Siobhan, thank you so much for the information...

I have tried to lovingly  "help" every relative but have long since given up.

 On my last trip I did not even try to help, just survive myself. For my
kids' sake, you know. The rels (relatives)  love my kids.

By the end of my trip *I* was eating some of the junk food myself. Out of
pure desperation. (starvation)

 I probably should have fasted.

It was so great to get home to my meat supply!

I was forbidden to cook there and there is such paranoia about fat.

I went out in the morning to the nearby  hospital to get a dose of scrambled
eggs and bacon!!! Can you believe that one?

The paranoia about meat, fat, etc in this culture is incredible.

I brought along some of jean claude's dried salmon for Larry.

I could not even cook for Larry there (paranoia about the FAT  splattering
on the counter!)

So I brought dried salmon and other dried foods (at great expense) so I
could feed him without cooking.

When I opened the salmon bag, I thought the rels were going to pass out from
the "fumes" of meat.

I dried some lamb there on the dehydrator I bought and the rels took it
outside!~!!!! as they could not stand the smell of meat.

they got mad from the  "smell" of my dried meat (which was sealed up tight
in freezer bags for storage, how could it stink???) go figure

god help us.

I still think I should have chomped on some raw ground lamb in front of
them, ha ha

ps their breakfast is strong coffee, sugar cereal, with no- fat milk on it.