food desert

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food desert

/fuːd ˈdɛzə(ɹ)t/ UK
/fud ˈdɛzɚt/ US

Where it comes from

A report by Cummins and Macintyre states that a resident of public housing in western Scotland supposedly coined the more specific phrase food desert in the early 1990s. The phrase was first officially used in a document in 1995 from a policy working group on the Low Income Project Team of the UK's Nutrition Task Force.

noun food deserts

figuratively A populated region where food, especially healthy food, is difficult to obtain. For years, major supermarket chains have been criticized for abandoning densely populated, largely black and Latino communities in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, Memphis and Newark, N.J. — contributing to what many experts call food deserts.

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noun Translations

Français	désert alimentaire

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MLA

"food desert." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/food%20desert. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

food desert. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/food%20desert

Chicago

"food desert." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/food%20desert.

BibTeX

@misc{food_desert_2026,
  title = {food desert},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/food%20desert},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}