Why the French aren't fat: they don't snack!

[queencushion]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... features11

There are so many no s echoes in this piece I wanted to share..

[greatpumpkin]

Good article queencushion. The same is true in Italy where the obesity rate is very low. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. Low emphasis on sweets and formal exercise programs.

This article always comes to mind. It's actually pretty Reinhard-o-rrific in many ways. The Italians have a little urban ranger vibe, too:

http://www.essortment.com/italian-diet-48986.html

[Graham]

Also noteworthy - neither of these cultures do one-plate meals. Instead, they have several courses, lingered over. Reading the comments on the article about French dietary habits, over and over again, French women mentioned smoking, which I certainly saw when I was in France. I too used to find staying slim easy when I smoked - the challenge is what to do when you stop!

[wosnes]

Also noteworthy - neither of these cultures do one-plate meals. Instead, they have several courses, lingered over. Reading the comments on the article about French dietary habits, over and over again, French women mentioned smoking, which I certainly saw when I was in France. I too used to find staying slim easy when I smoked - the challenge is what to do when you stop!

The portions aren't huge, either.

I noticed that I smoked so I didn't eat and I ate so I didn't smoke.

[Kevin]

The enormous carb content of the Italian diet is interesting, too.

[BrightAngel]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... features11

queencushion,
Thanks for sharing the article.
I enjoyed it.

[greatpumpkin]

Kevin, you're right...the carb content is an intriguing aspect. As much respect as I have for the low carb world, it's the one part that never added up for me. France, Italy, Japan. Couldn't be carbier. The three philosophies that have always captured my imagination are Low Carb, No S, and Intuitive Eating. I guess I'm taking the advice Rocky was given in R4: "I see three of him out there!" "Hit the one in the MIDDLE!" That's No S to me.

[wosnes]

Kevin, you're right...the carb content is an intriguing aspect. As much respect as I have for the low carb world, it's the one part that never added up for me. France, Italy, Japan. Couldn't be carbier. The three philosophies that have always captured my imagination are Low Carb, No S, and Intuitive Eating. I guess I'm taking the advice Rocky was given in R4: "I see three of him out there!" "Hit the one in the MIDDLE!" That's No S to me.

I'm not sure the Italians eat as many carbs as we may think they do. While they do eat a lot of bread, pasta, rice or soup is the first course of a meal, but it's not a huge serving like we would have here. The Japanese and Chinese may actually consume more carbs in the form of rice.

[Kevin]

I thought I read that a serving of pasta was 2 and a half cups in that article, or that they ate an entire pizza. Any way you look at it, that's a lot of refined wheat flour,

I'm not sure the Italians eat as many carbs as we may think they do. While they do eat a lot of bread, pasta, rice or soup is the first course of a meal, but it's not a huge serving like we would have here. The Japanese and Chinese may actually consume more carbs in the form of rice.

[Imogen Morley]

I've always wondered about Asian eating habits. They do seem to be consuming LOTS of predominantly simple carbs and yet they're so slim (OK, thin doesn't automatically mean healthy, but still...). My friend, who lived in Japan for several years, claims their thinness is a combination of various factors: they walk a lot, eat their veggies, fruit is costly and therefore considered as the fanciest dessert imaginable, they chain smoke, there's a lot of pressure on women to be skinny and "cute".
But when I asked him about meal frequency and snacking, he really surprised me. He lived in rural Japan and worked with people of different backgrounds and ages, but he can't say they eat three meals a day and don't snack, as Westerners would like to believe. Everyday afternoon tea is accompanied with either salty or sweet snacks, and people don't think twice about eating them. However, he mentioned Japanese portion control - people have a cup of tea and a handful of crackers, or ONE cookie, and that's it. Also, their sweets are rather bland for Western palates, so they naturally consume less sugar.
One other thing that came to my mind during this discussion: most Western desserts are based on sugar-fat (dairy, butter) combination, which, as some scientists claim, can have "addictive" quality to some of us. Well, it's true that I can eat one Kasugai gummy candy (not to mention that they're individually wrapped, which makes portion control automatic) or one square of kasutera cake and be perfectly satisfied with it. Food for thought?
Just throwing in my two cents. I've never lived in Asia, and my opinion is based on anecdotal evidence only.

[reinhard]

Thanks for the link!

The way no-s maps to traditional eating patterns around the world is one of the most confidence-inspiring things about it, I think. Some of the details may be a little off (multi-course meals in France, etc), but big picture I think the commonalities are striking.

I've always wondered about Asian eating habits. They do seem to be consuming LOTS of predominantly simple carbs and yet they're so slim

What surprises me is that we have this massive body of evidence (billions of people around the world/throughout history who eat much higher carb than we do, percentage-wise) and think doing the opposite will make us thin.

Reinhard

[librarylady]

I always think of my always slender grandparents and their brothers and sisters, all of whom ate a potato every night of their lives - either baked, mashed or boiled (and they put real butter on it)(Never fried potatoes though). They also had a limited number of vegetables: cabbage, spinach, peas and carrots, green beans, turnips and parsnips pretty much covered it.

Lotta carbs there - but they all lived into their nineties!

[Travis Sherry]

I live in Japan currently and I can say that I am also very surprised at their snacking habits. Working in a school here, they have vending machines loaded down with all types of crazy sweets, usually some sort of bread covered in a sugary glaze or something of the sort. Before I started dieting I got one, looked at the back, and was shocked: 580 calories in one of these bread snacks.

I'll see students go to the vending machine, grab 2 of these, a soda, and a cup of instant noodles and call it a lunch. It would make all those proponents of "healthy school lunches" in America absolutely wild. And yet, somehow, all but a few choice kids are very lean and mostly muscular. How it happens, I have yet to figure it out. I was also under the impression that the whole "3 meals a day, no snacking" was rampant over Japan, but that is not the case. To say it shocked me is an understatement.

I will say that most of the students are very active, however. For example, the school I am at has a mandatory run each year, called the marathon. The girls are required to run 14 miles and the boys 28 miles! Each student runs it, every year. Compare that to how we used to complain when it was time for the gym class mile run. Also, many many people bike. I have students who even bike 1.5 hours each way to school!

So, I don't really have a hypothesis or anything about the body type of Asians, and how they keep it. Just some observations.

[~reneew]

Very interesting.

And as a mother of 4 ~ 3 teens and one tween, I have to add that living with them and seeing what they eat is sure an eye opener. I cook supper daily at home. They sometimes eat out, they love junkfood, the youngest ones don't usually eat until they are hungry while the older they get they tend to snack more. They are active to say the least, and they are thin.

[Blue Morpho]

reneew,

I have 14- and 9- year-old sons, and I think that it was partly their eating habits that got me into weight trouble! They're both normal to skinny, but they eat all the time and love junk as well as good food. No snacks and no second helpings especially at the dinner table have made a huge (well, 8-lb) difference for me in the last month and a half! I've almost reached my first goal, to weigh less than the 14-year-old, who's at least two inches taller. We're moving in opposite directions now, so it shouldn't be too long. In large part I think No-S compensates for my being less active than when I was younger, as well as the fact that I'm no longer (supposed to be) growing.

On overseas diets -- the least I've weighed as an adult was when I was in my mid-twenties. I lived and worked in Taiwan at a large university with a rural campus. We had to eat at a student cafeteria, cook our food (rare), or walk to the nearest village for meals. I never thought about dieting and ate a box of chocolate almonds most days, but other than that sweets were rare, snacks minimal, and I walked a ton (sometimes ran). The Taiwanese students (who were, with a few exception, quite slim) had a name for Western and Northern Chinese people who were larger and taller (but not necessarily fat) -- it translates to "bread people," as opposed to "rice people." Not sure what spin that puts on the low-carb thing . . . .

[Kevin]

Backspin?

it is a weird way to put it. I wonder if those Taiwanese would be just as big had they had as many calories as the bread eaters.

reneew,

Not sure what spin that puts on the low-carb thing . . . .

[wosnes]

The Taiwanese students (who were, with a few exception, quite slim) had a name for Western and Northern Chinese people who were larger and taller (but not necessarily fat) -- it translates to "bread people," as opposed to "rice people." Not sure what spin that puts on the low-carb thing . . . .

I wonder if those people from Western and Northern China also ate more meat as well as eating bread instead of rice.

This is from the introduction to The Mediterranean Diet by Marissa Cloutier. She's talking about "The Golden Age of Nutrition."

One significant example of this research emphasis was the work of several British investigators, including Corey Mann and Boyd Orr. In the first half of the twentieth century, these two researchers attempted to remedy the problem of why the working class in northern England and Scotland -- the groups reproducing at a higher rate than the aristocracy -- seemed to be getting shorter and thinner. The government of Great Britain was concerned. Prominent was the notion that the "lower" classes were simply genetically inferior, but how could Britain compete in an increasingly global world as a colonial power if their very genetic stock was degenerating? Was there anything they could do to restore the working class?

Mann and Orr embarked on an investigation to determine whether anything could be done to induce growth in short children. Sure enough, the results of feeding studies using short children as subjects revealed that feeding butter and sugar induced weight gain but no height increase; children fed milk or meat supplements, on the other hand, grew taller. The British working class wasn't genetically lacking -- it was malnourished! Public policy began to evolve in conjunction with farmers and social activists to provide milk in schools, milk and orange juice to pregnant mothers, and once World War II began, milk and meat rations equally to all classes. Food production became the battle cry for many nations, not just Great Britain. "Avoid deficiencies" was the battle cry.

I don't think there are many countries around in the world in which eating more than three meals daily (snacking) isn't part of the food culture. The biggest difference, at least until very recently, has been what they eat when they snack and when they snack. They don't permasnack and they don't eat the junk food that we do. This
blog entry was written by a young woman who spent part of her senior year in college in France. The French snack; they just don't snack on unlimited quantities of junk food whenever the spirit moves them.

[Over43]

I think that this is the thing I don't get: (Why the French don't get Fat? an idea) "which has baffled the world's best scientific brains for a decade"?

Why should it stump anyone? They eat better food than most of us. Even the croussants with chocolate chips I had a few years back when a bonifide French pastry chef did a demo at the school I work at, one was enough. You couldn't eat another.

Our scientsts in the States get so tunnel visioned on their own research they can't look at another demographic group and comprehend why they can have results that their "research" insists can't happen.

[NoelFigart]

I think that this is the thing I don't get: (Why the French don't get Fat? an idea) "which has baffled the world's best scientific brains for a decade"?

It's not about whether or not the scientists were baffled. It's about what is emotive enough to sell books or magazines.

[DaveMc]

The missus is from the Philippines, and she tells me (and I've seen, on visits) that snacking is built in to Filipino culture: they have snacks several times a day, between meals, but in general people are (or have been, until recently) fairly slim. I think the key is that the snacks have traditionally been very small: half an egg, or a single piece of candy (things are sold in these bite-sized quantities, both because money is scarce so tiny, cheap portions sell better, and because people are used to eating just a little bit when they snack).

In recent decades, Western-style snack foods (tubes of Pringles and the like) have been catching on, and as there starts to be a middle class with more money to spend on these things, the population is getting fatter. Big snacks used to be something people simply couldn't afford, but now an increasing segment of the population can afford them, and they're developing the waistlines to prove it.

It's almost as though there's some connection between how much you eat, and how much you weigh ...

[kccc]

It's almost as though there's some connection between how much you eat, and how much you weigh ...

OMG!! Could it be??

And it also sounds as if the other cultures that DO snack do so more as "mini-meals" than "perma-snacks" - that is, a discrete, separate eating time that has a beginning and an end, not a constant grazing without boundaries.

[amake616]

The missus is from the Philippines, and she tells me (and I've seen, on visits) that snacking is built in to Filipino culture: they have snacks several times a day, between meals, but in general people are (or have been, until recently) fairly slim. I think the key is that the snacks have traditionally been very small: half an egg, or a single piece of candy (things are sold in these bite-sized quantities, both because money is scarce so tiny, cheap portions sell better, and because people are used to eating just a little bit when they snack).

In recent decades, Western-style snack foods (tubes of Pringles and the like) have been catching on, and as there starts to be a middle class with more money to spend on these things, the population is getting fatter. Big snacks used to be something people simply couldn't afford, but now an increasing segment of the population can afford them, and they're developing the waistlines to prove it.

It's almost as though there's some connection between how much you eat, and how much you weigh ...

Half an egg? It takes either an enormous amount of discipline or some seriously ingrained traditions and habits to stick to half an egg for a snack. Makes Americans and their 100 calorie packs look like wimps, lol.

[DaveMc]

Half an egg? It takes either an enormous amount of discipline or some seriously ingrained traditions and habits to stick to half an egg for a snack. Makes Americans and their 100 calorie packs look like wimps, lol.

To be fair, I may have made that one up while trying to think of an example of something teeny ... I'm not sure I ever actually witnessed it. I did definitely see that things like packages of M&M's are opened up and repacked into tiny little bags with a few pieces each, to be sold individually, because a full pack of M&M's is too big. (Or, again, it used to be.)

And KCCC: yes, it's quite structured. There are mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack times, rather than it being an ongoing thing. (Except on holidays, when festive eating goes on non-stop -- but those are a few big days a year. Another ongoing issue is that roast pig used to be something people ate only on those festive days, because of its rarity and expense, but now it's cheaper and people have more money, so they're consuming a lot more of it.)

[wosnes]

I think that this is the thing I don't get: (Why the French don't get Fat? an idea) "which has baffled the world's best scientific brains for a decade"?

It's not about whether or not the scientists were baffled. It's about what is emotive enough to sell books or magazines.

I don't think the scientists are baffled, either. And I agree with NoelFigart -- though some people have made money with that message. But there's also that the scientists just don't believe it. They have all these studies to prove that saturated fat (among other things) is bad, so the French -- and others -- can't possibly be right.

[montanajack]

Let me share why I don't think the French, Spanish and Italians don't get fat for several reasons (based on my observations):

1. They eat two or three meals a day. Many times coffee is breakfast for them and sometimes a light lunch is all they consume.
2. When they eat, it is done s-l-o-w-l-y. I have to make a very, very concerted effort when in Europe to put down my silverware between bites and savor the food. Consuming a meal in less than 45 minutes in any of those countries is almost criminal...even drinking coffee, you're expected to slow down and enjoy the rich aromas and smells.
3. No food is forbidden, but, there are no huge portions of food either. It was a shocker to see this--and it was embarrassing to hear other Americans complain about the lack of volume on their plate--but, with the price of gas and many countries in Europe cracking down on factory farms, meats, poultry, etc., are more expensive. (And because fat--olive oil, cheese, etc.--is part of many meals, when you slow down, this "food group" can finally do its thing naturally and generate the signal to tell your brain you're getting full.)
4. They walk everywhere in much of Europe--the price of petrol, parking, etc., almost demands this but it works, nonetheless. Rome, Paris, Madrid...everyone's walking or riding a bike. In fact, I saw very few gyms if any while traveling. The parks were full. In fact, while out running one very cold morning in Rome, before school, I noticed kids of all ages were playing soccer everywhere you looked or engaging in some other activity. Walking to the park and then school.

There are a lot of good habits to learn from Europe and the No S approach fits in beautifully.