My Foodscape of Los Angeles from 1989-2001 during my my Formative, Pre-Car Years

I am not a healthy eater today, which I'm trying to reverse.

I remember growing up and reading about athletes who "ate whatever" and still managed to perform like they did.  I remember Tyra Banks, my first celebrity crush, saying that she wanted to be able to eat anything while still looking the way she did.  Somehow, what she said has been sticky to my subconscious, and I've adapted a similar attitude --- I'll eat anything, and nothing gets wasted. 

I don't remember eating the healthiest foods.  The standard Filipino diet isn't exactly filled with vegetables, and neither were the convenience of McDonalds, KFC, or Little Caesar's.

Within our world, there weren't really any healthy grocers that we knew of other than the Asian food stores that my parents somehow knew about.  They always somehow knew how to find these markets and get some helping of vegetables, fish, and meat. There was a Trader Joe's in Silver Lake, which to me was just very eccentric.  I only went in because my godsis went there one time. 

Nowadays, I think I've shifted a bit in my tastes.  I love Trader Joe's (when affordable), and can't stand McDonald's except for its Sundaes.  I still have the attitude where I'll eat anything cheap and don't want to waste any food whatsoever, but have been trying to completely cut down on that.

Old eating habits are hard to break.  As an Anthropologist, I'm trying to understand how my habits formed in the first place:  what was ritualized, what was built into our daily lives, and ultimately how that can be countered.  In this vein, I thought it would be interesting to map out my "foodscape" of LA as the eldest child of 2 lower middle-class Filipino immigrants from Chicago.

So I present to you the foodscapes of my childhood here in LA from 1989 - 2001.