Desert Basics
An area where it's hard to find affordable, healthy food nearby.
What is a food desert?
Besides money, not having one of these makes it much harder to reach a grocery store.
What is a car?
Food deserts can be found in most of the counties in this state we live in in.
What is South Carolina?
An area where fast food and junk food options far outnumber healthy ones.
What is a food swamp?
Georgia gets the nickname, but South Carolina actually grows more of this fruit, which is also SC's official state fruit.
What is a peach?
In a city, an area counts as a food desert when the nearest supermarket is more than this far away.
What is 1 mile?
Often measured with BMI, this health condition is linked to living in areas with few healthy food options.
What is obesity?
A truck or bus that brings fresh produce into neighborhoods on a set schedule.
What is a mobile market?
When a family doesn't have reliable access to enough food, usually because of money.
What is food insecurity?
The town of Summerville calls itself the birthplace of this classic Southern drink.
What is sweet tea?
To be a called a food desert, an area needs low access to stores plus this other condition.
What is low income?
What is diabetes?
This grocery chain is building a new store in Columbia's Bull Street District.
What is Publix?
An outdoor market where local farmers sell fresh produce directly to shoppers.
What is a farmers market?
South Carolina's official state snack, a salty roadside favorite cooked in its shell.
What are boiled peanuts?
In rural areas, the distance to the nearest supermarket has to be much longer than this many miles.
What is 10 miles?
When fresh food is hard to get, families often rely on these cheaper foods that last a long time on the shelf?
What are processed foods?
Columbia sits mostly in this county, which lost more grocery stores than any other county in the state between 2016 and 2020.
What is Richland County?
A nonprofit that collects donated food and gives it out to people in need.
What is a food bank?
Instead of tomato-based sauce, a lot of South Carolina barbecue uses a tangy sauce made from this yellow condiment.
What is mustard?
This federal agency keeps an online map of food deserts across the country.
US Department of Agriculture
Without a grocery store nearby, many people end up buying food at these places, like gas stations.
What are convenient stores?
What is SNAP?
Some activists use this term instead of "food desert" to show that unequal access came from unfair policies, not nature.
What is food apartheid?
This mayonnaise brand, a Southern favorite, was founded in Greenville in 1917.
What is Duke's?