Food Deserts: The Struggle for Healthy Options in Lower-Income Communities

Photo: Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

As communities grapple with the pressing issue, advocates and policymakers seek solutions to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to make healthy food choices.

On a recent routine checkup, the doctor gave my mom and me her usual recommendations: drink more water and exercise more. This time, she also suggested that we buy organic foods — like eggs and vegetables — especially she noted from grocery stores like Sprouts or Trader Joe's. The doctor said it would improve our overall health.

There’s a problem with that, though. Those grocery stores don’t exist in Boyle Heights or East Los Angeles. The nearest Sprouts or Trader Joe's is about five miles away from my Boyle Heights home. We live about half a mile from Superior Grocers, where my family usually shops. 

There, the produce is sometimes bruised and seems of lower quality. The selection of healthy and organic options is smaller than grocery stores in communities farther away — like Whole Foods, Ralphs, or other chain stores. 

My mom, Camerina Perez, a 17-year East L.A. resident, has noticed the differences when buying produce in grocery stores outside of Boyle Heights, such as in Montebello, where my uncle lives.

“If I compare the price of a pound of apples in my location, let’s say El Super with Ralphs, obviously, the quality is very different, and so is the price,” my mom said. 

She explained how organic markets with higher-quality produce are far from her reach in distance and price.

“If we had closer, more organic grocery stores with a similar price, that would no longer be a problem. We consume the products we can afford," she said. "We would prefer to buy healthy produce that is free of pesticides, chemicals, and contaminated water and bacteria. Processed and fast food is cheaper and easier to access.”

In low-income communities, food insecurity — defined as having limited or uncertain access to enough affordable and nutritious food to live an active, healthy life —is a severe public health concern. It’s associated with diet-related diseases, including high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some types of cancer.

In East Los Angeles, 28% of adults ages 18 or older are obese, and 9% have been diagnosed with diabetes, according to the Los Angeles Department of Health.  In Los Angeles, more than 3 in 10 teens are overweight or obese. 

According to a 2023 USC study, Improving Health Food Access in Four Eastside Los Angeles Neighborhoods, access to groceries is important because the foods people prepare at home are generally healthier than those consumed at restaurants. The study looked at the Eastside neighborhoods of El Sereno, Lincoln Heights, City Terrace, and Boyle Heights. 

The study found that of the more than 55,000 households in these Eastside neighborhoods, 13% have no access to grocery stores within a 15-minute walk.  In interviews with residents, researchers found residents complained of limited access to affordable, high-quality groceries and that local stores sold low-quality and limited healthy foods. 

In nearby Cudahy, a largely Latino and working-class city in Southeast L.A., Vice Mayor Elizabeth Alcantar can attest to the importance of having quality grocery stores. In February, Sprouts, a grocery store chain that sells fresh and healthy foods, opened in their city. Residents started lining up at 4 a.m. to be among the first customers.

In the city’s pitch to bring Sprouts to Cudahy, Alcantar said it was about “reminding folks [that] our communities spend money on food.” 

“Food is a huge part of our culture. We want it to be, and we spend a lot of money on it,” Alcantar said, adding, "Our communities want other options, too, and better options, organic, lactose-free, free-range, and all the above.” 

The effort to bring Sprouts to the city took more than two years Alcantar said. 

The City of Cudahy, in a statement, said Sprouts gives its residents and “all of SELA the ability to choose fresh food options, which support the health and wellbeing of our citizens.” 

Over 90% of the produce is reportedly organic, and this specific store in Cudahy will carry more than 7,500 different vitamins, probiotics, and wellness products.

This effort is also personal for Alcantar. She notes the importance of having traditional markets as well as healthy options.

Janet Valenzuela, a senior policy associate for the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, a nonprofit organization that highlights issues impacting the food system, was critical of the food system in California and who it benefits. 

“I see that on the freeways near my community, the warehouses near where I grew up, the semi-trucks moving all of this [food],” Valenzuela said. “But a lot of the good food does not come straight into my community. It goes into other stores, and then the food sits there. And then it eventually makes its way to the Food for Lesses and the Superiors.”

According to the Food Policy Council, low-income neighborhoods and communities of color in Los Angeles have three times as many small markets as more affluent white neighborhoods, with half as many full-service grocery stores.

About eight years ago, they began urging small markets and convenience stores to sell fresh fruits and vegetables. The goal was to serve residents within a half-mile walk from the store through the burgeoning Healthy Neighborhood Market Network. The program led to markets offering fresh produce by connecting store owners with fruit and vegetable distributors.

One of those markets, the Soto Street Market, is located in Boyle Heights near USC Keck School of Medicine. The cashier, Jacqueline, shared how the store stopped implementing this program over a year ago. 

“Not a lot of people can afford healthy options, so people choose cheaper alternatives like chips, chocolate, and soda. So the price difference really played a big role in that.” 

She said people weren’t buying the produce. 

“Most of our merchandise would rot- like fruit and vegetables went to waste. That's why we preferred to limit that, ” she said. 

Although the market still stocks non-perishable food items, one of the only visible produce options was potatoes. 

Valenzuela said that the pandemic heightened the issues around food justice and the conditions around food insecurity.

Research shows that despite food insecurity slightly declining in L.A. County in 2021, it increased to 24% during 2022 and to 30% during the first half of 2023, “impacting over 1,000,000 households and 44% of low-income residents,” according to a report from USC Dornsife.

“High food prices and the end of the emergency boost to the CalFresh program appears to have left many Angelenos struggling to put food on the table," Dr. Kayla de la Haye, director of the USC Institute for Food System Equity, said in the report.

Experts recommend investing in community gardens and nutrition programs as one solution to improving food access and equity. Miguel Ramos co-founded Casita del Barrio, an East Los Angeles urban gardening space where they grow food and share their sustainable practices, in his case, in his backyard. 

Ramos understood that fast food was often more accessible to low-income communities than healthy and organic food, and when money is tight, families usually sacrifice healthy eating. When prioritizing their earnings, he added that the easiest option is to cut back on food.

“I’d rather have a shelter over my head than to have healthy foods,” he said.

He said much needs to be done to support local communities and make healthy foods more accessible to people of color. 

“We're actually the people that are farming that food, growing that food, and actually cooking and serving it,” Ramos said, but many are not enjoying the benefits of organic and healthy food. 

“We need to do a better job at making sure that low-income communities are part of that process," Ramos said, "[so] that they can have those options [and] opportunities in our communities as well.”