Another Barrier: The LBSU Food Desert

OPINION BY JACOB INGRAM

ANOTHER BARRIER: THE LBSU FOOD DESERT

WE’RE HUNGRY, AND ALL WE HAVE ARE FUCKING CRÊPES

BY JACOB INGRAM

Do you think we live in an era where I can successfully pollute the university’s search engine optimization by writing headlines in a campus magazine that challenge the approved narratives passed down from Brotman? Let’s test my little theory with this piece and repeat after me: “The campus of Long Beach State is a food desert.”

Now I know you are going to try and say “Jake, the Nugget is finally hiring, chill” or “Jake, if you actually graduate and leave campus, you can give it a rest,” but to that, I have to disagree for a couple of reasons. One, food equity issues are acute and immediate. Two, these issues manifest in a few particular cases of interest that may not readily be apparent. Three, we are still missing the mark in terms of meeting the needs of core campus demographics. Four, access to decision-makers has proven insufficient on this one, so why not stick it in the magazine?

Aside: You see, I got my bachelor’s degree in History from this school, LBSU. They taught me about source-based history, courtesy of an old German dude, Leopold von Ranke. Basically, because I occupy this present moment in time and because I come with all my lovely Jake experiences and the larger institutional memory I have been witness to, I can leave little landmines for some other researcher to unearth, and you do this with good keyword usage, so while my title is witty, it does more damage when I actually mention the “No Barriers” campaign by explicit title. Too meta?

C’mon Jake, food stuff on campus. Oh yeah, it’s a desert, pal. Let’s define a food desert, just in case:

Food Desert: A food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food. Wikipedia. omg he can’t do that. Riveting.

Let me lay this out for you. It affects us here and now. There are five places to actually eat for a population pushing 40,000: Sbarro, Carl’s Jr., Subway, El Pollo Loco, and the Outpost.

Here’s another issue among these five. Only one of the five accepts the CalFresh/EBT benefits that they help you sign up for downstairs. I will leave this topic for a colleague to address more appropriately later in this magazine but it merits mentioning in this context.

But Jake, the food trucks! Have you seen the food trucks? Yes, and I read that they weren’t making quota.

See here’s the thing, it would have helped to know, as a community, that the trucks had to be making a quota of $1200 per day or else they would be under threat of cancellation. Because maybe then, you would see some participation in the processes about this stuff. What good was the USU Food Survey for? An hour long behemoth of a data scrape. Only for us to be approaching November with nothing but Black Forest ham, queso blanco, and onion rings on the menu. Maybe if you were gonna ask for a $1,200 per day quota, you could book something a little more mainstream than a fucking crêpe truck. Are you serious?

Because I am serious. When I approached ASI leadership about inviting so-called street vendors onto campus, I was given a playbook perfect run-around. Ideas were validated, follow-ups were promised, and then nothing. Only to have a birdie tell me that it died at risk management… “ArE tHeY PerMiTTeD?”

Let’s do a quick thought experiment… Do you think that a taquero, whose livelihood and survival depends on selling tacos at volume, will make much of a living if they are getting their clientele sick to their stomach?

This is what structural racism smells like by the way. Go google the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program and get back to me on how to feed a community.

A quick review of my informal proposal to include street vendors: Determine what you might call the “Southern California Street Staples,” we are talking taco men, eloteros, paleta carts, fruit carts, you get it. Determine those as a sort of standalone category, assume five categories. This way no single vendor will overlap with another. Paletas versus fruit carts, everyone gets their preferred munch. Swap paletas for tamales as seasons change. Next, determine the number of working days in a month. For easy math let’s just assume four weeks of four working days, totaling 16 days in a month. If you have five separate vendor categories, then you can invite a different vendor onto campus once a month until you have a different vendor for every role, every day, once a month. 16 days times five daily vendors would be 80 different small businesses the campus could be building legitimate ties with. But someone in risk management is afraid of a taco? The safety risk excuse is weaker than the Sbarro’s marinara sauce.

My birdies tell me Sbarro is contracted until 2024 and we could already be soliciting ideas for how to next approach pizza on campus. Because that’s what this is. It fundamentally boils down to who gets the contract to make pizza on campus. Who as in the individual, and who as in the organization. Long Beach is home to a handful of fabulous pizza places. Similarly, El Pollo Loco, Subway, and Carl’s Jr. all represent mainstream dietary demands that we could service so much better.

If we were really being punk rock and radical about this, we haven't even scratched the surface. The real shit would take the shape of a brandless pizza collective that would teach you how to make dough (plural), sample ingredients and toppings, and teach you how to clean a kitchen.

With mention of “do it yourself” work ethic, we arrive at the community garden… I want to understand. I really do. But my frustration is grounded in seeing conflicting execution. Such as the Sustain U and Grow Beach websites being out of date, but the new garden location already being decided, built, soiled, planted, and now watered without much fanfare or announcement. What are we growing? How do we participate? Will 28— yes, I counted— store bought planters really yield much in both ways of serving students and productive garden space? How does the plantable square footage compare to that of the previous garden that was demolished for the new dorms? How was the new space chosen?

Yeah, I would hate me too. But someone has to watchdog this crap. Don’t you “newsletter” me about this either, no one likes them. My issue is that the garden is the one idea I would’ve liked to have given some input on but, y’know, what we do in the shadow.

You know what I wanted to offer to the community garden, instead of giving another shovel load of crap to people I need to be able to work with going forward…

My input would be that if we are spatially limited in garden space, then the Grow Beach community garden would be best utilized as a demonstration garden of sorts with a focus on growing native and heirloom plants to fruit and flower and use it as an opportunity to get more students interested in whole cycle ecology (we won't talk about the dead recycling center…). Native seeds are not particularly hard to come by and could easily fill the 28 containers we do have on offer. Native Seeds/SEARCH has them on offer already. They include drought tolerant tepary bean varieties, purple and yellow tomatillos, and a ton more. This is not an ad, but maybe it should be. Another free ad, Tacos Lionydas. Google it, dorks.

Instead it appears as though we kinda just raided a Lowe’s garden section for the community garden starter pack. Nevermind that we built it on top of concrete, very permaculture chic. Would it truly kill this campus to go ask Facilities for a piece of grass that they don’t wanna maintain anymore?

Because when ASI and 49er Shops don’t wanna maintain something anymore, they just close it, like the University Dining Plaza, aka the building at the top of the escalator, and insist it needs to be demolished while simultaneously they shrug at the idea of the current generation of students struggling with feeding themselves at any price point, let alone one they can afford.

It is a weird Catch-22. On one hand, there are those of us who spend a massive amount of time on campus and are beholden to the options in front of us. Conversely, there is nothing to eat on campus if you want hot food late at night. Also, we’ve gone this far without making any mention of our friends with dietary restrictions that already deal with reduced offerings and scant accommodations.

All the air fryer and Instant Pot giveaways in the world cannot fix this problem when the venue ASI deemed appropriate for teaching the student body to cook came in with seating for 12 whole people. With around 40,000 campus community members, it will take 3,334 classes for everyone to get a shot. Maybe just transfer to culinary school? I am sure your parents would be thrilled.

So when you’re waiting in line to pay more than ever for whatever overpriced and overprocessed calorie bomb you choose next, just remember, the campus administration is being very guarded with details about the UDP being closed.

Anywho, that’s my article, maybe the Daily 49er (I hardly know her!) could look into some of this. Our bosses say we gotta be friends, ok? Bye!

Radio General Manager Jacob Ingram can be observed in real life on the first floor of the University Student Union. He is most active in the afternoon hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday. Please do not tap on the glass. He owes the editors an apology this month. Ignore his Instagram stories @quantum.geography

ILLUSTRATION BY RJ NIETO