July 18, 2006

French Women Don't Get Fat

French Women Don't Get Fat is not a diet book. It's a book that teaches you how to throw away your diet books and a bunch of extra pounds, too. Author Mureille Guiliano is CEO and director of the Veuve Clicquot Champagne company. She eats dinner out about three hundred times per year and still manages to stay slim. We've known about the French Paradox for years: French people seem to consume gobs of fat and yet have low rates of heart disease.

So why doesn't all that butter and cheese make them fat? How do they eat three-course meals and still manage to remain slim? It's that whole everything-in-moderation thing that we Americans have such a hard time with. In the land of Big Macs, Biggie Fries, Big Gulps, Macho Nachos, Double Double Cheeseburgers, and Stuffed Crust Pizzas, there is little room for moderation. Indeed, after consuming one of these super sized feasts, there's little room in one's body for anything but one's stomach which stretches larger with each massive meal. Have we as Americans become all stomach and no heart?

I'm afraid it's true. While the French (and Italians, for that matter) savor their meals with leisurely joy, we suck ours down as if we haven't eaten in weeks. We sit in front of the television and don't even look at the food as it goes into our mouths. The French savor every element - the color, the texture, the aroma. They pause between bites to have an actual conversaton or to take a sip of wine. There's a reason it takes them two hours to eat lunch. When was the last time you took two hours for lunch? Wouldn't you like to? In Italy, shops close for three hours in the middle of the day, allowing everyone to have a long lunch and a nap afterwards. Sadly, our culture simply doesn't permit such "indulgences." In America, the lunch hour is not a time to savor and enjoy, but a time to suck down some food and do a day's worth of errands.

It's not your fault. It's our culture's fault. That doesn't mean you can't become a counterculture rebel. You can become the only family on your block to spend two hours over dinner. People will talk about you as if you're a threat to National Security. "What on earth could they be doing in there for two WHOLE hours? They must be plotting something!" When your kids beg you for fast food, tell them: "I'm sorry kids, but we're now part of the resistance!"

Buy some real food and make a real dinner. Have your family help you chop garlic, wash vegetables, dice tomatoes. Set the table, bring out a bottle of wine for the adults, and banish the television for two whole hours. Have a first course and savor it. Talk about life, about politics. Have a little bit of bread. Have a second course. A third course. Have a little bit of dessert. That's the secret of French women, see? They have just a little bit of dessert. You can have your cake and eat it, too, as long as it isn't the whole cake with a quart of ice cream on the side.

The book is full of great recipes that include ingredients like bacon, eggs, cheese, butter, ham, and sausage. Don't worry, this isn't the Atkins Diet. The recipes also include bread, potatoes, pasta, and other carbs. Perhaps most importantly, along with all of these foods, the recipes also call for plenty of fruit and vegetables, preferably organic. Oh, and chocolate. The French adore chocolate - dark chocolate in particular. Their consumption of pretty much any food they want hasn't seemed to harm their arteries or their waistlines. It's a matter of quantity. The author says you can eat all of these things as long as you "pay attention to the portions."

And what would a French diet book be without champagne? One recipe, "Halibut En Papillote," calls for halibut to be drizzled with 1/2 cup of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut Champagne. Blatant advertisement for the author's company aside (And why not? It's her book!), the recipe looks divine.

This book isn't about anyone telling you what to eat. Instead of treating you like a child as many diet books do, it attempts to inspire you into taking your weight into your own hands. It takes a lot of willpower to keep one's portions reasonable, to have just a little bit of cake. French or not, it is possible to say yes to good food and no to extra pounds at the same time. French Women Don't Get Fat might just show you how.

Reviewed by Tracy

Posted by Tracy at 2:30 PM | Comments (2)