Inside the supermarket, uniformed workers are stacking pineapples into neat rows across from bundles of fresh mustard greens, tamarind pods and nopalitos – sliced cactus ears common in Mexican dishes. In much of the country, Farmers Best Market would not be an extraordinary sight. But here on 47th Street, a gritty stretch of Chicago’s South Side flush with Golden Arches and purveyors of Colt 45 Malt Liquor, the store is an oasis. It’s also raising an intriguing proposition: Can an inner-city supermarket profitably specialize in fresh produce and meats – and, ultimately, be a model solution to urban America’s health crisis?

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. Many of these communities are, quite literally, starving for broader and healthier food options beyond the seemingly ubiquitous fast-food chains and corner stores selling barely a handful of fruits and vegetables – at relatively high prices. (Watch TIME’s video “Urban Deserts: Fresh Food-Free.“)

Simply put, people eat what is convenient and affordable – and if it’s fat-heavy fast food, that’s what they’ll chow down on. The prevalence of obesity among American youth overall increased to 16.3% in 2006, from 5% in 1980, but some 28% of non-Hispanic black females between ages 12 and 19 are obese, as are about 20% of Mexican-American females (the statistic for non-Hispanic white females in the same age group is 14.5%). In congressional testimony earlier this year, a top official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified food deserts as a cause of these grim statistics.

Experts have declared roughly half of Detroit (pop. 916,000) a food desert and estimate that nearly 633,000 of Chicago’s 3 million residents live in neighborhoods either lacking or far away from conventional supermarkets like Jewel, Pathmark and Winn-Dixie. The paucity of affordable, healthy food options in urban communities is ironic in a country with an abundance of food. “Everyone deserves to eat,” says Mari Gallagher, president of the National Center for Public Research, a Chicago group that studies urban issues. The crisis, she adds, “really is a matter of life and death.” (See pictures of what the world eats.)

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