INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WOWO): Indiana has many areas where residents live ten or more miles from a supermarket that sells fresh food, and Indianapolis has been named the worst in the nation for these so-called “food deserts.”
Logansport Senator Randy Head has authored a bill to give grants to businesses that want to sell healthier choices, saying it will help eliminate food deserts: “For instance, if a convenience store wants to get coolers to offer fresh produce, this kind of thing would help them buy the coolers. They'll be evaluated annually to make sure they're doing what they say they're going to do with the money; and it's got a claw-back in it, so if they're not doing what they say they're going to be doing or what they should be doing with it, they owe all that money back to the state.”
The US Department of Agriculture says more than 23-million Americans live at least ten miles away from supermarkets that offer fresh meat, dairy and produce, and more than half of those people are low-income.
