The ladies clogging the canned food aisles at the Crenshaw-area Ralphs last week weren’t trying to find the best deals for their pocketbooks, but the smartest choices for their bodies.
This wasn’t a shopping trip; it was a class. And the two dozen students from South Los Angeles were trying to get their healthy on.
The story is familiar and the stats are dismal: Blacks are twice as likely as whites to have diabetes, 30% more likely to die from heart disease and almost twice as likely to be obese. Almost a quarter of black families live in communities where supermarkets are scarce and heavily stocked with processed foods.
That’s what led the Los Angeles Urban League to launch a series of cooking, nutrition and exercise classes in the Crenshaw area two years ago.
