Reminders to those who are taking care of their elderly grandparents, parents, or relative... or who live among them, eat with them, etc.
#1. Get rid of the SODIUM CHLORIDE (NaCl or salt), the big MORTON salt Hmong eat like candies, as they pour TONS into their vegetables, meats, and everything else they eat, as they eat 3 or 5 times a day, at home and when visiting neighbors.
Buy and use the less salty POTASSIUM CHLORIDE substitute, made by the same MORTON company, with the same "girl with the umbrella," except the container of the Potassium Chloride salt is about 1/10 the size of the regular Sodium Chloride container.
#2. Get rid off their bags of sugar.
#3. Get rid off their jars of pork lard/fat.
Again, if you have relatives who are agreeable, tell them to REDUCE THEIR RED MEAT CONSUMPTION.
Hmong eat way too much red meats (pork & beef specifically) on a daily basis.
If you visit Hmong homes, from one to the next, they will do nothing but eat rice and meats.
For guys in particular, in addition to endless amounts of rice and red meats, they down gallons of beer/alcohol and sugar drinks.
That is a recipe for problems of the various major health problems, IN THE HMONG COMMUNITY:
I: high blood pressure and blood sugar problems (ubiquitous these days among Hmong, from those 30s onward...)
http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/ready-to-lower-16/how-sugar-affects-diabetes
II: heart, coronary, liver, and kidney problems, either directly or as major contributing factors...
Hmong should really REVERT back to their traditional diet of mostly green vegetables, hot/spicy chili peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro and Asian dill, a traditional diet that --- in addition to hard work on a daily basis --- did not cause Hmong in Laos, traditionally, much heart problems, coronary diseases, high blood pressure, glucose level problems, etc., PROBLEMS THAT ARE, AGAIN UBIQUITOUS IN HMONG HERE IN THE WEST...
Hmong of the Hmong in Laos who lived on a simple, vegetable-based diet died, if they died, mostly from infectious diseases and some genetic-related cancers that were rare in some family gene pools. Otherwise, most Hmong lived healthy lives, because most were slim, healthy, again, from physical assertion every day.... totally the opposite here in the West, where kids start to build fat from the first day of school.
I remember no more than ONE FAT KID in my Junior High school days... and the last year he was to go to high school, I saw him come early to school and ran every day, and by the time 9th grade came, he was slim like all of us. I am sure there were other fat kids, too; but they're not that numerous to remember.
Today, you go visit your kids or grand kids schools, from Kindergarten through high school, and you WILL SEE quite a bit of really fat kids... big and tall, too, yes... much bigger and taller than all of us first generation... but young people today are also way too fat for their own good, since they have cut back on physical activities like we used to do.
Again, I don't remember there were kids having to sit because they "are not supposed to run" during PE; sure, some of us were faster than others... but all ran.
Today, they walk and make hands and leg movements; and MANY STUDENTS just sit there, because there's "doctor" direction saying Joe and John and Jenny and Mark and Luke and Cindy and Julie "can't do arduous physical exercises"!
I have a 15 year-old nephew, one of my sister's 3 kids, who is about 6 feet tall and 200 pounds.
It's getting ridiculous, really...
There is no way that kid --- and other kids of his generation, being so big, tall, and fat --- could do the simply, daily routine physical activities MOST OF US remember having done during our growing up years in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s...
Kids these days, MOST KIDS THESE DAYS, just sit, drink sweet drinks, play games, FOR OURS, and eat mostly EXTREMELY RICH/FAT/DELICIOUS FOODS in endless quantities... so, yes, they grow much bigger and taller, true... but they also grow side-ways, too, and many become overly obese and then we don't know if it is the chicken or the egg that came first... in terms of obese people, diet, and the lack of exercises...