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With a family of seven, including a newborn, food is always a priority for the Tlatoa family. Living right in the middle of South Los Angeles, this family is faced with the question of where to get their food. As activists and farmers involved in the South Central Farm movement, the members of the Tlatoa family have found ways to save money and still enjoy the finer (healthier) things in life.
"We cultivate and grow our own fruits and vegetables," said UCLA student and farmer Alberto Tlatoa. "We eat mostly things that are in season and trade at farmer's markets. Once you're exposed to farmer's markets, processed foods never taste the same."
Having been a part of the South Central Farm movement, the Tlatoa family has been accustomed to grow their own crops and become as self-sustained as possible, even going as far as trading recipes with other farmers at Farmer's Markets, and looking up recipes on Youtube.
Since this family is involved in growing their own fruits and vegetables so much, they know that the cheaper it is, the less money is invested into the crop.
"I've seen it firsthand, the chemicals put into these crops is just sad," said Tlatoa.
However, not everything grows on trees, or can be found in farmer's markets, and the family must turn to grocery stores.
"Things that we can't cultivate, like bread, beans and pasta, we get at El Super, off of Western and Slauson," Tlatoa said. "It's not far if you have a car, but my mom doesn't have one, so she usually takes the bus and then takes the shuttle back."
Although its quite the trip, for this family you can't put a price on health.
"Affordable doesn’t mean its good," Alberto said. "Just because it's cheap, doesn’t mean it's healthy."
3/9/11, 10:41 a.m.
We LOVE this story. And we're happy to offer assistance to anyone who would like to grow (or learn to cook) their own food in the neighborhood. Contact us via our website RootDownLA.org and we'll get on it!