Michelle Obama Wants To End ‘Food Deserts’ In America

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by Michael Parrish DuDell February 25, 2010
Categories: Eats
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Michelle_Obama_Cartier

Earlier this month, Ecorazzi reported that Michelle Obama recently launched “Let’s Move!” — an initiative to help end childhood obesity by educating parents, encouraging young people to exercise more and improving accessibility to healthy food.

The latest entry in the White House blog (yes, the White House has a blog), features a video of Michelle Obama discussing the importance of ending “food desserts.”

According to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, a food desert is a “place where there is not easy access, affordable access, reasonable access to fresh fruits and vegetables — to a grocery store.”

That’s right, in low-income and rural areas all across the country, many people rely on convenience stores and fast food restaurants for their nutritional needs, which, as most know, is nutritional suicide.

In the video, Obama states:

“With a modest initial investment of about $400 million a year, we’re going to use that money to leverage hundreds of millions of more from private and nonprofit sectors to bring grocery stores and other food retailers to under-served communities all across this country.”

Sounds like a good investment to us! Wanna hear more of what Michelle thinks?  Check out the video below and visit LetsMove.gov!


Categories: Eats
Tags: .
Photo: official White House photo
  • http://vegan--japan.blogspot.com/ herwin

    thats great that she plays such an active role in such an important area as healthy food. it should all start with education though, because ultimately its not that grocery stores with fresh fruits and veggies dont want to sell in low income areas, but its the residents themselves who actively choose for garbage food from the convenience stores.

    • Nick

      “residents themselves who actively choose for garbage food from the convenience stores.”? seriously? what rubbish! did you even watch the video? that’s like saying poor people choose to be poor. it isn’t a “choice” to eat from a convenience store when the nearest grocer is more than 5 miles away and you don’t have a car. it isn’t a “choice” to eat fast food every day when they are the only restaurants within your price range or walking distance. low income people often lack the mobility options to get to that cute little vegan cafe in posh neighborhoods, and let’s face it, fat and sugar are cheap and readily available.

      i think the goals of this initiative are laudable, but i wonder though if some of this money could have been better spent. rather than getting corporations to move into these neighborhoods and supply factory-farm produced fruits & veg, what about supporting locally grown produce, farmer’s markets, community gardens, etc. i know this video is short on details, but it’s a good start.

  • jeanruss

    It disturbs me that while the first lady is promoting healthy foods, the President puts Monsanto people in key positions and continues to do grave harm to the health of ALL Americans, not just children. It gives the false impression that this administration cares about what Americans eat. I have worked diligently since last summer against various assaults on the integrity of our food by the FDA, the USDA and other government entities that want to make supplements unavailable, weaken organic standards and even make organic seed illegal in home gardens. So this article is sort of mind numbing when I look at the legislation that has been floated this past year. As the organic movement continues to grow, it is coming under serious assault by both Dems and Repubs.

  • Pingback: A $400 million ‘modest investment’ « Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian

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