<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-inequity-how-inequity-persists-in-american-daily-life-2021-6"></a></p><div type="image" title="closed store" height="683" width="910" msid="83989365" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Lack of access to fresh <keyword id="6181" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Food">food</keyword> is no accident - it's a multi-faceted issue that hinges on power. </li><li>Looking at the state of Indiana as an example, racial discrimination and years of divestment have contributed to worsening food access conditions for specific communities. </li><li>And the people most hurt by this issue are those with limited access to driving, such as the elderly and individuals with disabilities. </li></ul><p>The Peace Garden at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Indianapolis has a busy springtime schedule on the books, with upcoming events that invite volunteers to prune, till, and plant vegetables such as collards, lettuce, and tomatoes. That fresh produce will go to food pantries on the Indiana capital's east side. Last year saw a crop of 7,000 pounds of vegetables.</p><p>Joan Trendell, a retired public servant who now runs the garden for the church, told Insider that volunteers at the garden are a diverse bunch. Some of the women who frequently get their hands dirty planting and picking produce are over 80.</p><p>"They're just amazing," Trendell said.</p><p>But older people also make up many recipients of the garden's bounty.</p><p>"The older folks that may be individuals living together or close by to each other," Trendell told Insider. "They kind of support each other. You also might see someone come in that's helping out a family member. They can receive theirs, as a proxy."</p><p>According to the <a href="https://www.ncoa.org/article/get-the-facts-on-snap-and-senior-hunger,">National Council on Aging</a>, around 7.3 million older adults are "food insecure" in the US. In 2018, a poll from the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center found that one in five Americans over the age of 65 stopped <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-national-poll-inability-to-drive-lack-of-transportation-options-are-major-concerns-for-older-adults-people-with-disabilities-and-caregivers-300761774.html">driving</a>, a key factor that deprives older people of access to grocery stores. The USDA's <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas/">Food Access Atlas</a> tracks stats around food accessibility. Insider's analysis of the atlas found that in Indiana's Marion County - where Indianapolis is located -  over 12,000 seniors live a mile away from a grocery store, while over 24,000 live half a mile away.</p><p>Activists are divided on the role that corporations might play in terms of lessening the issue of food inequality. But the consensus is that a solution isn't simply opening more stores that stock food, as physical distance from supermarkets is just a piece of the problem. The issue around lack of access to nutritious food is also multifaceted and takes on different forms across localities. But the experts who spoke with Insider emphasized the risks that older adults in particular face in losing access to quality food.</p><h2><strong>'A hollowing out'</strong></h2><p>When it comes to food access, Indiana is a middling state - not among the very worst, and certainly far from the best. But the Hoosier State does offer a few key glimpses at how varied a problem lack of access to healthy food can manifest.</p><p>St. Albans isn't the only Indianapolis organization taking a hands-on approach to fighting food inequality. The Flanner House is an Indianapolis social-services agency that dates to 1903. Nowadays, it runs a veritable fresh-food distribution machine, including a two-acre farm that grows 50,000 pounds of produce a year, a small, 2,800-square-foot store called Cleo's Bodega &amp; Cafe, and even a mobile bodega created from two buses retrofitted with refrigeration technology.</p><p>"Part of our motivation is not just to be able to make food available to folks, but to hold this up as a model that is affordable and sustainable in moderate and low-income neighborhoods," Brandon Cosby, the executive director of the Flanner House, told Insider.</p><p>Indiana University's data-tracking program SAVI<a href="https://www.savi.org/feature_report/getting-groceries-food-access-across-groups-neighborhoods-and-time/"> found</a> that as of 2019, there were 208,000 people living with limited access to supermarkets in Indianapolis<a href="https://www.savi.org/feature_report/getting-groceries-food-access-across-groups-neighborhoods-and-time/"> alone</a>, including 10,500 without car or bus access. In Indianapolis, limited access to traditional supermarkets is largely a relic of racist policy and business practices.</p><p>"This is driven by racism, disinvestment, bad policy, and bad corporate practice," Cosby said. "We don't talk about food deserts - the desert is a naturally occurring phenomenon. There is nothing natural about this, so we call it what it is 'food apartheid.'" </p><p>According to Daniel Knudsen, a professor with the Food Institute at Indiana University who studies <keyword id="147608" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="food-insecurity">food insecurity</keyword> among low-income older people, the situation is somewhat different in the rural Indiana areas that he focuses on, such as Crawford County and Greene County. </p><p>"There are big accessibility issues, but they're not related in any way to race - they're related to poverty amongst a largely white population," he said. "It has to do with the hollowing out of rural America due to industrial agriculture."</p><p>According to Knudsen, the populations in these places have shifted away from towns as small, 3,000-acre family farms have gone under. The result is "massive disinvestment in these rural areas."</p><p>When there are only so many families, large grocery stores are not going to stay, Knudsen said. "So what you see is a proliferation of dollar stores and relatively few grocery stores. And many times those grocery stores do not carry a full line of products."</p><h2><strong>'They're in serious trouble'</strong></h2><p>Lack of easy access to supermarkets doesn't affect everyone equally.</p><p>"Older adults and people with disabilities really struggle to access nutritious food when it is not available in their neighborhood," Emily Engelhard, the managing director of thought leadership at Feeding America, told Insider in a statement. "Sometimes they must resort to whatever food is easily available when they are not able to travel long distances, change buses, or spend long periods of time traveling because of their health."</p><p>In one 2018 study published in<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6227553/#"> Innov Aging</a>, 42% of respondents over 65 said they had difficulty walking 10 blocks and 38% had difficulty climbing stairs, meaning they generally have a hard time getting food home. That same year, Feeding America<a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/research/senior-hunger-research/senior"> reported</a> that 5.3 million seniors suffered from food insecurity, as well as 4.5 million adults age 50 to 59.</p><p>And food insecurity in<a href="https://dataindiana.news/tag/food-deserts/"> Indiana</a> predominantly affects those living without car or bus access. Cosby told Insider that the Flanner House has taken more vulnerable residents such as senior citizens into consideration by launching a mobile bodega during the pandemic.</p><p>"We can bring the grocery store to their neighborhood - or to their senior housing community," he said. "They can walk out their front door and be able to get access to those food options."</p><p>Jessica Minor, the director of programs and assessment from AccessABILITY, a disability rights organization based in Indianapolis, told Insider that food is part of her organization's central mission as well.</p><p>"By working with people with disabilities, there are a few things relating to food that we do on a regular basis for our consumers," Minor said. "We connect them with food pantries, provide them with food directly - for example, during the pandemic we've been able to help them with Instacart and have food delivered - and we systemically advocate for more resources within our community."</p><p>But Knudsen said that seniors or individuals with disabilities living in rural environments without access to stores can find it even harder than accessing supermarkets. In his experience, many of those communities may be "close-knit," but also often lack the proliferation of food pantries, community and private gardens, and food activism that's flourished in cities like Indianapolis.</p><p>"In rural areas, if seniors don't have a relative or a friend who can drive them, or they don't have delivery, they're in serious trouble," he said. "They become really reliant on taxi services or the goodwill of people at their church who make a point of picking them up once a once a week or so to take them shopping."</p><h2><strong>Profiting off 'food apartheid'</strong></h2><p>Dollar stores as a <keyword id="6354851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="retail">retail</keyword> segment have long been considered controversial when it comes to activism around food access. Many of these low-cost stores do stock food but in the form of snacks or items that have been canned or frozen. Knudsen said a shopper might be able to find a meal in a dollar store that ticks off all the relevant USDA<a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-food-reports"> requirements</a> for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.</p><p>"But what's going to happen is you're going to be eating that out of a can," Knudsen said. "On a good day, you're going to be able to eat it by thawing it out."</p><p>Knudsen said that dollar stores in recent years have "done a better job" of bringing in more frozen fruits, vegetables, and proteins, although he said this isn't a universal push. Dollar General in particular has emphasized its desire to expand frozen and - ultimately - fresh options through its DG Fresh<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-dg-fresh-grocery-2020-8"> program</a>. But according to Cosby, these changes are a cynical move to gobble up shoppers' SNAP dollars.</p><p>"It's poverty pimping of the highest order," he said.</p><p>Then there's the effect that dollar stores can have on the existing retail landscape of a locality. In 2018, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that the arrival of a dollar store in a community can cut<a href="https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Dollar_Store_Fact_Sheet.pdf"> annual sales</a> at neighboring supermarkets by 30%. Speaking with<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-ceo-todd-vasos-talks-grocery-future-walmart-2021-2"> Insider</a> several months ago, Dollar General's CEO, Todd Vasos, said that his company views both urban and rural areas - the latter of which account for 75% of store locations - as opportunities to expand.</p><p>"We do know that the grocers have moved out years and years ago in these areas," he said. "We started to look years ago into expanding into small towns, and we knew there was that niche to fill."</p><p>But dollar stores have proliferated over the course of the past 30 years. In terms of its footprint in Indiana, Dollar General expanded to 566 locations in 2020 from 108 in 1994. That's a net gain of 458 stores, according to<a href="https://investor.dollargeneral.com/websites/dollargeneral/English/3100/us-sec-filings.html?years=0&amp;categories=1es=1"> documents</a> from the Securities Exchange Commission. Its major rival, Dollar Tree, went from eight<a href="https://www.dollartreeinfo.com/node/23281/html"> stores</a> in Indiana in 1994 to 348 in 2018.</p><p>Many activists, like Cosby, want the conversation around food access to move from attracting specific grocery stores into specific communities. In fact, among food-access activists, corporations often end up looking more like part of the problem than the solution. Cosby said that the business model of big-box stores and other major retailers "is not a terribly profitable design," and the emphasis on impulse buying does not make them attractive for poorer areas. </p><p>As a result, food policy that revolves around an impulse like "we need to get Kroger to open a store here" is not a viable solution. And additional food pantries - which, for Cosby, represent a reduced "quality of life" - are not part of his solution either.</p><p>Instead, Cosby and the Flanner House are pushing for "food sovereignty," or a community's right to "access to affordable healthy food in a culturally appropriate and responsive way."</p><p>"What people need is access to affordable, healthy food options," he said.</p><p>Knudsen added that improving and expanding public transportation - including into rural areas - and bolstering benefits like SNAP could do a lot to minimize food insecurity.</p><p>"Poor people know how to eat correctly," he said. "The problem is they don't have the money. Poor people make the best choices they can with the money they have."</p><p>Trendell also said that governmental solutions are a key part of lessening food inequality as there's only so much that local groups can fix.</p><p>"We've got to make sure that those federal supports are always still in place because it really is the backbone for making sure people eat," she said.</p><p>Another way to help seniors who don't drive is to help them get to social events so that they can fight the pandemic of loneliness. He recalled an older woman who attended a focus group that he helped put together on food inequality. The car-less woman had been struggling to make trips to the supermarket to buy food. But she ended up leaving the meeting with a fortified social circle.</p><p>"She made a bunch of friends at the focus group, for crying out loud," he said. "They were, like, 'Oh yeah, you need to come to our church.' That was huge for her."</p>

'Food apartheid' remains a hurdle for millions of Americans, but it severely harms the elderly

<p><em><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/insiderpicks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Insider Picks</a><span> </span>writes about products and services to help you navigate when shopping online. Insider Inc. receives a commission from our affiliate partners when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.</em></p><p>We rounded up the eight best sales and deals happening online today, with savings on air fryers, Ring doorbells, outdoor furniture, and more. 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We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at insiderpicks@businessinsider.com.</br></br></br></br></p></p>

Take $58 off a top-rated air fryer, and 10% off Tommy John men's underwear packs - plus 6 more deals happening now

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b57812c75f05031008b4693-1273/shutterstock701872057.jpg" border="0" alt="smart home" data-mce-source="zhu difeng/Shutterstock" /><p class="source"><span>zhu difeng/Shutterstock</span></p><p class="caption">The smart homes of rich people are shockingly advanced.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/smarthome">Smart home</a> systems that rich people use are wildly different from the Amazon Alexa you may have just bought for your home.</strong></li><li><strong>Oprah Winfrey has a radiant heat system that automatically melts snow off of her winter home's driveway, while Mark Zuckerberg's custom AI-powered specialty app acts as his own personal butler voiced by actor Morgan Freeman.</strong></li><li><strong>Here are the major differences in the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/smarthome">smart home</a> systems owned by rich people.</strong></li></ul><hr /><p>Rich people don't skimp when it comes to outfitting their homes with the latest tech.</p><p>A "prominent Upper East Side" family was willing to pay a couple $100,000-$150,000 a year to oversee cooking, cleaning, personal shopping, and other household duties, according to a 2017 listing in Hire Society, as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-family-hiring-domestic-couple-to-cook-and-clean-2017-12">Business Insider previously reported</a>.</p><p>In addition to housekeeping, the position required the pair to be familiar with three modern <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-family-hiring-domestic-couple-to-cook-and-clean-2017-12">smart-home technology systems</a>: Lutron, Crestron, and Kaleidescape.</p><p>If those brand names left you scratching your head, <a href="http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Pages/default.aspx">Lutron</a> is a smart-home manufacturer that offers energy-saving light dimmers, switches, and shades that can control anywhere 50 to 10,000 <a href="https://techomex.com/articles/lutron-leads-the-way-in-lighting-control/">devices</a>. <a href="https://www.crestron.com/en-US/about/company-overview-information">Crestron</a> programs offer integrated lighting control, home security, speakers, and other technologies. <a href="https://www.kaleidescape.com/#">Kaleidescape's</a> multi-room entertainment server technologies that stream video and audio are the perfect systems for a rich person's at-home movie theater.</p><p>Many of us have dreamed about living in a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/easy-smart-home-upgrades-2018-3">home</a> where mundane tasks - like washing the dishes or turning on the TV - can be outsourced to a device.</p><p>With the creation of products like the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Echo-And-Alexa-Devices/b?ie=UTF8&amp;node=9818047011">Amazon Echo</a> and <a href="https://store.google.com/us/product/google_home?hl=en-US">Google Home</a>, that dream is closer to becoming a reality for the mass market. But if a couple of hundred of dollars can buy the average consumer these <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-smart-home-tech-under-100-dollars-2017">gadgets</a>, what can those who have unlimited resources get out of their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-build-a-smart-home-easy-steps-2018-3">smart home systems</a>? The answer: pretty much everything and anything they want.</p><p>"Affluent households are far more likely to become early adopters of new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/survey-says-consumers-have-privacy-concerns-with-smart-home-devices-2018-4">technology</a> than the average consumer, and smart home systems are no different," Winnie Bekmanis, who works in product marketing for the Internet of Things (IoT) at <a href="https://www.qualcomm.com/">Qualcomm</a>, told Business Insider. "What differentiates the pricier <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-amazon-rolls-out-model-smart-homes-for-us-shoppers-to-try-out-alexa-2018-5">smart home systems</a> is the scale of installation and personalization."</p><h2>Personalization is the key in smart homes of rich people</h2><p>Celebrity homes are the perfect examples of what personalized smart home systems can look like. In an <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/for-sofia-vergaras-modern-family-a-modern-home/">interview with CNET</a>, actress Sofia Vergara talked about building a smart house that lets her not only watch movies in her at-home theater, but also allows her to Skype with family and use her social media on a mega screen.</p><p>According to the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/hot-property/la-fi-hotprop-oprah-winfrey-20151216-story.html#">LA Times</a>, media mogul Oprah Winfrey spent $14 million on a high-tech ski home in Telluride where a radiant heat system keeps the driveway completely snow free.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b58d95389c8a11e008b45c8-1200/gettyimages-474281495.jpg" border="0" alt="Oprah" data-mce-source="Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NAACP Image Awards" /><p class="source"><span>Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NAACP Image Awards</span></p><p class="caption">Oprah's Colorado home is equipped with smart home tech.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Bekmanis said that when it comes to luxurious homes, those systems that can intuitively adapt to the entertainment or security preferences of the homeowner are naturally more desirable.</p><p>"Smart home systems are key to connecting every disparate smart device in the house together smoothly," she said. "When these systems are automating trivial chores and tasks for the homeowner, such as turning off the house lights or making coffee in the morning, they can add up to serious time savings."</p><p>Guests in the home of Microsoft founder <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/19-crazy-facts-about-bill-gates-house-2014-11">Bill Gates</a> receive devices to connect them to the smart house technology, which includes controlling temperature, lighting, and music, Business Insider previously reported.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b58df96e361c018008b45ac-1200/gettyimages-72945036.jpg" border="0" alt="Smart home tech" data-mce-source="Lee Celano/Microsoft Corp. via Getty Images" /><p class="source"><span>Lee Celano/Microsoft Corp. via Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Bill Gates demonstrates an HP TouchSmart PC  in 2007.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10103351034741311/">Facebook video</a>, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg showed off his very own AI-powered home system, J.A.R.V.I.S, which is controlled through a specialty app that Zuckerberg created and is voiced by actor Morgan Freeman.</p><h2>Their smart homes are controlled from one interface</h2><p>According to Bekmanis, smart home systems make it easy to precisely control and customize nearly everything in your house from one interface.</p><p>"One of the early markets to benefit from smart home technology was home security - encompassing everything from automated door and window locks to intelligent lighting and cameras. Advancements in artificial intelligence are making a notable impact on the development of these smart home security systems as well," Bekmanis said.</p><p>"Imagine security cameras that recognize the difference between an intruder and Grandma, or send a notification when a child has lost their key and needs help with remote access," she said.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b58dea2e199f335008b45a9-1508/screen shot 2018-07-25 at 43154 pm.png" border="0" alt="Smart home" style="color: #000000;" data-mce-source="Mark Zuckerberg" data-link="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10103351034741311/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10103351034741311/">Mark Zuckerberg</a></span></p><p class="caption">Mark Zuckerberg using his custom AI-powered home system, J.A.R.V.I.S., in a Facebook video.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>If you want to make your home smarter ...</h2><p>If you're thinking of investing in your own fancy at-home smart system, Bekmanis said you should plan it out thoroughly. "People often forget to keep the strength of their home WiFi network in mind as they invest in a smart home system," she said. "As connected devices continue to grow in popularity, they become more deeply integrated into every room of the home."</p><p>She recommended looking out for any spots in your home where it is difficult for devices to connect to WiFi, and to buy appropriate technology to fix that problem.</p><p>"Traditional stand-alone routers do this technology a disservice by creating dead spots in notoriously difficult areas like the bathroom or basement," she said, which can affect smart refrigerators and washing machines.</p><p>"Especially for larger homes, mesh WiFi systems are better suited for the job. The technology alleviates dead spots by scattering nodes throughout the home to keep the technology in each and every room reliably connected."</p><p>With so many smart products out there today, smart home systems make it easy to sync our physical and digital lifestyles. So if Zuckerberg's AI system inspires you to want to create your very own at-home butler voiced by an actor of your choosing (I'd love Helen Mirren, personally), you better start saving. It's going to cost you.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/couple-reveals-their-spending-weaknesses-and-how-to-save-2018-7">This couple reveals their weaknesses when it comes to spending and how they manage to save</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/bTDuejvV-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

You Searched For "multi door refrigerator" and got 3 results

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Take $58 off a top-rated air fryer, and 10% off Tommy John men's underwear packs - plus 6 more deals happening now

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A look inside the amazing smart-home systems that rich people use

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