French Paradox 2.0 page 4

[newberrycrater]

I also personally find traditional french foods to be "plain" with regards to their sauces (ingredients are fewer) and meal compositions (less sh*t added) in general. I have travelled quite a bit for business and pleasure and granted I only was in cliche paris and did not visit anywhere else in France, but I remember being unimpressed with their food in terms of taste! Of course it is all relative and I have not found any european country (apart from italy) where I really liked the traditional cuisine (again I mostly stayed in the cities, so maybe the smaller towns/provinces have vastly different cuisines). However, in places like Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, even Hawaii etc, I definitely gets down with the taste of their food! I am sure it is all personal preferences as I come from an African background and my taste buds to spices etc are different but I find french food in general to be overhyped and plain.

I lost weight when I was also in Paris as well because I really never CRAVED anything. I just ate to stay satiated but i did not have the same excitement to eat as I normally have anywhere else and my portions where much smaller as well ( I really did not walk that much, so um, I doubt exercise played any role)

Anyway the point I am making is, yes, the french might occasionally eat pastries, bread etc, but a) I doubt they are eating it every day and if they are I am sure in small quantities and b) they do not have the same hang ups with foods that most of us have because their traditional diets seems to be geared towards providing nutrients and satiety as opposed to "tantalizing" the taste buds. #just my opinion

When I read this the first thing I thought of was MSG. It is generally not used in French cooking, but is in Asian food.

[The Tall Tree]

French food is AWESOME, and the breads and pastries can be avoided without missing out on it.
All that duck and goose fat, delicious game (French rabbit dishes - oh my GOD!), pates, eggy desserts.
I have a food-erection just thinking about it (my tongue is jutting out at 45 degrees, throbbing.)

[zoebird]

French 5 Flour is the bomb of processed flours. Seriously, it's gorgeous to work with.

But, as said above, they actually don't eat a lot of it, and when they do, it's mostly a vehicle for butter/fat, and often managed in much the same way that WAPF dieters use it anyway.

Also, obesity is on the rise in france because fewer people are living a 'traditional' french lifestyle anymore.

[The Tall Tree]

French 5 Flour is the bomb of processed flours. Seriously, it's gorgeous to work with.

But, as said above, they actually don't eat a lot of it, and when they do, it's mostly a vehicle for butter/fat, and often managed in much the same way that WAPF dieters use it anyway.

Also, obesity is on the rise in france because fewer people are living a 'traditional' french lifestyle anymore.

Royale with Cheese to blame?

[Silky]

When I stayed in France in the hate 80s with a traditnal family a typical dinner looked like

Watercress soup (no dairy), basically green vegetables in a thin stock

Then a serving of vegetables in fat. Typically globe artichoke or cabbage. That's it. A plate of cabbage.
Then you got your meat. They bred their own rabbits to eat so that is what they had most days.
You would use bread to wipe up the sauce from your plate. We probably had 2 slices.
All drunk with a couple of glasses red wine.
I don't remember having puddings afterwards but it was a long time ago. I think maybe they did for us children but not the adults.

All home cooked.

However we did eat bowls of hot chocolate with brioche (cake like bread) and butt and jam in the morning.

I out on weight when I was there, but Then my french girl put on weight when she stayed with us!

[zoebird]

Royale with Cheese to blame?

it is part of the problem. more families are eating fast and convenience foods, and getting less movement, and there you go.

[anna5]

Half a baguette is eaten (without any butter) early morning on the way home from a bakery. The rest is eaten later.
Both French and Northern Italian food can be divine.

[noodletoy]

although i realize there is crap/bad food available everywhere, i have never had bad food in italy,spain or france. ymmv. the entire cooking ethos is based on what is freshest that day, and letting it shine. it doesn't need a million spices or herbs or heavy sauce.

on a tasting menu once in alsace, i had this poached egg dish that i still dream about because the egg was so ethereal.

whenever i come back, i have trouble recalibrating my palate because everything here is "just too much." we ordered in thai food one night after a long trip back from spain and i couldn't get past a bite of it.

[MissJecka]

Though I've never been to France, I found it interesting when I was in Japan and dropped 6 pounds in my 3-week stay, yet I was eating a truck-load of noodles (ramen, udon, soba... oh my!), rice, soy, ice cream, and liquor (my god, the businessmen love to drink over there!). The city I was in had a ton of French bakeries, actually, so on occasion I would have baguettes or pastries for dessert or breakfast (maybe 3 or 4 times in the 3 weeks I was there). Sure, this was before I cut out all of that junk from my life, but I was definitely surprised when I saw that I wasn't bloated like a beach ball!

I think it has to do with the quality of food outside of North America. I saw orange egg yolks for the first time when in Japan. I thought there was something wrong with them, but now I know differently! I also drank raw milk for the first time and drank tons of herbal tea that I'd never heard of. There were fresh herbs in everything, tons of spices that were amazing and I'm sure aided in digestion despite all of the junk I still consumed. The meat and seafood at I ate every day were raised locally, killed that day, and cooked before serving (or was eaten raw). The veggies were local, too, of course. I also ate lots of fermented stuff: cabbage, pickles, radish, ginger...

It's just a different caliber of food over there, even the bad stuff!

[DaisyEater]

...
I don't remember having puddings afterwards but it was a long time ago. I think maybe they did for us children but not the adults.
...

A French friend of mine told me that one of the things that was different about desserts here in the US, aside from being much sweeter, is that we have them following the evening meal. He said that sweets were more generally eaten mid afternoon with a coffee where he lived.

He gained a bit of weight working here in the US and he attributed it to snacking and too many sweets. Snacking is also another thing that he said was not common there. Maybe it is now. We do seem to be exporting our bad habits. Snacking is actually a fairly modern phenomenon here in the US, too. When I was a kid, it was considered a very bad habit. "You'll spoil your dinner! Now go outside and play."