Food Diversity And Accessibility: Can You Guess Which States Are The Most Food-Friendly?

Is your community food-friendly? Chances are if you look around your city or state and see a variety of restaurants, farmers markets, and affordable supermarkets, you're living in a food-friendly environment. A recent study from Retale, a mobile shopping app, has ranked each of the 50 U.S. states in terms of "food friendliness." Food friendliness is determined by several factors that measure accessibility, diversity, and healthy food options.

If these measurements are accurate, than the entirety of New England must have a farmers market, affordable grocery store, and chic restaurant on every corner: the top five food-friendly states were all located in New England. In descending order: Connecticut came in at number five, followed by Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. The number one most food-friendly state in the union is also the tiniest: Rhode Island. According to Retale, "this pint-sized non-island is stocked with top-tier, flavorful foods — many of which are 'all their own' in the same way New Orleans claims beignets and Kentucky claims fried chicken."

The top 10 food-friendly states were rounded out by New York, Oregon, Maine, Montana, and Washington. Unsurprisingly, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama (which have some of the highest rates of poverty and obesity in America), were ranked the three most unfriendly food states.

By the way, if you want to go to the land of the food trucks, head to Alaska: Alaska has the most food trucks per capita in the union. Go figure — we thought it'd be California.