Fresh Moves produce bus

Hundreds of thousands of Chicagoan live at least one mile from fresh fruits and vegetables. This leaves them with the options of taking long rides and only buying what they can carry home or buying processed less healthy versions of food at corner stores. 

The live in what is called "food deserts". Mayer Rahm Emmanual sat down Wednesday with six major grocery store chains to address this problem. Living in a food desert can cause diet related illnesses to the residents like diabetes, obesity, and cancer.

A few years ago, Steven Casey, Jeff Pinzino and Sheelah Muhammad hatched the idea for the Fresh Moves bus, a grocery store in a bus. It is designed to bring the healthy foods directly to the communities that need them.

The group got lots of help from area partners in getting the bus, transforming it into a mobile grocery store, and creating a website to go with it.

Fresh Moves gives its left over produce to homeless shelters, which often isn't much. The demand for the products has proven to be high.

Muhammad and Cooper were pleased to debunk the myth that people from low income housing areas were not interested in health food but rather junk food.

"We're proving that unfounded theory wrong," Muhammad said. "There's a huge demand for this. They're tired of the fast food, they're tired of the lack of options."

As reported by the Huffington Post.