1385: Food Deserts | Skeptical Sunday

The map says oasis; the aisles say Doritos. This Skeptical Sunday, Jessica Wynn explains why grocery stores failed to fix how low-income neighborhoods eat. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Jessica Wynn ! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1385 On This Week's Skeptical Sunday: A 'food desert' is the USDA's label for a low-income neighborhood where hundreds of people live over a mile from a large grocery store — too far, the theory goes, so they eat worse. Build a store and diets improve. Yet billions of dollars later, most residents were already driving past one to shop elsewhere. Distance was never the driver — equalizing access and prices closes just nine to ten percent of the diet gap. The rest is preference, and preference isn't fixed taste; it's learned from culture, marketing, price, and stress. West Harlem got a great supermarket 15 years ago, yet obesity stayed high. The same government building stores to fix diets spends roughly $9 billion a year subsidizing crops like corn and soy — the raw material for syrup, seed oils, and cheap meat. Fresh produce gets under ten percent. No wonder a pint of blueberries costs more than a family-size bag of Blue Takis. The sharper problem isn't the desert but the swamp — neighborhoods saturated with fast food, dollar stores, and junk promotions. Counties with the worst swamp scores saw 77% higher obesity-related cancer deaths. A store can even be a mirage: it's there, but the shelves are mostly Doritos. You can't buy health by proximity, but you can build it through knowledge. Don't abandon the food you love; adjust it. Swap corn oil for olive, tweak a method, make one familiar dish a little healthier. Preference is learned, which means it can be relearned, starting now. Connect with Jordan on Twitter , Instagram , and YouTube . If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know! Connect with Jessica Wynn at Instagram (and Instagram !), and subscribe to her newsletters: Between the Lines and Where the Shadows Linger ! And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course ! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger ! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors : Xero: Learn more: xero.com Orion: 15% off: orionsleep.com/jordan Castbox: Find, organize, and subscribe to the world's best podcasts: castbox.fm FlyKitt: 15% off: flykitt.com, code JORDAN See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .