Ever driven down a street, and for miles and miles you don't see a single healthy place to eat? It's all fast-food and chinese takeout? Ever wanted a snack, but the local corner store only sells Little Debbie's, Starburst, Doritos and Diet Pepsi? If the answer is yes to any or all of these, you probably live in a "food desert". ”Food desert” is a term that describes geographic areas where mainstream grocery stores are either totally absent or inaccessible to low to medium-income shoppers.

Food deserts are all over the US, in urban and rural areas, sometimes in places that ironically used to grow food, and usually in low-income communities. Sure there’s stuff to eat, but it’s probably not food you should be eating regularly (plenty of calories, few nutrients). Fast food signs dot the landscape, but you can drive for miles without seeing a healthy place to eat. This means people buy unhealthy food and wind up overfed but undernourished, causing obesity, heart disease, and chronic illnesses.

Luckily, there are people out there trying to change this. A group named Market Makeovers works with people across the country to help get healthier food into corner stores and gas stations so that even if lower-income families can't reach a super market they can still reach nutrition. So if you're looking to recreate your areas nutritional landscape, check out http://www.MarketMakeovers.org/.