode my bike or walked there. I was not living in a food desert just because I had no car. For the cost someone living in Detroit would incur even calling a cab to be taken to Eastern Market once a week, they'd more than make up for it at the super low prices available at Eastern Market compared to any local or chain grocery store. You can get a pound of mushrooms for $1! Everywhere else you get a 1/4 for $3!

    I think it is not only bizarre, but downright insulting to insinuate Detroit residents are too unimaginative or somehow incapable of planning their trips to obtain fresh food that is readily available in their area.
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  4. Anon,

    Are you for real? Grocery stores should be less than a mile apart otherwise you're in a food desert? That's absurd. Way to encourage over-development.
    ReplyDelete

I'm curious to see what you are thinking...

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