Dillon Kadimi Interviews Pi Lambda Phi Brother Erik Ortega

1.     Basic background information:

a.     What year/major/age are you?

Junior, Environmental Economics, 20yrs

b.     What ethnicity do you identify with?

Mexican American

c.     What are your gender pronouns? How do you identify?

He

d.     Which of the following best describes your CURRENT social class?

Working Class

a.              Where do you live/ what type of housing?

North-West Berkeley; apartment.

2.     Describe the food situation where you live. I.e is food provided to you, do you cook for yourself, do you use a meal plan, etc.

So I live by a Trader Joes three blocks down, which is really convenient. Normally, you think Trader Joes is hippy-organic, grass-fed shit. Trader Joes is food, not like Walgreens that has snacks. However, food is not provided to me, I have to go buy most of my stuff. But whenever we buy for oil, cooking, butter, or spices, and you leave it in the kitchen, then it is fair game. All the dishes are used by everyone. Ideally, you would clean your own dish.

3.     Do you feel comfortable with the food situation you have? Why or why not?

Yes. I lived in the PiLam house for a year and part of your rent/funding goes to food. I like variety, and you don’t always feel like eating the same thing every day, every week. And for the most part, PiLam buys the same groceries every week and I see why it is the cheapest and most convenient to buy, but I found myself eating out often. Like spending more money on food, which should have been included in the rent that should have been feeding me. Also, the kitchen is always dirty, so that discouraged me from cooking, because everything is constantly gross and oily. So I could never expand upon my cooking skills or learn knew things. Living in an apartment I could go to the grocery store, Trader Joes, and buy whatever I feel like eating—but it’s way cheaper than eating out.

4.     What is most important to you when deciding what and when and where you are going to eat?

I try to buy a lot of snack stuff, like yogurt or bananas, so that I could have food in my system before I go to class. So it helps me focus in the day, just having food in your system is really good. And I honestly don’t eat throughout the day. I just have my morning snack, go through with my full day of school, and whenever I get back I make myself dinner, that’s it. But I have a fatass dinner.

5.     Do you feel that other people in your house and in the community respect your food choices?

If they are really concerned about what I’m eating, they kind of warn me about it. Like I would eat eggs everyday because they were so cheap, the egg yolks, five a day were high cholesterol. Other than that, no.

6.     Do you feel any cultural connection to the food you eat? Emotional?

No. Whatever you buy at Trader Joes, even if it is of ethnic or Asian chicken, it doesn’t feel authentic at all, it feels like Americanized ethnic food. So no. No emotional, no cultural connectional at all.

7.     How important is the price of the food in determining what you will eat?

I get paid a decent amount. For what I like to eat, I don’t really care how much it costs.  

8.     How important is nutrition in determining what you eat?

Very little, I don’t know why but I don’t buy fruits and vegetables. I know I should, but whenever I go to the grocery store, I usually just skip over that.

9.     If you are able, could you define your food preferences? For ex. Vegan, paleo, raw, etc.

Omnivore, fruits and meat—everything, just not celery.

10.  Do you feel free to make your own food choices, or are external factors restricting you?

I watch what I eat a lot, but I don’t do it for an external reason, I do it for myself.

11.  Would you change anything about the way you eat? If you could what would it be? Are you able to make this change?

I wish I liked vegetables enough to buy them. To prioritize vegetables in my shopping cart list would be ideal.

12.  How much do you typically spend on food per day? Per week?

Per day I don’t go out to eat a lot, but I do pickup a snack or soda, so I feel like $15 every other day, so $8 a day. Which turns into $65-70 a week.

13.  Do you follow nutritional recommendations provided by the government?

Absolutely not. I don’t even know what they are. Most of America isn’t following it.

14.  Do you consider yourself a healthy eater?

No.

15.  Who do you eat with?

By myself. When I come home it’s time to make myself whatever I want to eat and watch an episode of South Park or Workaholics.  

16.  What do you eat with your family? What do you eat when you are not with your family?

Mexican food all day dude! Either they want to go out and eat Mexican food or cook in home. Home, not with family, junk food, in-n-out, order pizza, and cereal with nutella anything. I have a huge sweet tooth and no self-control.