How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
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How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
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Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#2Well look at French culture and history - always focus on quality of the cuisine, the taste experience, quality of ingredients, preparing meal is often a family/friends social ritual. Anybody who ever went through proper Michelin * experience can tell stories.
Naturally you put healthier stuff inside compared to some cheap quick to make fast food stuff. And if +- whole nation is having this sort of mindset, you see result when rest of the world is moving to cheaper-and-faster. Also, french are comparably fanatics to being active/outdoorsy (while having properly beautiful country to utilize). Good mix for good health.
Now why China and India see similar trend can be a different topic - their cuisine is good to excellent, but mentality, genetics etc is very different.
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#3Well look at French culture and history - always focus on quality of the cuisine, the taste experience, quality of ingredients, preparing meal is often a family/friends social ritual. Anybody who ever went through proper Michelin * experience can tell stories. Naturally you put healthier stuff inside compared to some cheap quick to make fast food stuff. And if +- whole nation is having this sort of mindset, you see r…
India is dodging the obesity trend?
India has one of the fastest growing rated of diabetes and obesity, as observed with economies where incomes are rising across the board. Not to mention Indian food being extremely unhealthy in general across the board (save for some vegetarian cuisines).
China is also seeing an uptick in obesity rates and diabetes, etc as more folks move from rice carbs to sugars, and from veggies to pork.
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#4Well look at French culture and history - always focus on quality of the cuisine, the taste experience, quality of ingredients, preparing meal is often a family/friends social ritual. Anybody who ever went through proper Michelin * experience can tell stories. Naturally you put healthier stuff inside compared to some cheap quick to make fast food stuff. And if +- whole nation is having this sort of mindset, you see r…
India is dodging the obesity trend? India has one of the fastest growing rated of diabetes and obesity, as observed with economies where incomes are rising across the board. Not to mention Indian food being extremely unhealthy in general across the board (save for some vegetarian cuisines). China is also seeing an uptick in obesity rates and diabetes, etc as more folks move from rice carbs to sugars, and from veggies…
Indian food is not all heavy greasy curries though, I imagine the day to day cuisine is much healthier than Chicken Tikka Masala.
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#5[deleted]
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
India is dodging the obesity trend? India has one of the fastest growing rated of diabetes and obesity, as observed with economies where incomes are rising across the board. Not to mention Indian food being extremely unhealthy in general across the board (save for some vegetarian cuisines). China is also seeing an uptick in obesity rates and diabetes, etc as more folks move from rice carbs to sugars, and from veggies…
Indian food is not all heavy greasy curries though, I imagine the day to day cuisine is much healthier than Chicken Tikka Masala.
It's more about what is cheap and readily available. Most indian fast food (like their western counterparts) is pretty bad.
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#7I have a lot of family in france, I have citizenship and lived there for about a decade earlier in my life. Not really as a french person but not quite as an expat either.
The thing that struck me wasn't so much about the quality of the food per se but just how much weight of ritual there was around it. I would see average working class families sit down for an hour+ dinner with appetizer, salad, cheese course every single day. It wasn't particularly fancy or extremely labor-intensive, usually at least one course was just repurposed leftovers from a day or two earlier. It was pretty "normal" food but set out so that eating it just took a while.
Similarly basically every worker, even low-prestige hourly laborers, was fully entitled to take a 90 minute lunch and they did, every single day. These rhythms of time and food were clearly valued highly, respect for them was built into the structures of daily life at the legal and social level. It communicates to people that how you eat matters, that it is something to pay attention to.
Snacking between meals was heavily discouraged as well, almost stigmatized even. It was considered childish, something you were expected to have grown out of needing to do routinely as an adult.
I also remember a clear sense of skepticism and even contempt for convenience and fast foods. This was about twenty years ago now and I understand that's relaxed considerably since then, especially with young people. But I think it's clear that natural french conservatism served them right here: they were correct to resist incorporating these foods into their lifestyle.
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#8Well look at French culture and history - always focus on quality of the cuisine, the taste experience, quality of ingredients, preparing meal is often a family/friends social ritual. Anybody who ever went through proper Michelin * experience can tell stories. Naturally you put healthier stuff inside compared to some cheap quick to make fast food stuff. And if +- whole nation is having this sort of mindset, you see r…
People also tend to be much more frank and will absolutely roast you when you start getting fat. Everyone under 30 eats the same shit as in any other western country, we don't make ratatouille and boeuf bourguignon every day, for example we are the EU country with the most mcdonald's
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indian food is not all heavy greasy curries though, I imagine the day to day cuisine is much healthier than Chicken Tikka Masala.
It's more about what is cheap and readily available. Most indian fast food (like their western counterparts) is pretty bad.
Have Indian relatives and can confirm that lots of the home cooked stuff is greasy too. Fried sugar jalebis anyone.
Re: How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
#10Many “skinnier” countries use natural foods and cook all their meals. And that means no shortcuts with canned food, few spice bottles, etc.
I think that is part of it, plus their plates have more vegetables.
A lot of our meats in the US have hormones these days. Plus almost everything boxed, canned or packaged has sugar, fructose, corn syrup or the fake sugar for zero calories- none of which are good.