Do you really believe that people in different parts of the country (/world) are fundamentally different from one another, and that's the reason for their different circumstances? Because that's the fundamental "logic" behind racism, and just because the people in this particular instance are white doesn't make it any less flawed.
In diffusion of innovations theory, there's a term individual-blame bias, or the tendency (of people trying to spread an innovation, mostly) for people to blame individuals for their non-adoption without considering systemic factors or reasons other than stupidity, laziness, what-have-you.
Why might it be especially hard to find fresh produce in the midwest? Because big, government-subsidized agribusiness is using all that prime farmland for grains, meat, and food for the meat. Thus, they have to truck in produce from somewhere else, which adds to its cost both because of the transportation costs AND because there is no competition from more local sources (as 'expensive' as it is to buy organic/local at Whole Foods or the farmer market, the fact that we have those options in our fancy-schmancy coastal cities means that the stuff shipped from Chile has to be cheap to get purchased at all). Fresh produce has a short shelf life, so it's tough to experiment with stocking different options and with price-setting. Because of all of this, it's considerably more expensive to feed people with fresh produce than with packaged food. People in the rural midwest tend to have pretty low incomes, so this matters a lot. Add in the fact that packaged food is faster and easier to prepare than fresh food, and now you have a lot of barriers to eating fresh produce. Then, it's just a self-reinforcing cycle. If people have grown up NOT eating much fresh produce, why would they think they need it?
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In diffusion of innovations theory, there's a term individual-blame bias, or the tendency (of people trying to spread an innovation, mostly) for people to blame individuals for their non-adoption without considering systemic factors or reasons other than stupidity, laziness, what-have-you.
Why might it be especially hard to find fresh produce in the midwest? Because big, government-subsidized agribusiness is using all that prime farmland for grains, meat, and food for the meat. Thus, they have to truck in produce from somewhere else, which adds to its cost both because of the transportation costs AND because there is no competition from more local sources (as 'expensive' as it is to buy organic/local at Whole Foods or the farmer market, the fact that we have those options in our fancy-schmancy coastal cities means that the stuff shipped from Chile has to be cheap to get purchased at all). Fresh produce has a short shelf life, so it's tough to experiment with stocking different options and with price-setting. Because of all of this, it's considerably more expensive to feed people with fresh produce than with packaged food. People in the rural midwest tend to have pretty low incomes, so this matters a lot. Add in the fact that packaged food is faster and easier to prepare than fresh food, and now you have a lot of barriers to eating fresh produce. Then, it's just a self-reinforcing cycle. If people have grown up NOT eating much fresh produce, why would they think they need it?