It is I, the E! Online Answer B!tch! Blogging in an effort to help end hunger in my home city?

Lo, you may ask, lo, how can you be in two places at once, Answer B!tch? How can you be on the intertubes at E! Online AND at the blog for Fed Up With Hunger? It’s not easy, I’ll tell you. It’s darned hard, in fact. But there’s no place I’d rather be than right here.

Why? The problem of hunger in my own beloved town of Los Angeles has become a passion of mine. I’m glad that so many celebrities support charities, and have taken on urgent crises around the planet; in fact, many of the stars I cover for E! Online have adopted hunger as their charity of choice, particularly overseas. However, right here, in one of the biggest, most blessed and beautiful cities on Earth, 1 million people face hunger every single night. And 25% of all children in LA are food insecure.

The problem is more nuanced than you might think; canned food drives are terrific, and I encourage you to start one as, say, part of a New Years resolution to help your own neighbors in need. Fed Up With Hunger is always open to any help anyone can offer. But you may be shocked to learn just how hard it is for some people in Los Angeles to find nutritious options for their children — even those who have a little money. In East Los Angeles, an assessment by the East L.A. Community Corporation — also known as the ELACC — identified one supermarket for almost 90,000 residents in the Boyle Heights area, or more than four times lower than the average for Los Angeles County. What does that mean? Well, if you can’t get to a supermarket, you’re often left with only fast food or prepackaged options for your meals. No fresh fruit or vegetables — the basic stuff that anyone needs to stay healthy and well fed. Isn’t it everyone’s right to be not only fed, but fed properly and with good nutrition? Burgers and Twinkies are fun to eat, but, let’s face it. They’re not real food.

It doesn’t end there. Of the nearly 1,300 food establishments in South and Central Los Angeles, nearly 30% are fast food restaurants, 22% as convenience or liquor stores, and less than 2% as full service food markets.  The Community Health Council’s South Los Angeles Health Equity Scorecard has found that in South Los Angeles, there were 8.51 liquor stores per square mile, compared to 1.56 in Los Angeles County. So again, let me make that clear: If you live in a poor or disenfranchised portion of Los Angeles, you have roughly eight times more liquor stores in your area, but you have to work — hard — just to find a fresh floret of broccoli or a real banana.

I am lucky enough that I can take such foods for granted. I have not one, but, three full-service supermarkets within walking distance of my house. Through FUWH, I’ve learned that so many Angelenos don’t even have one. How can we lecture people about obesity rates or healthy options for kids if we can’t even point them to a place where they can get the right building blocks for our bodies? It’s hypocritical, and it isn’t right.

I’ll be honest. I could sit here and get all self-righteous about how Ralphs or Pavilions needs to get on the stick and build more supermarkets in more places, but I know it’s not that simple. But maybe, just by being aware of how uneven the system really is — right here in Los Angeles — we can get more people to focus on the problem, people who can help. It’s a small step. But every little bit counts.