Why don’t we use every available unused space in neighborhoods to plant food gardens? Ron Finley, a speaker on TED said it best “Food is the problem and the solution.” There is a horrible epidemic happening in poorer neighborhoods. These people have very little access to organic healthy fruits and vegetables. Within Michael Pollan’s N.Y. Time’s article Unhappy Meals, he states nonfood is consumed because of marketing and uninformed shoppers, and that Americans should eat more vegetables. However, most of the food that children have access to is nonfood, especially in ghettos. In addition, Americans in general do not eat enough vegetables and have misinformation of just very little knowledge about food. By utilizing unused city land to grow…show more content… People can no longer eat a carrot and get the same nutrition they once did twenty years ago. Pollan says this is a result of chemical fertilizers simplifying the soil. Due to the ways we produce food and distribute it, meanwhile these leeched nutrients from the product affect human health. Pollan writes about soil health, and how if the soil is sick, the food will also become sick and so will the people who eat it. The nutritional value of fruits and vegetables has been lowered by big business’ abuse of the land. To solve this problem people must be educated. The best way to do this would be to give people the experience of creating food on their neighborhood blocks. By utilizing the land that is used for grass and making it a plot of vegetables and fruit people would learn the importance of seasons, what real fruits and vegetables look like, and have respect for the work it takes to grow food. People who contribute to the garden will also learn the taste and quality differences between the food they grew and the food available in the…show more content… By growing all natural without fertilizers, the food people grow will be more abundant in nutrients. Pollan states that “Since the widespread adoption of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in the 1950s, the nutritional quality of produce in America has, according to U.S.D.A. figures, declined significantly.” A 10x10 space can grow over a hundred pounds of vegetables. If people had two of these spaces on every block or used every plot of grass that is only there for aesthetics, then people could feed themselves every week with some sort of new vegetable and fresh spices. Right now as Finley says “I live in a food desert” and to me that shouldn’t be a problem. However, with all this land used for useless grass instead of food, the neighborhood climate has become one. While living in Eugene, I have come across many food gardens in people’s front yards and I’m sure there are many more in people’s backyards. This is the right way to go. It’s a great start and if people were to take it a step further then we could do so much more and feed so many more people. Finley says that if you grow your own food you’re “printing money.” If this is the case then why wait? People should start doing this everywhere