Eating Across the Nation

Santa Fe is a world-class destination for its dining options, and it's also well-known for its Farmers Market, Farm to Table organization, and Farm to School program. However, at the other end of the spectrum are members of our county and other communities in the United States that do not have access to healthy food at their grocery stores, or lack access to a good grocery store at all. There are also other variables such as food prices, food taxes, and food insecurity.

The US Department of Agriculture has created a Food Environment Atlas where you can choose different variables related to health indicators and cost, access, and nutrition of food, and see how those measures change from state to state, or by county within a single state. You can also download the data directly if you need specific numbers for various criteria. The data is being regularly updated, so as more information pours in it will be possible to track this over time. For example, in 2007, New Mexico overall was above the US average in Household Food Insecurity. In 2009, New Mexico was in the average range.

While this is a great resource, my one request would be that the USDA enables the selection of multiple variables at once. For instance, it might be useful to overlay the fast-food expenditures per capita with the various obesity rates available. But for an easy-to-use overview of food and health in the country that's chock-full of information, the Food Environment Atlas is a great start.