This page uses extracted PDF text. Text can misread numbers, dates or table columns. Check the PDF before quoting or interpreting it. Redacted areas remain redacted.
lot of times, the chicken is stringy. And I been cooking chicken for years, and do you know, I cannot brown
chicken now? I don't know...I don't know what's going on.
Newport News participant: We have family in Georgia, and I was like, man, I wanna go there for some
good home cooking. And he was like, what's wrong with here? I said everything tastes fake, bro, you
know? Like, I thought it was just here and new, you know?
Norfolk participant: Yeah, a lot of times, it ends up being the food, because they're trying to re-engineer
this and re-engineer that to make it better, to make it grow faster, you know, to make it, uh...they say
make it better for you.
Newport News participant: This is what I told somebody, this is theory, I don't know this as fact. But what I
think they did was I think they toned down on whatever, whatever was the substance that made sugar, the
glucose, because it possibly was leading people to diabetes too much, because sugar breaks down into
glucose, or glucose don't break down in your blood as... 'cause they definitely toned sugar down. The only
sugar that tastes still like it did back when I was young is brown sugar.
Theme: Health concerns affect food choice but do not affect decisions about where to shop
Some participants reported having to give up foods or change their diets due to health concerns. However,
participants did not report changing where they shopped, primarily due to cost.
Portsmouth participant: “And whatever I feel like will run my pressure up, I don't mess with fried foods, I
don't mess with it. If I can't get fresh fruits and vegetables, I use frozen fruits and vegetables, but it's all
because I'm, you know, I have to take care of my health.”
Norfolk participant: “Yeah, I have to do no sodium because of my heart. I'm also diabetic, but I control my
diabetes by diet alone. I used to be on a medication for it, but in eating more fresh fruits and vegetables
and not so much red meat, I have been able to lose weight. I'm eating a lot more vegetables than I used
to. And I used to have a terrible sweet tooth, but for the last month or so, because I prayed on this and I
asked God to take that away from me, and He has. I very rarely eat anything sweet now. And if I do, I eat
it with moderation.”
Norfolk participant: “So, it all depends on what we eat. And, and, and I do that because of my high blood
pressure.”
Topic: Access to community resources
Participants cited food banks, churches, and government and NGO benefits as community resources. Availability
varied widely by geographic area, with several participants sharing that they were unaware of nearby resources.
Others reported community resources that had previously been available, but which had become limited due to
the pandemic.
Theme: The pandemic has negatively affected many community resources
Suffolk participant: “We used to have the food bank come to us once a month. They abandoned us and
now we, you know, they would bring fresh vegetables and everything and meats and stuff to us. And they
abandoned us since COVID came.”
119
2022 | HPHD Community Health AssessmentJump to an indexed page (129 of 129)