http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2008/11/living_in_a_food_desert.html

A trip to a city grocery store seems like a small thing.

The last time you went it took an hour or so, right? You probably stuck your spouse with the kids some Saturday while you shopped, then ferried home the heavy bags by car.

Not Lesli Calderon. She might as well live in a desert. The closest grocery stores are more like mirages. No bus lines or sidewalks lead to one of the two in her neighborhood, and Calderon can’t drive there because she can’t afford a car. She could take a bus to the other, but she can’t afford the food.

So when Calderon’s cupboards run bare, she hops a bus in Northeast Portland’s Cully neighborhood.

And rides it.

Until she reaches Clackamas County, and WinCo, 10 miles away.

It can take four hours, round trip.

When getting to market takes this much effort, epidemiologists consider it a threat to our collective health. Where we live determines where we buy food, which influences what we eat, factors into whether we’re fat and can seal whether, someday, we get diabetes or have a heart attack.

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