I remember opening the refrigerator at my grandma's house. Inside, there was a block of queso fresco, bologna, a few eggs, and some vegetables from my grandma’s garden.

At 8-years-old, there wasn’t much I could do to help, but I would carry the pot of yesterday's soup to the stove while my grandma rolled and pressed handmade tortillas.

At the kitchen table, my grandpa would dip slices of white bread into his Folgers coffee, a bundle of bananas sitting in front of him. He would reach for one after his morning coffee, I remember how his dentures would click as he chewed. He would hand me $2, telling me to stop by the house of the lady who made tamales, the tamalera, on my way to the school bus stop. A dollar for a tamale, and a dollar for a warm cup of warm champurrado, Mexican hot chocolate. That way, I wouldn’t have to wait until I got to my elementary school to eat something

Whether we were staying with my grandma, or my mom was cooking at home, every meal was a careful balance of what we had and how far we could stretch it.

This struggle isn't unique to families like the one I grew up in. It's common, particularly among low-income communities. A USC Dornsife study published in September of last year, about 30% of households experience food insecurity in Los Angeles and there are children in 41% of them. Most residents experiencing food insecurity are female-led, Latino and young adults 18 to 40-year-olds.

Too often, the lack of access to nutritious, affordable food leads to long-term health disparities. Communities that face systemic poverty are affected by obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, which are all linked to a cycle of poor nutrition. It’s a cycle that’s hard to break when families don’t have the money to buy healthier options.

Anne Peare, a program manager at Administrative Core Southern California for Latino Health speaks of “food deserts” and “food swamps” to communicate how people’s financial circumstances can affect their access to healthy food.

“Our health and well being is so much more impacted by the environments we grow up in, where we live, where we work, what families were born into, what kind of socioeconomic class we are, the political environment,” says Peare. “Unhealthy environments, lack of access to food, malnutrition, those all all lead to chronic health diseases later in life.”

Growing up, I witnessed how this played out in my own family. With limited access to healthy food, we struggled with obesity and chronic health issues, just like many others in similar circumstances. My grandpa had Type 2 diabetes and was always very cautious about managing his blood sugar levels. I can still picture him squinting his eyes, bracing himself as we pricked his finger to check his glucose, carefully inserting the test strip into the monitor.

My Immigrant Family

My grandparents, Ventura Montoya of Sinaloa, Mexico, and Ana Vaca Cardenas of Michoacán, Mexico, immigrated to the United States as young adults in the early 1970s. My grandfather crossed the Rio Grande with my grandmother holding his hand and the small child who would become my uncle, tio Isidro, on his shoulders. They came in search of a better life and opportunities for the children they had and the ones still to come.

By the time my mother, Cristina Montoya, was born in 1982, they had settled into a rhythm of working as field laborers, picking grapes, peaches, onions, almonds. My grandma started a garden of her own by taking some of the seeds from work to plant in hopes to have fresh food right outside their door of their house.

My mom often worked alongside them in the fields as a teenager, learning the importance of hard work ethics. Their lives were built around hard work to support a family of five - my grandparents, my mother, and my two uncles. They would set aside $100 a week for groceries from the local Ranchos San Miguel market to feed the family, as a supplement to what they grew gardening. On their small plot of land on the outskirts of the city, they also raised animals such as goats and chickens, which would eventually end up as dinner.

My mom met my dad in January 2001, and I was born in late December of the same year. My parents had a difficult relationship — my father was often absent, even from early on—so my mom leaned on my grandparents to help care for my siblings and I. When I was about five, my sister and I lived with my grandparents for about 6 months while both of my parents struggled with their addictions. My mom knew she needed to get clean before she could really care for us and she feared that CPS would take us away,so we were safe with our grandparents.

As a child, I didn’t understand the severity of the situation. I just remember that we would either visit my grandparents or they would be the ones taking care of us. Even through the toughest times, they made sure we got to and from school safely, watched over us on weekends and drove out to see us when we moved away.

My dad was often lost in his battle with his impulses, spending more time on the streets or in and out of jail than at home. When he was around, he was barely present. He was in his mind somewhere else, distant and consumed. He would come home with duffel bags full of mysterious objects and lock himself in the room or bring home broken dirt bikes and cars that he would say he was fixing. I later realized he was just selling them for parts. Then, he would disappear for days at a time.

There were many times when we would drive through town trying to find him. Other times he would come home with the car full of "gifts" which I later figured out he had stolen. The real gift would have been him being home, not out on the streets, and more present in our lives. It’s part of the reason we spent so much time with my grandparents, they were a refuge when the world outside felt unstable and broken.

I grew up wondering why we had less of just about everything than other kids at our largely middle class school. Our clothes were hand-me-downs. Our home was infested with cockroaches. We couldn't repair basic things at home. At one house I would have to wash clothes in the bathtub for the next day and hang them to dry by the fireplace. In another house the dishwasher would often flood, so we'd just stop using it. As I got older, I came to understand that my father had ruined his credit, as well as my mom's and even my grandparents' on failed businesses and to buy alcohol and meth. It felt like we were always trying to patch up the messes he left behind and scrambling to make ends meet.

My mom would try to hold things together when he wasn’t around. Despite her best efforts, there were moments when I’d see her face, drawn, her eyes hollow from worry. Sometimes when I was up late at night because I couldn’t sleep, I would hear her crying.

My mother was our main source of income. Making sure we had enough didn’t come easily. She worked at the Valley Children's Hospital in Madera, California as a coordinator scheduling surgeries for children in the orthopedic department from 8:00 a.m. until about 2:30 in the afternoon. Right after that shift she would drive to her other job as a customer service representative for the IRS with just enough time to clock in. There she would work until 12:30 a.m. or longer, if she could earn overtime. During these long hours my grandmother would care for us.

“I had to drop you guys off at Nana’s because your dad wouldn’t really help. Most of the time you were with her,” she said, referring to my grandma.

From there she would go home and sleep before having to clock in for her shift the next morning. When she was able to come home earlier, she get to work cooking dinner: Hamburger Helper or microwaving pre-made meat for tacos. The key for a family like ours was cost and efficiency. I’d help as best I could by doing things like browning the rice while wined down and showered, cutting vegetables, or setting the table. As I got older, I took on more responsibilities. By the time she came home, I would have dinner ready and the house clean. The rhythm of it all became second nature as I found myself becoming a second mother.

When I was about 12 years old, I was helping my mom budget about $300 every two weeks to feed our family. That could mean me, my two siblings, and my mom and dad, if he was home, unless dad was on the streets or in jail. So, that money needed to feed five or six people.

In the market, we would use the publication full of coupons to navigate our way through the aisle. “SALE” signs were plastered all around, especially on junk food, which we would add to the cart. My grandma would stand at the deli section asking for food by the pound — “una libra de pollo, una libra de bola y una libra de queso fresco y crema?” Hearing that, I was already planning what I was going to garnish with the cheese and sweet mexican sour cream.

Fresh produce, including blueberries, cherries or avocados were a luxury we could only buy on rare special occasions or when there was a big sale. Meat other than chicken and pork was a splurge unless there was a glut or it was close to expiration and the price dropped enough. We bought what we could afford, like cheap masa, which is dough made from ground corn, to make homemade corn tortillas, cheap pinto beans to smash and fry, rice, pastas, and potatoes.

Ingredients that could stretch the furthest and provide the most calories at the lowest cost were crucial. It was less about nourishment and more about making us feel full. Those meals were created out of necessity, not abundance. We called them “struggle meals.”

“We had enough,” my mother, Cristina Montoya, insists. “Because we knew how to budget and we knew how to make food last and what to make to get full.”

Poor Food = Bad Health

My mom and uncle have both battled with their weight for as long as I can remember, my uncle has been called Gordo— fats or fatty—at least since my earliest memories.

The unhealthy food environment we lived in, combined with limited resources and a lack of education on how to nourish ourselves properly, set the stage for the chronic health issues we faced. I watched my family struggle with weight and health problems, and soon enough, I found myself gaining weight too.

As a child, I became hyper-aware of my weight, constantly cautious about what I ate. I was afraid of gaining weight, often told by my mom that if I ate too much, I would get fat. These early fears about my body and food shaped the way I viewed eating, and I started to monitor every bite.

Peare explains that, “We see this … if an infant, for example, is fed unhealthy infant formula and then has, you know, pretty unhealthy diet in the early stages of life, they're more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, obesity, other chronic health diseases, heart disease, so on, so forth.”

“It's a larger systems issue. I think food is medicine, and having access to healthy foods is a human right, and I think we're seeing a lot more focus on food as medicine within the healthcare space,” says Peare.

Natasha Wasim, a PhD student in Public Health Sciences at USC, explain that food insecurity is connected to poverty because access to affordable and healthy food is often difficult. “I think it's really important [that we] move away from that narrative that it's a person's fault” when they're not eating healthy, or when they have obesity or diabetes,” Wasim said. “It's really understanding that a system as a whole has created these kind of outcomes,” she added.

Wasim went on to emphasize that many people face competing financial pressures. “A lot of times, people you know will have competing costs — rent, health care, car payments, health insurance….” Food, she said, “kind of comes last, which is sad to say, because everyone needs to eat.”

To address these challenges, many families rely on budget-friendly food staples that can stretch their resources while still providing essential nutrients.

Natasha Wasim, a PhD student in Public Health Sciences at USC talked about how food insecurity is heavily related to poverty which is when access to affordable and healthy food becomes a challenge. “I think it's really important in food, particularly, that we kind of move away from that narrative that it's a person's fault why they're not eating healthy, or why they have obesity or diabetes, but instead, it's really understanding that a system as a whole has created these kind of outcomes,” said Natasha.

She went on to emphasize that many individuals face competing financial pressures. “A lot of times, people you know will have competing factors, rent, health care, having multiple family members, having a car payment, health insurance, like the list can go on. And in Los Angeles alone, the cost of living is just so high that most people end up having to prioritize rent and, you know, like health care, and then food kind of comes last, which is sad to say, because everyone needs to eat.”

To address these challenges, many families rely on budget-friendly food staples that can stretch their resources while still providing essential nutrients. These staples play a crucial role in making meals more affordable and accessible.

A pack of Guerrero Tortillas is fine for most Mexican dishes, but nothing beats my Nana’s warm, soft, homemade corn tortillas. The moment you walked into her kitchen, you could smell the rich scent of fresh masa and the golden warmth of the stove filling the air. They were pillowy soft with a slight crisp at the edges and a toasty flavor from the stove.

My grandma would mix equal parts flour and water, a little masa and a touch of canola oil, kneading the dough by hand. Then we would roll the dough into small balls and press them into thin discs, carefully placing them on the hot comal, a flat pan used to warm tortillas. When little bubbles started to form on the surface, we knew it was time to flip them. My grandmother would slap my hand whenever I tried to pop the bubbles in the tortillas. Once golden and speckled browned, we would stack the warm tortillas and wrap them in foil, and place them in the tortillero to stay warm all day.

I can still picture my baby brothers, barely able to walk, holding a rolled-up tortilla in their chubby hands as they nibbled and savored each bite. Those tortillas were the best part of every meal.

We would prepare large batches of food that would last for days, our own version of bulk preparations. Grandma almost always had a pot of beans simmering on the stove. Once cooked, the beans were divided into ziplock bags and frozen for later in the week. We’d mash and refry them, or simply reheat them as needed, stretching their use throughout the week.

They are affordable, nutritious, and filling, and packed with healthy fiber and protein. They can be paired with eggs for breakfast, tucked into burritos, or served with fresh homemade tortillas and queso fresco.

Rice is another fundamental ingredient in Mexican cuisine. The most common form would be the side dish arroz rojo (red rice), which is made by browning white rice with lard or cooking oil, adding onions and garlic while browning until it turns golden brown. Then you add the tomato sauce and salsa de pato — or when we didn’t have any my grandma would pick tomatoes, tomatillos, jalapenos, and chili peppers from her garden and blend them with water, garlic, cilantro and chicken bullion to make the perfect sauce for the rice. Let that simmer until the rice absorbs the water making it the perfect side dish for many dishes.

Similarly to this, my grandma would also make arroz blanco (white rice), which she would often add corn to. I remember eating this one just by itself — before it even left the stove top. It was warm and savory with a slight taste of corn and pepper as the corn kernels popped when I bit into them. If we were craving something sweet, grandma would swap the water for milk, the seasonings with cinnamon, and replace the vegetables with cinnamon sticks. That’s how we got arroz con leche, a sweeter take on rice that would leave the kitchen smelling of cinnamon.

Rice is sometimes thought of as a simple side dish, or a dessert served around the holidays but rice is versatile, often based on circumstances and economic barriers. It’s also affordable and filling, which is part of why it is incorporated into almost every meal in one way or another.

When we didn’t have meat, we used potatoes. Potatoes could be a side dish, or an entree to be served alone but they were mostly used as a filler in many meals. Sometimes my grandma would cut them into long rectangular pieces and fry them to serve them with ketchup or bake them to serve with sour cream and salsa. Oftentimes, they would be chopped potatoes would be mixed into eggs, soups, and meats, under the name “Papas con…” like papas con huevos or papas con chorizo. They don’t have a strong flavor but they have a way of bulking up a meal and making it more filling.

Potatoes are another staple food that can be extremely filling and nutritious. Registered Dietitian, Elizabeth Valencia explains how these staples can be healthy. “The traditional Mexican diet is things like beans, any sort of legume, like beans, lentils, garbanzos, corn tortillas, veggies wise. It tends to be like your corn, your potatoes, calabasitas (zucchini), chayotes (custard marrow), tomato, onion and cilantro. Those are like the typical staples, which are actually quite healthy and belong to various different food groups, which are like protein, carbs, fat sources, which is like avocados, nuts, seeds. So our traditional diet, when it's composed of those foods, is actually pretty nutrient dense,” said Valencia.

Valencia emphasizes that the lack of access to healthy foods not only negatively impacts one's physical health, but the absence of proper education on how to prepare nutritious meals with available resources can also lead to serious long-term health issues. “I tend to see that get referred for, like pre diabetes, diabetes, one the education part is missing. What tends to happen is that the carb sources don't tend to be like the high fiber sources. It tends to be more like refined options. So over time, in the long term, that does affect your health, just because carbs, if they're more refined, meaning it's not the high fiber sources, they don't keep you full for that long. So you're hungry more often, so you're eating more,” explains Valencia.

She explains how proper food education is critical, “If you're not having the protein component to help with blood sugar balance over time, that does increase your like, it puts you more predisposed to like, developing pre diabetes, diabetes over a long period of time. So these medical conditions are more chronic, meaning that you won't see it happen within a week or a month. It takes years to develop,” she warns.

One of the most common dishes we would eat is sopa de conchas or sopa de fideo. I would watch my grandma brown until it was golden brown, add sauce, and water, season to taste. This became our favorite dish to make when it started to get chilly, sopita de conchitas would hit the spot. It is also my favorite dish to make when I miss home. Another pasta we would rely on would be ensalada de coditos which is a traditional pasta salad. It was affordable, quick, and easy to make just boiling the pasta, adding mayonnaise and canned vegetables we would get from the local food bank. If it wasn’t one of these dishes, it would be spaghetti and canned spaghetti sauce with a metallic taste.

Pasta was affordable and quick to prepare. Whether that meant canned vegetables from the food bank or simple seasonings. Even when we didn’t have much else, pasta was something we could count on to fill our stomachs. If we weren’t enjoying one of these dishes, it was likely Maruchan soup to get us through the day.

My grandma's kitchen and my mother’s resourcefulness taught us not to waste, so even the simplest meals became lessons in our symbols of creativity, perseverance and resilience.

If we wanted a quick snack we’d slice up hot dogs or ham, then toss them with lemon and salt for a quick snack. Leftovers were transformed by adding eggs and turkey bacon into a tasty breakfast. I’d often throw whatever we had onto chips to make a "nacho supreme," turning near-expired ingredients into something delicious, inexpensive and surprisingly satisfying.

Nana's Garden

Nana’s garden was not only a place of beauty but also a source of fresh foods that she grew herself. It was one of the first places to search when we were looking for her. She would be hanging clothes out to dry in the warm sun, feeding the chickens, cats and dogs or tending to her garden that thrived under her thumb. was one of the first places to look to find her. if she was missing. Her garden was full of plants that you wouldn’t expect to grow in a backyard. Herbs, vegetables, fruit trees like cherries, plumbs, oranges and peaches, and even sunflowers that stretched for the sun and towered over all of us.

We would pick ripe oranges bagging them up to share with the neighbors. The tomatoes and chillies were ready to be turned into a spicy salsa. When the harvest was plentiful, my grandma would share the bounty with our neighbors, ensuring everyone had enough. That was the sense of community that she cherished. Having fresh produce right outside meant we could gorge on some of the best fruit at no cost, especially when resources were tight.

Many of the foods I grew up with were incredibly nutritious, but they were often cooked in ways that added more fat, sugar, or salt than necessary. With a little more knowledge, the comforting foods that we loved could have been prepared in a healthier way and still be delicious.

Elizabeth Valencia emphasized the importance of not shying away from cultural foods, but to change our way of thinking when preparing these meals, “You can still have your foods,” states Valencia. “You just have to change a little bit, like the cooking method, like maybe we're not doing so much like frying. But we're switching to, like the air fryer baking, or we're just switching portions around where we're doing more, maybe like proteins and veggies, and kind of lowering the carb a little bit.”

This shift isn’t about rejecting the traditional meals that shaped me. It’s about rethinking how we prepare them, making better decisions in the kitchen and understanding that food doesn’t have to be heavy to be filling. It’s about having the resources and education to make better choices, even when the ingredients are limited. It’s about understanding that nourishment isn’t just about filling your stomach, but about taking care of your body and mind.

“It's definitely a lot of like re-education and just highlighting the things that you already cook and just seeing what shifts you can make to kind of incorporate maybe a little bit more vegetables,” said Valencia. “It's just not something they grew up with. So it's definitely more of a learning curve for some people.”

I realize now that the struggle wasn't just about scarcity, it was about knowledge. Food does not have to be heavy — and filling — to be delicious or even satisfying. By making better choices, finding balance and incorporating healthy habits into our cooking our meals could have been lighter, healthier, and still just as nourishing.