" . . . I am not without sympathy for Ms. Haspel. She’s just a normal mompreneur who is trying to balance parenting and work while avoiding gluten, dairy, sugar, GMO oils, brown sauces, and anyone who could have tipped her off to the cultural insensitivity of her branding. My guess is she doesn’t make it out to Flushing or Sunset Park very often, and that her experience of American-Chinese food is limited to restaurants that cater to Western tastes by deep frying or adding sugar or overdoing it on the MSG. . . "
This piece from the offspring of San Francisco's famed Henry's Hunan restaurants brought up the memory of picking up a family member at the hospital after a cardiac incident. The discharge nurse went over the home care plan and admonished him, "No CHINESE food! Too much soy sauce and sodium. We have patients who eat one Chinese meal and end up back in the hospital again. Don't eat it!"
We listened politely, trying to hold back laughing out loud, and later wondered what kind of food these patients reported as Chinese. This happened in the Bay Area, home to the country's best and many of the most authentic and traditional Chinese eateries. The depiction of Chinese cuisine as "unhealthy" has always puzzled me, as the dominant Cantonese/Hong Kong-style I grew up with in Northern California is full of seafood, fresh greens and less reliant on meat proteins. Yet, clearly something else is rampant even here with bad dietary choices sold under "Chinese" branding that are popular with customers other than ourselves.
There are real problems with Lucky Lee's framing of an entire cuisine as “unhealthy.”
Well, I don't make fun of other people in Chinese restaurants. My late mother was always very interested in what non-Chinese customers would order, and when she saw a table that knew what it was doing, would comment with a smile, "they know how to order."
It's always a kick for me to see a table of six or so Latino construction workers in San Francisco's Outer Sunset or Richmond district having a Canto lunch. I assume that somebody had worked for a Chinese contractor that had brought them to one of these mom and pop's and they learned the value of the "wo choy" menu (family-style fixed price menu). The cost is probably up to around $15 per person these days for a set menu for 6 to 8 people that includes something like ginger and scallion Dungeness crab, kung pao shrimp, Peking spareribs, fish filet with tender greens, broccoli beef, chicken chow mein, mapo doufu, steamed rice, daily soup, and fortune cookies.
You are much kinder and more magnanimous than I. I'm pretty judgy. Not proud of it, but I can't help it.
OTOH, consider my take vs that of your mom. I mean, I look around, smile, and think, "they don't know how to order." Not too different, if you think about it!
We are in central Texas, a restaurant desert. Our small town recently acquired a Chinese restaurant, take-out or dine-in. Thank heavens!
I have no idea of the items on their menu are authentic or not, I just know they taste good, aren't too salty or sweet, and we enjoy having an alternative to Tex-Mex or hamburgers.
We have found that one order will feed the two of us. If we don't want the same thing, we order two items and have lunch the next day.
I understand people with more sophisticated palates and who have a broader range of authentic Chinese restaurants to choose from might think our local restaurant isn't up to their standards, but we're so happy to have it here when I just don't feel like cooking!
Seriously, learn to order and that goes for any cuisine and or restaurant. I’d go as far to say, the inability to order results in bad meals more often then not.
Italians had the same reaction when Italian food became popular in the 50s/60s. (queue BBC’s spaghetti harvest). It’s not just pasta, there’s usually 5-6 courses...but they only want pasta. I had Chicano friends complain about the same stuff 30 years ago...everyone thinks tacos and hot sauce, this guy was talking about pumpkin seeds and regional stuff back then. Sadly the perception is Chinese food is fried and take out....but for a restaurantuer thinks so, red flag.
If I have an objection it’s the sheer laziness and ignorance involved and the pushing of stereotypes...in a major metro area where there’s a large and booming Chinese food scene. I hope her place fails miserably.
Part of the equation is folks who go to Chinese or Chinese-American restaurants and still order as individuals, not recognizing that the food is served family style and should be ordered as a family, including ordering a fresh steamed green vegetable in the place of yet another main dish. This will not necessarily be on the menu, but you just have to ask. Of course many Chinese restaurants can prepare a lot of dishes that are not on the menu.
This is why a family meal should start with a consultation. However, this brings up another problem: it goes against the norms of treating the waitstaff, not like human beings, but as 'intelligent vacuum cleaners' programmed to do a certain job.
(This also gets into the whole dining-out-as-middle-class-entitlement in which people complain on the internet or even in professional restaurant reviews about perceived service issues.)
A family of four ordering four family style dishes will be ordering a ton of food, and it will not be ordered with balance in mind.
We love Cantonese food (my DH is from Hong Kong) but over the last 50 yrs we have seen most Asian restaurants - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. - put more and more sugar in their food.
Sugar mutes salt and chiles, so it takes more of the latter two to make the same impact if sugar were not added.
Asian food was traditionally saltier because families extended portions with lots of white rice (to save $$$). My in-laws used to joke in the '90's about this when we would go try Chinese restaurants in SF - "oh, this chef must be FOB - see how salty this dish is! It's like the old days!"
But after living in America for a while, many now-prosperous Asians stopped eating such big portions of rice. Meat was cheap in America by comparison. The health issues raised by white rice (Type II Diabetes) and MSG were also factors in changing food tastes.
To this day, DH and I order multiple dishes all the time, as we enjoy taking leftovers home.
Sugar definitely has been upped in thai food across the spectrum. I am no longer enthusiastic about thai restaurants except for a few places, and I now have to travel further to find something balanced.
No doubt certain dishes (like Vietnamese caramel fish) are supposed to be very sweet. The idea is that you would be eating very little of it compared to the amount of rice, so it was as much a condiment as anything else.
the white savior aspect and lack of self-awareness of this woman made me slide off my chair cringing.
"chopsticks as a weight management tool."
smhsmhsmh
Yup. Also wondering what the heck "processed butter" is.
The airhead is right of course talking about folks who dont know how to use chopsticks effectively... If it takes forever to eat that's a good diet tool .clean food indeed!
I never got good at chopsticks technique over decades of trying and I have bad hand and wrist arthritis. I always appreciated being able to use a fork when necessary, and I don't need chopsticks for portion control, since I can't eat quickly using any method. While my non-Asian DCs criticized me for my horrible chopsticks technique (leading to even more shame worthy performance from me), my Asian DCs didn't. Using "clean" to describe people or food or even worse "restaurants" in general is something a certain presidential candidate discovered wasn't such a great idea, at least, I hope he did.
My experience has been that people who open restaurants of the food they know and grew up with often need to change their ingredients/spice/salt/sugar to stay in business to suit customers when they are far away from their native food. So it's up to us consumers to say "I want the real stuff", "I really do like spicy", "I'd love to eat the way you'd cook at home."
Or, after you get the food, as I did recently at a Hunan restaurant, Boston area, ask "do you any spicy condiments?" and got some great stuff we used on everything we ordered, and the server told us what to ask for the next time. The restaurants have gotten burned too many times in the past from patrons who complain, "This isn't real Chinese food, it's too spicy/not sweet enough." So when I go to a Chinese restaurant I've learned has a "traditional" Sichuan menu they only give out to people who request it, I request it.
All food has an "ethnic" background. I've ordered "Eastern NC vinegar barbecue" in the Boston area and was told by servers at a noted restaurant "you won't like that, it's too much vinegar." They've been told that many times. So I say, "yeah, it's vinegar, that's why I like it, I'm from NC and I'm so glad you offer this barbecue." I got the real stuff, and it was great.
I often joke "chopsticks as portion control." That's funnier right?
Seriously, forks are used as shovels to get as much food as possible into your mouth as quickly as possible. Some of the food can be piled high on top of the fork, and what doesn't fit can be stabbed onto the end of the fork like a bus dangling from a cliff.
I also think of those lazy Susan's as portion control. As soon as you see someone eyeing one too many dumplings, you can slyly reposition the food.
It’s clear from the article’s IG photo of the owner with the carton of noodles that she is a failure at holding chopsticks.
LOL that's ridiculous. Some people need to go outside. For a wok. Absolute utter nonsense.
“Our entire menu is gluten-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, corn-free, peanut-, cashew- and pistachio-free,”
Don't think I've ever seen cashews and pistachios called out. Sure, peanuts are a common and serious allergen, but I'm curious about it being a cashew- and pistachio-free zone. What's wrong with those nuts? But pecans, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, brazil nuts and macadamias are all ok though?
I think it's more along these lines:
https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/04/women-...
Also some people are allergic to some tree nuts, and not others. Cashews and pistachios are apparently common cross-reactors.
This woman and her "clean eating" restaurant annoy me (like the whole "clean eating fad in general), but her target market is so clearly the (mostly female) orthorexia nervosa crowd that it seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot to me. This is a fast-casual place right by NYU and seems likely to be popular with the large NYU subgroup of rich dumb kids who latch onto diet fashions like "clean eating."
Not to be taken seriously. What is “processed oil,” anyway? Everything is “processed” in some way or another. If you squeeze a peanut to get oil out of it, that’s a process. Where do you get unprocessed oil?
Unprocessed is more organic. Heh
"Processed butter" was even more ridiculous. Some oils go through more refining processes than others (some of them involving chemical solvents, which sounds pretty icky), but butter? And that's leaving aside the fact that butter is not used in Chinese cuisine at all!
NPR reached out to Soleil Ho, the San Francisco Chronicle’s new restaurant critic for comments on the controversy.
Wouldn't it be lovely if people thought for themselves?
First of all, referring to Chinese food catches a lot of different cuisines. I love finding places that have preserved their particular cuisine and spent a lifetime making it better and better. I have not found any Chinese cuisine in Austin that I found transformative, but in Houston there were all sorts, Cantonese and Hunan and Sichuan and so on. So whenever I am in Houston I go to the same place I’ve gone for forty plus years and every time it is a little better. Sadly, my family’s favorite Cantonese place in San Francisco, out in the Richmond, is long gone. My little neighborhood place in Austin is good, but it tries to do too many different cuisines. I need to ask the proprietors what they truly like to cook. Dopey moi for not doing that sooner. But everything they’ve made so far has been pretty darned good. I cannot imagine that any “American” food, as construed in Austin...cheese enchiladas, burgers, pizza, or barbecue... is healthier or cleaner and I find such thinking to be the antithesis of enjoying different people and the different foods they make.
What I think is lost in the conversation is that if you compare Chinese food in China to Chinese food in the US, from my experience it’s very different. While experience will vary from restaurant to restaurant and among specific sub-cuisines, from my experience, Chinese food in the US is more heavy, greasy and loaded with MSG that food I have eaten in Hong Kong and Shanghai. So is it possible that woman who is the target of the Shame bandwagon everyone is jumping on actually has a valid point?
Cmon, chicken balls are 100% Chinese. Heh.
She may have a valid point. I live on the California Central Coast, SLO County. I don't bother with the Asian restaurants in area. They tend to be either mediocre, or out and out bad.
While that may be a fair characterization of some USA Chinese food, I’ve found over the last quarter of a century it’s been a fading characterization. Not gone completely but fading, except for the phenomenon of Chinese oriented fast food places like Panda Express. Fast food, however, does that to lots of cuisines. Think Taco Bell. In cities large enough to have a significant Chinese population it is usually possible to find great food that is not greasy, not full of MSG, not too sweet, and often packs plenty of heat where appropriate. I remember in Houston when Uncle Tai’s was all the rage for well heeled foodies, there was better food to be had for very reasonable prices at Di Ho Plaza in shops where if you couldn’t speak or read Chinese you pointed at the pictures behind the cashier to place your order. But you are right, MSG laced greasy food with too much sugar can still be found.
haspel lives in nyc -- not some backwater where everything is a chain and pf chang's is considered the epitome of chinese food.
Americanized Chinese food is catered to the guest’s expectations. Adding fat and sugar is the American way...and you get it in all cuisines. Seriously, why add sour cream to a burrito, or why the liking of Fettuccine Alfredo...full of fat and cream? Those are not representative of Mexican or Italian cuisine...no more than fat and sugar soaked Kung Pao Chicken.
My family was in the restaurant business and my uncle sold his last restaurant a dozen years ago. I remember visiting one restaurant and he said help myself to the steam table. After one look, I declined. He smiled and said, “Yeah wait for the staff meal,” which I did. It was nice, basic Cantonese home food...not full of fat, grease, MSG, etc. This was in suburban Chicago.
My point...the staff ate far different food than served. Why? Because the audience wanted and bought the greasy, steam table stuff.
So does the Jewish American owner of Lucky Lee’s have a point? Maybe but it’s twisted by the American context and her lack of understanding that Chinese American food is made for a different audience and that’s what’s driving the backlash. And then there’s a negative stereotyping.
Half joking, but half serious...what would people think of a gentile opening “Adolph’s Jewish Style Deli” in NYC, calling it, “a clean delicatessen without the schmutz and grease”?
I can't find the relevant article, but I seem to recall that prior to opening Mr. Jiu's, Brandon Jew did a public polling of SF Chronicle diners to get feedback on what their favorite Cantonese dish was, with the idea of adding it to his menu.
The answer was "sweet and sour pork".
When I read that I almost spit my coffee out. Holy crap, and I do mean, CRAP.
I'm sure General Tso loved it. Hehe. As crap as it is, the Muzungus (https://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...) need some kind of introduction to Chinese food (Chinese/Asian). Any effort at shaming people on an introduction will achieve what the wine world has done, effectively scaring them away from pompous attitude. Wine will suffer forever for that huge mistake. Everybody is an amateur at one point. The goal is to educate and entertain them into a hobby where they can't put it down. Butter Chicken is the Indian equivalent of Sweet and Sour Pork.
I'm assuming people in this thread are from SF. I'm not clear on the Asian culture down there, and how it integrates with Muzungus. I am a Muzungu that lives in Toronto. We have 6 Chinatowns, and I live by one, and close to Little India. I was in Little India this morning, as well as Greek Town (second largest population of Greeks outside Greece). Butter Chicken is served around Toronto, and yes, it's the gateway to better stuff. So I see it as a stepping stone into a whole new world where meals can honestly blow your mind.
I come from the brewing industry. I have seen the introduction of micros and the proliferation of industries that I started here in Ontario. The Sweet & Sour ales were indeed needed. In fact, the homebrewing world is encouraged to make a Pale Ale to test their use of new equipment and processes, so that their understanding gets into a new level.
Hopefully the S&S Pork people serve some more genuine dishes.
<I'm assuming people in this thread are from SF.>
They might be, but the restaurant in the OP is in Manhattan. I'm curious to see how it does once this all simmers down, which it should, provided the owner has learned how not to describe the food. I went to Yelp to see how things are going, but it's hard to tell at the moment.
Ah, ok. Well, NYC is a big food town, probably seen this before. Someone's take on a culture's food is just that. It's not a shot at a culture, just a preference for food. That's how I see it. I find Thai food to be 5% wonderful, and the rest being mediocre at best. Same dishes. No a knock, just lacklustre performance. As I'm Canadian, I don't think I'm allowed to knock a culture legally. Heh.
We have a lot of everything, including restaurant insensitivity scandals - some very much like this latest!
https://ny.eater.com/2016/3/23/112900...
Here's another fun one:
"Despite widespread debunking of the MSG myth..."
LOL as a biochemist that's objective about his food, I've had huge ramifications of MSG, often found by researching what I ate AFTER feeling the heart palpitations. In any case, The Food Channel is to blame for taking the focus on food, away from food, and into the flaming-head chefs. I could care less about the chef, unless their talent really was talent, and it parlayed into new dishes. I don't eat food because of politics, nor popularity. I follow Youtube channels because of the food, and some of these guys are truly strange:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKV...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcAd...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyEd...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqcE...
...I could go on.
It seems some people are just bored. Racism is a recent hot topic, and not suitable for a food site. Simply "going out for Chinese" could be labelled racist. It's horse shit if you ask me.
< I don't eat food because of politics.... >
All other things being equal, I'd probably be more inclined to support a restaurant whose owner shared my views. And I also might NOT eat food because of politics. I'd have a hard time giving my business to a restaurant like Chick-fil-A or Papa John's (which is not much of a sacrifice, admittedly).
I think you're missing the point. You can argue about whether typical Chinese-American food is healthy, or should be used to represent Chinese cuisine as a whole.
What's undeniably racist is the implication that Chinese food is unclean. Even someone who isn't attuned to racism will have come across the stereotype that Chinese restaurants are dirty, that the ingredients are suspect, etc.
Your first point, I don't see that reaching a conclusion, nor being helpful. Your second point isn't racist. Clean has a definition, be it through foreign material or microbiology. Most people have no bloody clue what that is, and it's 100% science, not racist. The part you've missed here is that they are choosing to get into a business of Chinese food. They're obviously not trying to replace it nor recreate it or redefine it. Just offer their own take on something related. If Chinese take it as a kick against their culture, then that's the point I'm getting at. Don't be so sensitive that others have a take on a culturees food. It's fully demonstrated they like the food, but wish offerings could be a bit less of something they find. It's not a kick against China.
I have a friend that's Chinese-Jamaican. He doesn't stop talking about how Chinese food is suspect. And there are stories, I'll admit, that are plain strange. Does that represent all Chinese food? Of course not. Does it represent racism? Not in this case. If anybody is to take that, then there's the problem. Your point is that all Canadians are too nice and apologize for everything. I know some Canadian assholes. I've dated them. Lots of them.
‘"Despite widespread debunking of the MSG myth..."’
“LOL as a biochemist that's objective about his food, I've had huge ramifications of MSG, often found by researching what I ate AFTER feeling the heart palpitations.”
It’s gotta be hard to have personal experiences dismissed by the larger community.
Honestly if I met the owner of the sushi place, I’d tell him to knock TF off, and yes I’d be prepared to drop him. Absolutely zero tolerance on racist BS and the fact that he doesn’t get it really doesn’t matter to me. Ignorance is never an excuse.
p.s. to all the folks who do not get this...remember who prepares and serves your food.
OK, but the same goes for Asians "making fun of white people" eating Asian food. I didn't read the article. I think little of this is about food. People get involved with food because they're trying something, and that's a vote based on appreciation.
Altho you didn't direct your comment to me, I'll respond to it. I don't make fun of white people eating Asian food. I make fun of white people eating "Asian food".
So I should laugh at Asians making "burgers"? It's not remotely entertaining.
Depends on how said "burgers" are made, but yeah, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with it. If it was Asians making burgers, then no, not funny. If it was Asians making a 'burger' by substituting a couple of pressed rice pucks for the bun, chopped up mystery fish for the ground beef, a few leaves of choy sum on top and a dressed with a smear of hoi yu, calling it a 'hamburger' and serving it with a side of deep fried daikon batons instead of French fries, then yeah, laugh all you want. That shit'd be funny.
If anything, I'd invite new takes on food. Nobody owns an idea. If they did what you said, called it a burger, then so be it. If it's good, they have the last laugh.
You're missing the forest for the trees. It might be good. Hell, the more I think about it, I think I might like it - I mean, it sounds like it could be tasty. But it sure as hell isn't a hamburger.
I'm just saying it's not racist, nor funny.
If I saw that on the menu described as a 'hamburger', I would laugh. Just as I would laugh seeing "First Sergeant Cheung's pork" (or whatever it's called) in a Chinese place.
What makes it funny is the lack of cultural awareness and context when two cultures collide. Like the burly weightlifter guy I once saw wearing a t-shirt with a kanji on it that said "woman" (he had no clue what it said, only that he thought it looked cool). Like the pre-teens in Harajuku carrying bags with cartoon characters saying "I don't give a fuck" on them. Like Americans traveling to foreign countries and speaking louder and slower in English because they think they'll be better understood by the locals. All funny. But with most humo(u)r, if it has to be explained to you, you won't find it funny. That's not a criticism - it's a truth.
How is calling out Chinese restaurants or cuisine as 'unclean' NOT racist. You are damning the group rather than the individual. Even the term unclean is not as innocent as you'd like it to be. Lots of groups have been labeled as 'unclean' and that doesn't only refer to microbes.
Furthermore, If you eat your vegetables in a Chinese restaurant, you are more likely to be eating them fresher and cooked to retain their nutritional value than any typical 'American' eatery. The expectation of eating fresh food in the US, whether prepared at home or in a restaurant is very low. Hence all the aisles of prepared packaged foods in the supermarket and why the produce, meat, and fish sections are smaller than in an Asian market of the same size.
Personally, I don't laugh at how people order or eat any food. I have found humor at some really unfortunate translations, though.
Because it's 100% about cooking techniques and not about race. If a white guy cooked the same, the problem would still be there, and if white guys loved the stuff and people still bitched, it wouldn't be about race? Innocent? I'm a microbiologist/biochemist. Clean is about clean, not emotion or insecurity. The accusation is that the food needs to change, not the attitude of people, or have them shipped out or anything as paranoid as you state. Your paranoia is a bi tout of control.
Where do you get the concept of eating fresh veggies in the US? I would say you are completely wrong. My own family has had experiences of incredible vegetarian presentations from Ontario down to Florida. And from my experience, not that surprising. Supermarkets can show both kinds of approaches. Whole Foods alone. The copycats as well.
T&T Supermarket here in Toronto was formulated in Vancouver and brought here, multiple locations, to consolidate "Asian" and to offer it in a bright environment in a clean environment (yes, microbiology, food standards) that included white folks. So successful that Loblaws bought it. Nothing racist about any of this. The racist craziness these days can make seasonal change 'racist'. It's just plain silly.
Not buying it. Compare these two statements: 'Chinese food is unclean/unhealthy' vs 'deep-fried, overly sweetened, fat-laden food is unclean/unhealthy.' One is about cooking techniques. The other is about race. Can you figure out which is which?
"My own family has had experiences...."
Oh good for you!
But the amount of processed foods we eat in the US is not just a question of personal observation.
Every carrot, piece of broccoli and green bean served in a Chinese restaurant is cut and cooked fresh. None of them are using canned or pre-packaged vegetables. But that's not the case in many American restaurants, especially franchises in which the can opener is an essential tool.
LOL I beg to differ. Every Chinese restaurant? We have 6 Chinatowns in Toronto and that is very far from the truth. I supposed you will now say the Chinese in Toronto must be different. If you do, that's racist. And now you're against non-Chinese. That's racist too. Everybody racist. How does everybody survive? Empowered, I must say.
<None of them are using canned or pre-packaged vegetables>
Come now. Fried rice often contains frozen peas. Canned straw mushrooms, water chestnuts and baby corn are far more common than fresh.
<Every carrot, piece of broccoli and green bean served in a Chinese restaurant is cut and cooked fresh. None of them are using canned or pre-packaged vegetables.>
That's the problem. In my community, Chinese food is very medicore. And part of the problem is they are using frozen veggies. It's pretty easy to recognize even before you taste it.
"I'm a White Person and This is the Grand Opening of My Respectfully Superior Chinese Restaurant"
https://blog.andyjiang.com/grand-open...
Ya that's just in poor taste.
Mygawd. I just read the entire post. It's almost like he's going out of his way to offend.
That is sooooo funny, I had a cup of lapsang souchong coming out of my nose. And I didn't even take a sip... It's a medical condition.
Satire...seems race and preconceived idea of people limits the ability to see it as satire. Of course it’s over the top...to show how ridiculous the target of the satire really is.
Satire went out a long time ago. While still valid, everybody gets upset. SCTV would be deemed illegal these days.
My favorite SCTV sketch is the one where Rick Moranis does all those bad internet behaviors, like gaslighting, lording scientific credentials in the same sentence as citing anecdotal evidence, sealioning, not reading the linked article, and hiding behind supposed “friends” of color to justify one’s own awful rhetoric. Classic stuff.
Thanks for posting Andy Jiang's satire, Melanie. That was hysterical! LOVED it! Sent to everyone in my family. Like you said, every single one of those stereotypes he lists has been said to all of us Asian Americans.
"Dirty" is one of the biggest insults you can label on someone's cooking. When my DH was visiting (solo) his relatives in Vancouver (most of them emigrated to Canada, not the U.S.), he noticed a lot of Indian restaurants. I had introduced him to really good Indian food, and he tried to get his cousins to go with him.
"Oh, no," they shook their heads. "We NEVER go out for Indian food. It's so dirty!"
I cooked for my heart patient husband for 23 years and am here to tell you that one single load of sodium---one high sodium meal---can send a heart patient to the Emergency Room. I speak from experience. Once after eating half a jar of gravy and twice after eating his beloved Asian food with soy sauce my husband developed "flash pulmonary edema" in which the lungs fill up with fluid so fast that you have about thirty minutes between first noticing it and choking to death. They have to use a positive-pressure oxygen helmet to save your life. So however it may be chic nowadays to laugh at concern for high-sodium, that doesn't go for a heart patient. The nurse quoted here was right. A damaged heart often can't handle a load of sodium because that puts the body's fluid level out of kilter. It's not about not being anti-Chinese: it's about not being stupid. Start reading the sodium values on nutrition labels: some of them are dangerously high for a heart patient.
I can assure you that the salt levels in the Chinese food my relative eats is not dangerously high for him. After this cardiac incident, he is very conscious about reading labels and managing his salt intake. He does not need to avoid Chinese food the way that we like to eat it.
I should mention that we do not add soy sauce or much in the way of condiments at the table. Our food at home and in restaurants is not drowned in oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, sriracha, and other things that I see some customers dunking on their food without even tasting it first. No brown gravy on my Chinese food. Having watched how some diners slather mu shu pork with the big load of hoisin sauce or pouring soy sauce over steamed rice, I can understand that some can have high sodium attacks. We don't muck up our food that way. Good cooks don't need those as a crutch.
Not all heart patients - only a subset.
Folks, the discussion has moved far away from the points raised by this article into an examination of racism in general, and (worse for us), which 'hounds are the most racist. We've removed a number of personal remarks, never on-topic for these boards, and we're locking the post now.
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