Guardian reports on what I’ve often suspected. The French stay slim not through dieting, low-carbs, or a, like, totally awesome cardio workout, but because they don’t eat as much, not as often, eat real food, and enjoy their food. Simple, really. The article is dryly witty though not without the usual generalizations. It’s also not mentioned in the article what is said in the comments: smoking also keeps you slim.
Mimi Spencer takes a look at French women’s eating habits
A recent survey conducted by the French government’s Committee for Health Education (CFES) found that eating is still very closely linked to a national heritage of consuming good food for pleasure. In France, 76 per cent eat meals they have prepared at home; the favourite place to eat both lunch and dinner is in the home, with 75 per cent eating at the family table. In the UK, by contrast, we like to eat our meals (a) standing up, (b) in front of Coronation Street , (c) at a desk while catching up on emails or (d) by the side of the M40.
Whereas the French typically spend two hours over lunch, we bolt down our food in the time it would take them to butter a petit pain. Nutritionist Dr Francoise L’Hermite believes that the French secret is to sit down with friends or family for a meal, and to eat three times a day at regular intervals. She points out that the French don’t eat in front of the television, and they eat slowly, enjoying both the food and the company. How very civilised.
In the lunchroom, I listened to two obese coworkers talk about the great new holiday drinks at Starbucks, while they drank their Diet Dr. Pepper and ate their microwavable, processed “Lean Cuisine.” Sigh.
By way of City Comforts
7 years ago I went to live in Canada, I bought some odd plates etc., until my trunks arrived, I noticed that I started to gain a little weight(I am English) and it was not until I unpacked my trunks that I realised that the dinner plates were smaller than the Canadian, now I have arrived back in England to find that we now have dinner plates that are a lot larger than the ones left ot me by my Mother and Grandmother, Then again in Canada and America everything is supersized and the more rubbish the Restaurant gives you the better they think it is, after all they have to every everything bigger, including their nether regions.