Nutritious Cities: An Exploration of Food Environments in Five Mexican Cities

This chapter explores food environmentsFood environments in five Mexican cities: MexicoMexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Queretaro, and San Luis Potosi. The food environmentFood environments refers to the physical, economic, and socio-cultural conditions that shape people¿s interactions with the food system. In this work, we analyze the role of informal street markets in food environmentsFood environments. Informal street markets are a common feature in the cities of MexicoMexico. Little research is available on informal marketsInformal markets since these markets are not considered by the official census of economic units. We gathered data on informal marketsInformal markets through field surveys carried out from September to December 2022. We developed a framework to analyze the accessibilityAccessibility, affordability, and acceptability of fresh foodFresh food offered in informal marketsInformal markets to shed light on the conditions that shape purchasing and consumption decisions. We concluded that informal marketsInformal markets reduce nutritional vulnerabilityVulnerability, especially in the urban periphery. This work provides a base for planningPlanning decisions that target the improvement of access to a healthy diet in informal settings. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

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