Episode 69: Whole Foods, Race and the Englewood Food Desert

While the distinctions between healthy and unhealthy food products are often evident to consumers, some communities lack the resources to acquire and store nutritious items. This week, we take a look at Englewood, a formerly thriving commercial suburb of Chicago whose prosperity in the 1930's has become a modern food desert in 2015. It is a predominantly black community of approximately 60,000 faced with poverty and high crime and unemployment. The grocery chain Whole Foods sees an opportunity and plans to open a branch in 2016. We thought it pertinent to discuss this complex relationship between food, opportunity and race in our discussion this week.