Tuesday Afternoon

Emmy and Courtney make mac & cheese
as Alyssa looks on

This afternoon we had a guest speaker, Mari Gallaghar, who has conducted research on food deserts in multiple cities and the impact on their communities. Her visit enhanced our knowledge on food deserts and opened our eyes to new insights about them. After her visit we had some downtime to reflect on what we learned and what we were about to go out and do. We all prepared to go out in to a local food desert and shop for a dinner. We were broken into two families or groups and had a total of ten dollars to spend for our dinner.

One group made macaroni, mash potatoes, and a salad with cucumbers. The other group made french toast and eggs with half a banana. Both groups made their dinners under a budget of ten dollars. But both groups meals were lacking in protein and fresh vegetables.

We learned a lot today. Mari taught us the basics about food deserts. A food desert is an area where fresh produce is hard to come by. There were more fringes, or drug stores, and less mainstream stores, or grocery stores. During the shopping activity, it was frustrating to find any store because there were barely any, and we were hungry. It was also sad to see how many schools and apartment buildings there were without grocery stores nearby and also how many people thought that buying junk food for dinner was normal. Though sad, today was a very interesting and educational experience!

Maggie and Sofia cook French toast.