In a Town of Restaurants, Where is the Food??

In a city of this size it is almost unbelievable that someone can live no where near a grocery store or stop-shop with fresh produce or meat. While shopping at Family Dollar today for a plunger I met a lady that buys all of her food there.  She was able to buy some produce at the truck on Claiborne between Pauger and Touro, but couldn't afford the prices at the New Orleans Food Co-Op in the Healing Center at Franklin and St. Claude. 

The only meat she ate she purchased already cooked from gas stations and small neighborhood grills in the area. 

This is a horrendous quality of food for this old woman to be bringing in to her body.  Add shoddy medical treatment, and the general wear and tear of being a low-income old lady and you have a drastically reduced life expectancy.  For what?  For a grocery store.  For an opportunity to treat your body right without having to take two buses to get fresh meat.

In the Lower 7th Ward, our hopes lies in two places:  the historic Circle Food Store and the St. Roch Market, both of which are currently being renovated and scheduled to open around the end of summer 2013, and both of which have remained unopened since Hurricane Katrina. 

A couple concerns arise with these hopes though, and that is the gentrification of these two establishments.  It is widely rumored that St. Roch is going to be a high-end food market similar to the Co-Op across the street.  I can barely afford the Co-Op so I'm not sure how all of the other people in the neighborhood are going to fare. 

I do know that what we the people in and around this neighborhood could use a produce, meat, and seafood market.  A traditional market.  That is all.  Nothing fancy, nothing crazy, just a freaking market.