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Comment by vector_spaces | Hacker News Reader

> Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label.

Large parts of the US are designated as food deserts, where one's best option for groceries might be the convenience store attached to a gas station. Good luck finding plain yogurt with no sugar added there. Your specific experience is exactly that.

[1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-deta...

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Food deserts do exist but appear to have no meaningful effect on eating habits.

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-not-blame-growi...

You made a claim that plain yogurt is generally available in US food markets, attempting to make an inference about grocery store selections drawing from your own experience. I pointed out that it is not actually generally available and noted that your experience does not generalize.

I am not sure why you mention eating habits, since this is not what is being discussed

> I pointed out that it is not actually generally available

Actually, you pointed out that food deserts exist, and asserted that that meant that plain yogurt is not generally available, the thing you pointed out does not support the conclusion drawn from it.

My claim was 100% accurate and my experience does generalize. Plain yogurt with no added sugar is generally available at the vast majority of supermarkets throughout the country. I have actually seen it in both poor and affluent areas all over.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Instead of making things up you can literally just go look.

Wow, 100% accurate? OK, I definitely can't argue with that. Nor I suppose can I argue much with overinterpreted anecdotes and absolutist analysis from a non-expert about a nuanced topic. You should start a Tiktok or a Substack or something, you are leaving money on the table.

Food deserts appear to roughly correlate inversely with population density[0]. I don't interpret the existence of food deserts as evidence that food choice is not 'generally' available. Assuming we are serving people and not geographies.

[0]https://vividmaps.com/us-block-level-population-density/

People that live near gas stations drive to grocery stores for their groceries.

While I don't live in a food desert where these kind of stores are the only option, I have, in fact, regularly found plain yogurt in gas-station convenience stores, the even smaller refrigerated-food sections in urban drug stores, etc.

Now, fresh produce, except—if you are very lucky—extremely expensive (for the quantity), relatively small packs of cut carrots and other things people might reasonably purchase as snacks, anything usable as a cooking fat excepted salted butter, and lots of other things, sure, you are going to be SOL, but plain yogurt (both the usually watery American kind and strained "Greek” yogurt) seems pretty common.

I have also found plain yogurt in gas station convenience stores

My issue was less with the plain yogurt specifically and more with the logic of the parent, namely that "X product has been available in every grocery store I have shopped in" implies that "X product can be found in every grocery store"

Looking at your source, it seems as though food deserts exist almost exclusively when you're very far from civilization.

In which case you can just grow the food.

A good example of a food desert would be an inner-city neighborhood, the first time I heard this term, they were talking specifically about places in Oakland, CA. Which ironically is a short train ride away from the Food Mecca of the USA.

If it's a short train ride away, what's the qualifications fir food desert?

Here's a very detailed article

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/537685fafa614d80ac83a60...

> There are no set few factors, but some other influences that affect food deserts may include: mobility, existing health issues, working irregular hours, fast food culture, lacking adequate knowledge about nutrition, and many more.

Seems like the qualifications are whatever they want them to be.

It actually says right at the top that overwhelmingly they are in urban areas

It doesn't, actually. It says most people who are in food deserts are in urban areas. The vast majority of food deserts, however, are absolutely not in urban areas.

Even if it were true, it still only affects 13 million people. There are 330 million in the US, so it's a non-issue with regard to our obesity problem.

OK, point taken re most people vs most food deserts

In any case, I am talking about the availability of items in response to the parent's obviously absurd implication "every food market I have been to sells X, therefore every food market sells X".

I am using food deserts as a counterexample since definitionally these are regions where certain items are hard to find. I know (hope?) that the person I am responding to likely doesn't believe every grocery store in the United States carries plain yogurt, but I also know that people here often forget that not every place enjoys the same level of choice that is enjoyed in places like the SF Bay Area

I truly don't understand why you are bringing up obesity, this feels very remote to what is being discussed.

I'm bringing up obesity because the overarching topic is UPFs, which are a primary cause of obesity, which is the main reason they are bad.

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