Some areas in the City of Birmingham, particularly in poorer urban communities, don’t have nearby stores where they can buy quality foods. But a new movement to grow food locally, with help from a union of food workers – and some help from First Lady Michelle Obama – may bring some much needed help to these “food deserts.” (Adapted from our story in the 2011 Classic Event Guide.)
When the Food Network’s Chef Jeff Henderson came for a motivational conference in Birmingham last year, he stopped by the West End Community Garden, where he picked the freshest of fresh ingredients for a green salad he whipped up for his audience.
Henderson came with Al Vincent, a regional leader in The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), to further promote its mission to provide living-wage jobs for grocery workers. The UFCW also educates the public about how food gets from the farm to local stores.
But some areas, particularly in poorer urban communities, don’t have nearby stores where they can buy quality foods. In the City of Birmingham, more than 88,000 people (including 23,000 children) live in “food deserts,” places where quality grocery stores are distant or non-existent, according to a 2010 study commissioned by Main Street Birmingham.
Plus, folks living in areas where unhealthy food is plentiful, cheap and quick, the study said.
In short, they can find fattening potato chips, sugar-loaded sodas and artery-clogging fried foods than it is to find first-rate tomatoes, corn, apples, greens and fresh meats. Food deserts have higher concentrations of diet-related health problems like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, which all lead to premature death.
Conquering food deserts is a major concern of First Lady Michelle Obama. Through the nonprofit Partnership for a Healthier America, Mrs. Obama is supporting an initiative encouraging six grocers to build more stores in food deserts, with grocers committing to sell the freshest fruits, vegetables and offer more nutritious products. The goal is to help low-income communities tackle chronic health conditions, particularly childhood diabetes and obesity.
Vincent and the food workers union want to make this happen in Alabama.
Vincent is on the board of UpLift Solutions, Inc., a non-profit organization that uses a supermarket model created by Philadelphia’s Jeffrey Brown, who owns and operates profitable supermarkets that sell high-quality food in low-income communities. Brown is part of Mrs. Obama’s initiative.
“We want to bring good employers who own these grocery stores that provide fresh produce to these food deserts in Birmingham,” Vincent says. “And, like Chef Jeff, we want to teach the community how to prepare food and live differently to address childhood diabetes and obesity.”
Vincent says that the UFCW will help grocers find grants, tax and employee incentives to ease the cost of building new stores, including ones in Birmingham’s food deserts. He will also promote healthy cooking and living with community partners like Ama Shambulia, executive director of the West End Gardens.
Shambulia teaches the art of cultivating food for eating as well as food for thought.
“Knowledge is power, and making decisions about how and what you eat, is fundamental to that,” she said during the Women In Agriculture conference earlier this month. “We have to change what the concept of eating is and rethinking what a meal is so that we make the healthy choices and live better lives.”
