Linear Food Deserts: Unhealthy Food on the Interstate Highway System

We can build freeways. Can we provide healthy food options for people traveling on those freeways?

Between research trips, conference travel, and vacations, I spend a fair amount of time driving on interstate highways. I marvel at the engineering skill it took to build and maintain those ribbons of concrete that cut nonstop for thousands of miles through mountains, valleys, rivers, and plains. The interstate highways transformed American society in the 1950s by providing safe, high-speed roads for long-distance travel—not only for cars like mine, but for the trucks that ship most of the food and other products that end up in our stores. I once saw a bumper sticker on a semi-truck that said, “Without truckers, you would be hungry, naked, and homeless.” That’s truer than most people like to admit.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much healthy food available to travelers on those freeways. I learned long ago that if I want to eat healthy food on a road trip, I need to bring it myself. Sure, there are blue signs that say “Food” at many exits, but most of the chain restaurants by the off-ramp only offer ultra-processed foods. There’s an illusion of diversity, but the majority of menu items are made of white flour, white sugar, and over-processed meat and dairy. Fruits and veggies (other than fried potatoes) are scarce, and whole grains and beans are usually nonexistent.

The lack of healthy food options along our highways especially impacts long-haul truck drivers. Most of the truck drivers I know are overweight and have other health problems related to eating overprocessed food. One of my friends told me a tragic story about a friend of hers who had always been a skinny guy until he got a job as a truck driver. He started eating fast food because that was the easiest option available, gained weight, and died just a couple years later from a heart attack. That’s a tragedy. Our economy couldn’t function without truck drivers, but the only food they can get quickly on the road is literally killing them.

The term “food desert” has been around for a while, usually referring to urban neighborhoods that don’t have grocery stores. What we don’t talk about as much is that most of our nation’s freeways are linear food deserts. Sure, there are often towns a few miles off the freeway with stores and restaurants that sell healthy food, but long-distance travelers don’t have time to make that detour. Truck drivers are also limited to places that provide truck parking.

I can understand why people on a long trip need quick, ready-to-eat food options. When you’re looking at a ten-hour driving day, you don’t have an extra hour to spare for dinner at a sit-down restaurant. But there’s no reason why fast food has to be unhealthy. Surely, in a society with the ingenuity to build and maintain freeways that cut through mountains and bridge huge rivers, someone could figure out a way to keep restaurants along those freeways stocked with the ingredients to make healthy, whole foods. The fast food restaurants don’t have to go out of business—they just have to change their menus. So why don’t they?

It’s one of those chicken-and-egg questions that I’m still trying to find the answer to. Do people eat unhealthy fast food because it’s all that’s available, or is it all that’s available because that’s the only thing people will buy? My best guess is that it’s a little of both. Once people get in the habit of eating unhealthy fast food, they seem remarkably resistant to trying healthier options. It’s a problem of both access and education, because restaurants will only offer healthier options if people consistently buy them.

In the meantime, I pack my own food and keep an eye out for the blue sign that marks the one oasis in the linear food desert where I can stop for a healthy lunch—REST AREA.