Food Justice Summary

As the name implies, food justice is about fairness. It holds that everyone has the right to healthy food. Unfortunately, in many cities this is not a reality. There are urban areas where access to affordable, healthy food is severely limited. “Food Justice and Food Retail in Los Angeles,” written by Mark Vallianatos for Ecology Law Quarterly (2009), examines this issue specifically in Los Angeles. His credibility is strong and reliable, as he is a co-author of the Next Los Angeles: the Struggle for a Livable City. Vallianatos describes the divide between two different areas of the city split along economic lines, as it pertains to food justice. He references existing programs designed to improve access to healthy food for low income …show more content…
There are several examples of this throughout the article. Vallianatos describes how Project CAFE was undertaken by his organization, the Center for Food and Justice, in cooperation with several community groups (para. 7). His involvement with such an organization, and his work with groups in the community, speaks to the ethical value of his judgment in this area. This is emphasized by his understanding of the needs and habits of members of these low income districts. Vallianatos describes the benefit of smaller-format grocery stores and “ninety-nine cent” stores selling more fresh food, as it pertains to certain populations “These discounters may play a growing role in increasing access to fresh foods because shoppers can buy a few cheap items multiple times a week. This fits with the buying habits of many low-income, public-transit dependent, immigrant resident of Los Angeles” (para. 12). His familiarity with the daily life and struggles of those affected by a lack of food boosts his credibility discussing possible solutions to this problem. This is important because his goal is to convince people with power, business owners and policy makers, to make real change in urban areas. His message will have a bigger impact with these figures, and even more with the public at large, if they believe he has made the effort to immerse himself in this …show more content…
His article is full of information presented in a straightforward way, for example “Between 1995 and 2002, the Rebuild LA area gained only one supermarket. The report revealed that in the greater LA region, there were 3.04 times as many supermarkets per capita in upper income zip codes as in low income zip codes” para. 5). The disadvantages faced by the low income areas of LA are readily apparent with data such as this, and Vallianatos largely lets the numbers speak for themselves in his article. He points out that ample research has proven a correlation between a person’s food environment and health problems such as obesity and diabetes. He goes on to say that in 2005, twenty-nine percent of adult Latinos and twenty-eight percent of adult African Americans in LA County were obese, compared to seventeen percent of adult Whites (para. 6). There is an obvious difference in the varied ethnic groups’ ability to access healthy food. Vallianatos provides some evidence for this by citing a study by Community Health Councils, which found that seventy-three percent of restaurants in South Los Angeles were fast food establishments, compared to forty-two percent of restaurants in West Los Angeles (para. 17). It is easy to accept that this would have an impact on the collective health of the surrounding population. Vallianatos also uses logos to persuade the reader as to the efficacy of programs designed to promote food justice in