Poor Quality Food vs Food Deserts

Prince George’s county in Maryland is trying to get rid of some of its fast food restaurants. Currently there is a two block stretch that has 11 fast food restaurants on it. I agree that fast food is unhealthy to eat.  It is high in calories, fat and sodium and has few micro-nutrients or dietary fiber. So, getting rid of fast food chains would be great, esp with the number of children that visit these restaurants. However, my concern is that if we limit the number of fast food stores and replace them with nothing or more expensive restaurants it will create a storage of food for the people who live in PG county.

Obama’s budget includes $50 million for a “Healthy Food Financing Initiative” to bring grocery stores and other healthy food retailers to under-served communities. These food stores need to be established before we removed the current food options, even if the current options are less than desirable.

I think that people are looking for a solution and as a result they sometimes miss the big picture. And here the big picture is bad food is better than no food. Therefore, before we can get rid of these fast food chains (which is take a while) we need to lay a foundation for high quality, fresh foods to replace these heavily processed and unhealthy foods.